August 19, 2017
Dragonlord's Review of THE DEFENDERS (Spoilers)
Bottom Line: A slight improvement from the last two Marvel-Netflix shows, The Defenders' story is too unremarkable, its scope too limited, that it might be better suited as a 2-hour movie.
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Warning: The following review contains spoilers]
Marvel's The Defenders start off with showing the four main characters (Matt Murdock, Jessica Jones, Luke Cage, Danny Rand) and what they've been up to since the end of their respective seasons. It's a slow burn for most of the first two episodes but things finally get interesting once Danny meets Luke at the end of episode 2. The four heroes eventually come together and learn they share a common enemy - The Hand.
The
Defenders limited series is thankfully eight episodes only (compared to the standard 13 episodes of the Marvel-Netflix solo series) and some episodes are under 45 minutes. But considering the limited scope of its story,
Defenders could have trimmed the fat and produced a tighter and leaner storytelling with a 6-episode run.
The action is pretty decent. The acting is mostly good. The dialogue is half of the times awkward and inept. But the story is just disappointing.
Defenders is supposed to be the culmination of The Hand storyline that they've been cultivating for years in the
Daredevil and
Iron Fist shows. The payoff turns out to be just blah. The Hand's ultimate goal in New York is to open a mystical door underneath the ground to harvest dead dragon bones so that they can live longer. The dreaded Black Sky turns out to be just an enhanced but still beatable version of Elektra.
As for the individual main characters, Matt Murdock has retired as Daredevil and is just a pro bono lawyer despite missing the thrill of being a crimefighter. His old debbie downer pals, Foggy and Karen, continue to guilt-trip him to stop being Daredevil (and possibly saving a lot of lives in the process). Matt seems to be the most reasonable member of the Defenders, despite foolishly not telling the group of his relationship with Elektra and creating more unnecesarry drama in the process.
Jessica Jones closed her private investigation business and is just drunk most of the time. Her sardonic personality and acerbic tongue makes her so fun to watch in a team setting.
Luke Cage was cleared of his name and is released from prison. He starts off as a self-righteous, sanctimonious hypocrite in the first few episodes but settles in to normalcy later on.
Danny Rand, along with his girlfriend Colleen Wing, has been hunting the Hand all over the globe for months. When he gets too emotional or angry, Danny is cringey to watch. But when he displays his fun-loving, carefree personality, the character shines the brightest (more on that later).
Alexandra (Sigourney Weaver) as the leader of The Hand and the big bad of the show didn't live up to expectations. She wasn't very menacing or memorable. Instead, they constantly highlight how Alexandra is so sophisticated and elegant, sporting the latest haute couture fashion line-up and shamelessly name-dropping famous people and cities from ancient times. The only evil thing Alexandra did was caused a minor earthquake that killed Trish Walker's car.
Whatever dark, exotic mystery The Hand had has been eradicated in this series. Gone are the cool ninja concept and replaced with an international group of ethnically diverse criminals headed by the five fingers - Alexandra, Madame Gao, Sowande, Murakami and Bakuto. In
Iron Fist, I shuddered upon learning this Wilmer Valderrama-looking mofo with a Japanese name (Bakuto) is the leader of a United Colors of Benetton faction of The Hand. Now I see that the Benetton aspect is the norm for this version of The Hand. How disappointing.
The cunning Madame Gao and the lone wolf Murakami are cool but what the hell is Sowande a.k.a. White Hat doing hiring untrained kids to do The Hand's dirty work. Doesn't The Hand have enough professional operatives to do these jobs. This just reminds me of the ridiculously silly premise of the TMNT movie (1990) where Shredder recruits juvenile kids to become Foot ninjas. On top of that, White Hat is even seen driving a van to deliver these kids to their destination. Show some dignity, dude, you are one of the leaders of The Hand for crying out loud.
The great (and bad) thing about these Marvel-Netflix shows is they are shot in New York. Unlike other TV shows supposedly set in NYC, the Marvel-Netflix series look and feel authentic. Well, soak in the scenery because a sizable amount of the production budget goes into the shooting since everything in New York is so expensive. What it means for these Marvel-Netflix shows is that there's less budget for special effects and trimming down the fantastical parts of the script.
Music used for the ending credits is half of the time so lethargic and boring that you might think they don't want viewers to get pumped for the next episode.
The show uses scene transitions showcasing New York subway trains. It's an interesting choice. I keep on waiting for Detective Andy Sipowicz to show up.
In episode 2, Danny punching Luke in the face should have killed him or the very least knocked him out. Luke's only invulnerable on the outside but everything on the inside is normal. Luke almost died when he took a shotgun blast to the face in
Jessica Jones. Imagine shooting a vault door with a shotgun. Nothing happens, right. Now imagine Danny using his Iron Fist to punch the vault door. The force of Iron Fist's blow is so powerful that the vault door is going to fly several meters away. Now imagine that same force applied to Luke Cage's face, it should turn the insides of his face into jello.
One of the "stand-out" moments of the show was in episode 3 when Luke called out Danny on being privileged and beating up a black kid. It's a known fact that in order to have friction, characters often say stupid things to ignite that spark. Yes, Danny could have been more compassionate and less callous in his statements but Luke said some pretty dumb things. First, Luke criticized Danny for beating up somebody that was just trying to feed his family. If we follow that logic, Luke should also be ashamed of beating up criminals that were just trying to feed their families. Second, Luke calls out Danny for having the power to change the world before he even became the Iron Fist. I guess Claire forgot to mention to Luke that Danny was stuck in a monastery for 15 years.
Danny walking to Midland Circle in episode 3 and threatening The Hand was just plain stupid. Danny has shown time and time again that he's one of the dumbest superheroes in the MCU. Danny keeps on bragging about being the protector and the gatekeeper of K'un-Lun but his physical prowess is unimpressive and does not match his bravado. Imagine Danny at the gates of K'un-Lun and two dozen skilled Hand ninjas attack the entrance, what do you think will happen? Yup, K'un-Lun is fucked.
In episode 4, they finally got the character of Danny right. Whether he was smoothly negotiating with the restaurant owner or just joyfully eating chowing down some grub, Danny was the MVP in the Chinese restaurant segments. While everybody else on the Defenders team was being broody, skeptical or just being a negative nancy, Danny had a happy-go-lucky attitude and generally having fun that was a welcomed breath of fresh air from the dourness of the show. Unfortunately, Danny goes back to being an emo angry man-child after episode 4.
The Hand's ultimate goal is finally revealed and it is disappointing. Rather than follow the comic books' epic plot of bringing an outworldly all-powerful demon - The Beast - into Earth, this version of the Hand just wants to mine the bones of a dead dragon to gain eternal life and eventually go back to K'un-Lun.
Overall,
The Defenders is a decent and somewhat entertaining limited series but could have been more awesome with a better story and superior quality control.
Rating: 6.5/10
