The Archies

...it winds up feeling both more faithful to the comics and, in its earnest period-piece way, more modern than Riverdale.

The whole shebang is quite bizarre but sort of works, thanks to the brisk pacing of the editing and the joie de vivre that director Zoya Akhtar injects into the proceedings.

...urges viewers to not only accept but cherish simple pleasures. Or, as one character observes—summarizing Jean-Luc Godard, of all people—“It's not important how you look, it's how you feel.”