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Champions they may be on the big screen, Marvel has been scattershot on the
small screen, and I think that's being generous. Forget the patchy Agents of
SHIELD, Marvel's corner of Netflix has been where they've enjoyed the highest
praise. They deserved it for
Daredevils' first season, which captured the
darkening mood of Frank Miller's legendary comics run with fun superheroics. And
Jessica Jones is easily the best effort from the studio. But it set up a
paradigm that Marvel has failed to break in subsequent series: Luke Cage, and
the pitiful Iron Fist largely followed the same beats step by step, flaw by
flaw. There were cultural characteristics that yielded occasional benefits;
Jessica Jones's femininity, Luke Cage's black machismo, Iron Fist's....well,
blandness, but overall the shows tried to get by on "cool factor" alone.
The Defenders is pretty much the same thing. It skates by on seeing all of these
would-be heroes together fighting the same battle, but doesn't offer much else
to chew on. The series, sorry to say is a slog as we see the long-suffering
Daredevil (Charlie Cox), entitled kung-fu dude Iron Fist (Finn Jones), stoic
Luke Cage (Mike Colter), and perpetually bitter Jessica Jones (Krysten Ritter)
circling the same villains without anybody else knowing. These villains would be
The Hand, of course, who have been a thorn in the side of them all in every
series so far. Roped into the middle of this fight are satellite characters such
as Colleen Wing (Jessica Henwick), Claire Temple (Rosario Dawson), Misty Knight
(Simone Missick) Foggy Nelson (Elden Henson), and Karen Page (Deborah Ann Woll),
the latter two barely making their presence felt throughout.
Of course we expect there to be slow spells until the heroes actually get their
act together but after three episodes of navel gazing it gets a little tough to
bear. Showrunners Doug Petrie and Marco Ramirez essentially triple down on the
gloom of Daredevil, which would be fine if there was something more to do than
stare at shadows in darkened sewer tunnels. I dare you to tell me what's going
on in the earliest few fights, and no cheating by brightening up your screen.
Finally, things start to perk up around the end of episode three with the
already-cliche hallway fight, although it should be said that it's got some
extra pop having everyone cracking skulls as a unit. And just when you're
getting excited, 95% of episode four has them all chatting in a Chinese food
restaurant like that one episode of Seinfeld. Granted, that last 5% is quite
good, though, and will get you pumped to burn through the rest of the series in
one sitting. Unfortunately, it doesn't last.
I won't go into the individual storylines that force the Defenders to join
forces, especially since one is particularly spoilery. But their common enemy is
a seemingly normal woman named Alexandra, and you know she's a top shelf heel
because she's played by Sigourney Weaver. Other familiar foes stand alongside
her but it's Alexandra who remains the most mysterious, and as played by Weaver
she resembles a CEO that would rather throw you off the roof, then allow you to
receive unemployment.
It had to have been a conscious decision to put so much of the storyline's
weight on Danny Rand's shoulders, as a response to the negative reaction to Finn
Jones' portrayal of the character. But this is indeed a series that relies quite
a bit on Iron Fist, the mystical mojo of K'un Lun, and the walking enigma known
as Stick (Scott Glenn). It's a mistake because, well, Iron Fist is dull and
Jones is always the least effective actor in every scene, even when it's just
him and a punching bag. Worse, the whole "harnessing my chi" stuff is just a
little too Hong Kong Phooey for a series that relies on being grounded and
gritty and real. It's hard not to chuckle, right along with Luke Cage most of
the time, whenever Iron Fist starts talking about punching the hearts of dragons
or whatever nonsense he's spouting about.
The relationship between Iron Fist and Luke Cage is one of the things the show
does get right, and it deserves credit for taking on Danny Rand's white
privilege head on. There's a terrific interaction early on when Danny is beating
the crap out of a black kid who had been working for the Hand. Since the Hand
are his sworn enemies, Danny beats the kid like he was one of their trained
ninja assassins, up until Luke steps in and chastises him for the assault,
stating the kid just needed money and had no idea of his employer. Danny stands
his ground and accuses Luke of doing the same to others, only for Luke to fire
back that at least he lives on their street, rather than up in some high-rise
looking down on them.
“And I know privilege when I see it. You may think you earned your strength, but
you had power before the day you were born", Luke puts a nail in the testy
conversation. It's a great scene, one that will be catnip to fans of the Power
Man and Iron Fist comic books these two have often shared. Not every moment
between them works, in fact a lot of them don't, but this was The Defenders at
its best. Other highlights are pretty much every time Jessica Jones has
something snarky to say about their pseudo-team up. She alone seems to get it;
that this team of loners doesn't make a lot of sense. But arguing about it makes
even less sense.
At only 8 episodes, a downgrade from the usual 13, you'd think The Defenders
would zip right along. The same pacing problems persist, only compacted now, and
we go through the same interminable stretch of superhero angst. These are the
most depressing superheroes ever, and each has had long enough to get over it.
We don't need to see them rehashing the same personal demons now when there
simply isn't time for it. The Defenders should be fun; I don't want to listen to
Luke worry about the neighborhood, or Daredevil about his complicated dual-life.
There was time for that before, but not now.
The Defenders is, overall, a disappointing crossover effort and I'm not sure it
could have been anything different. A final act twist throws a curveball nobody
wanted, and bears too striking a resemblance to an equally unnecessary swerve in
Luke Cage. That's the problem in a nutshell. The Defenders should venture to be
something new, since we've never seen anything like this on the small screen
before. Not from Marvel, anyway. But it doesn't feel new; it feels like more of
the same, and while that may be enough for some, shouldn't we expect more from
an event like this? |
