Nothing to rave about, and it suffers from some dodgy production issues, but then again the comics (er, "graphic novels") didn't really have amazing artwork anyway! It was all about the novel (for its time) and adult story by Neil Gaiman.
I don't find Sturridge's emotionless face distracting, because the Sandman is pretty inscrutable anyway. What I do find distracting is his youth; it doesn't really convey the agelessness of the character, I would have expected either someone a bit older, or one of those real-life people you can never tell their age.
https://variety.com/2022/tv/features/the-sandman-premiere-pr...
Basically - lots of proposed adaptations with stupid plots, bad directing, etc.
Ahhh, no it was this article:
https://www.bbc.com/culture/article/20220803-the-sandman-how...
In "An evening with Kevin Smith" (which you can buy, or find on Youtube), he details how around the same time Jon Peters was trying to persuade him to make "Superman Returns" which featured a "Giant Mechanical Spider". Neil Gaiman also got this pitch for a Sandman plot. Eventually the giant spider ended up in "Wild Wild West" with Will Smith. We all know how that went.
Well, it's a pretty good fantasy comic for adults. It's not the only one, nor the first, but it's pretty good. And fans tend to be zealous of those. For many of us, it holds a special place in our comics-reading education, and so we would not wish to see it demeaned but yet another low quality adaptation that completely misses the point or dumbs everything down.
Thankfully, it doesn't seem to be the case with this adaptation of The Sandman :)
edit: this is what Gaiman has to say about The Sandman's cultural significance:
"And after 30 years, “Sandman,” at this point, is probably the single best-selling series of graphic novels ever published in the U.S."
I didn't find the production values as distracting as Tom Sturridge's eternal, "Blue Steel" face.*
*My wife insists it's actually "El Tigre".