‘Exploding Kittens’ Review: Netflix’s Animated Cat Comedy

The premise of Netflix‘s Exploding Kittens will sound like the stuff of wacky comic fantasy — unless, that is, you have cats. Speaking as someone who does, I’ve called my boys perfect angels and demon spawns in the same breath; I’ve seen them go from snuggling to fighting to cuddling again in the space of minutes. As far as I’m concerned, God and the Devil showing up on Earth as a pair of chaotic felines is only a slight exaggeration of everyday reality.

Unfortunately, cute concept aside, there’s not much else about the animated comedy series that surprises, either. It’s not for lack of trying. In the vein of Rick & Morty, Futurama or Big Mouth, the show hurls its characters through otherworldly realms and against bizarre monsters, dropping irreverent jokes and pop culture references all the way. Exploding Kittens is intermittently funny, occasionally sweet, and rarely annoying. But it never really distinguishes itself from the coolest cartoons of the 2010s.

As for how these immortals wind up here to begin with, we learn early in the nine-part season that it’s because they’re both terrible at their jobs. God (voiced by Tom Ellis, a.k.a. Lucifer from Fox/Netflix’s Lucifer) has been ordered by his board to reconnect with humanity after several centuries of neglect. Beelzebub (Sasheer Zamata) has been sent to “up [her] evil game,” since she’s the underworld equivalent of a nepo baby who’s falling down on the job. (Her late dad, on the other hand, was widely regarded as the greatest Satan ever: “The man who designed the Trader Joe’s parking lot,” a former underling recalls with awe.)

As in the end-times comedy Good Omens, the fact that Godcat and Beelzebub have more in common with each other than with the people around them makes them something like besties, even as they occasionally declare war on one another.

None of this has much to do with Matthew Inman’s card game of the same title, which this show is supposedly adapting. But Inman and series co-creator Shane Kosakowski are up for whatever the combined forces of Heaven and Hell can dream up, the weirder and goofier the better.

Godcat’s main assignment is to bring the quirky Higgins family closer together, which he attempts in the half-hour premiere by shrinking the family down and pitting them against board game pieces brought to life. Other chapters see ex-Navy SEAL mom Abby (Suzy Nakamura) staking vampire pugs, or genius teen Greta (Ally Maki) blowing up a unicorn, or her wannabe-influencer brother Travis (Kenny Yates) fleeing an alternate timeline ravaged by giant shark dragons.

In one outing, Godcat and Beelzebub decamp for Sea World to deliver a stern talking-to to the marine mammals, who are actually the condemned souls of villains like Christopher Columbus and the Manson family. Meanwhile, nerdy big-box manager Marv (Mark Proksch) somehow manages to get himself adopted by his boss in an impromptu pseudo-marriage ceremony aboard a Hindenbergian blimp. The former storyline, when you think about it, makes exactly as much sense as God and the Devil being cats. The latter, I could not have predicted in a hundred years.

If the plots are admirably zany, however, the jokes that Exploding Kittens mines from them tend to be obvious. The idea that bad kids go to a juvie Hell called Heck is clever, for instance; the circles of Heck including attention-hungry trolls and the Presidential Fitness Challenge, less so. And if you’re wondering whether that test is even still a thing, that’s typical of the show’s stale references. The likes of Imagine Dragons, Ellen DeGeneres and “Jefflon Bezmusk”‘s obsession with phallic spaceships all get digs that feel dusted off from 2018.

Even the joke structures feel creaky. You can bet that every list rattled off will have two normal things and a third, more frivolous thing (“There are a lot of things humans really frigged up — murder, taxes, John Krasinski starring in action movies”) and that every oddball will be described as a cross between two incongruous cultural icons (“You’re like if Tony Robbins had a baby with Gandalf”).

Still, there can be charm in a show that falls into reliable rhythms instead of creating new ones, and Exploding Kittens executes those familiar formulas well enough for a few laughs. The cast do much to sell the humor, but also the heart.

Proksch is the MVP as Marv, delivering the saddest details of his ho-hum life with a breeziness that makes them seem somehow darker. Ellis captures the haughty arrogance of a cat who cannot believe he’s being forced to cozy up to the very beings he ought to be ruling, while Zamata brings a relatable bashfulness to Hell’s reluctant CEO. Their various relationships consistently strike a balance between sweet and snarky, without tipping over into either sappiness or meanness.

If you’re looking for light humor, you could do worse than watching Godcat warm to the joys of Whac-A-Mole and Bruce Willis, or strike up a flirtation with Beelzebub over cocktails and Snow Patrol’s “Chasing Cars.” But if there’s a truly fresh voice to be found buried in all these divine hijinks, it’s yet to claw itself out.