Marvel's Jessica Jones

This is not the candy-coated girl power of CBS's freshman series "Supergirl," which is doing something very different (and doing it very effectively). Jessica Jones is more psychologically complex, acknowledging how painful it can be to flee, to be free--even when you have an iron fist.

Marvel’s Jessica Jones succeeds in all sorts of ways, especially the one that counts most: Ritter just might be the shrewdest casting move of the season, maybe several seasons, because she so fully inhabits the multidimensional Jones.

Darker and more dangerous than anything else Marvel Studios has put out to date, Jessica Jones is also very possibly its finest, most fully-formed creation.

Given the otherworldly circumstances, it all moves along quite logically and at a brisk pace that leaves dawdling for dead. There’s no flabby midsection here, just one major development after another. The fight scenes are well-choreographed and frequent. And the twists are imaginative while also being grounded in the grim realities of this ramped-up universe.

Jessica Jones is unlike anything Marvel or DC has tried in the live-action realm, and it's excellent.

The performances are superb from leads on down to cameo players, and in addition to showcasing a sureness of purpose that you’d expect from good actors who’ve been given strong material, you also feel a sense of elation in individual scenes.

Jessica Jones stands by itself as a fascinating work of TV, and represents the evolutionary leap Marvel has been waiting to take in terms of telling a wider variety of stories. You can enjoy it without knowing a thing about any other comic-book title, on the page or on the screen, and that’s just about the highest praise one can bestow on a Marvel property.

It’s a complex protagonist, the kind we don’t see enough of on television or in studio films.... This series feels like the first superhero show really just for grown-ups--and it totally works.

Jessica Jones proves, as its hours proceed, to be one of the more thoughtful meditations on what it means to be a super-hero, and how Stan Lee’s “great responsibility” mantra can prove to be a deadly curse.

The show is often shot in a flat, predictable manner, which is likely a choice made to place emphasis on the deep emotion of the piece instead of a perceived “comic book look,” but it results in a show that has almost no visual language at all.... Luckily, it’s never dull in every other department. From Ritter’s totally engaged performance--this character could have been pure snark but she never gives into that impulse--to the aforementioned themes that Rosenberg so captivatingly weaves into her narrative, Marvel’s Jessica Jones works.

It's [Jessica Jones'] superhumanity, rather than her superpowers, that makes the show so riveting.

Two mainstays of film noir are the tough-talking dame and the cynical private eye, and one of the pleasures of Marvel’s Jessica Jones is that it unites both types in one thorny and fascinating character. The show, which features an exceptional performance from Krysten Ritter and sure-handed guidance from executive producer Melissa Rosenberg, is not just a contender for the title Best Marvel-related TV Property; in a supremely crowded TV scene, it is one of the year’s most distinctive new dramas.

The show’s timidity regarding the implications of what its main villain does is disappointing, particularly for a series that otherwise so fully embraces a female perspective. Still, the slow build toward a confrontation between Kilgrave and Jessica is tensely effective, hanging over everything else she does.... All of this adds up to a show that is very certain of its voice and tone.

While, at first, the actress may not look like the superhero type, she convincingly gives Jessica a subtle toughness. In a way, the character is the flip side of Supergirl: Jones is a reluctant superhero, a loner who drinks too much and has real human flaws. Yet Ritter gives Jessica a needed likability. The series also boasts a solid supporting cast.

Jessica Jones would probably have been better adapted in 10 episodes, or eight; given the closed-endedness of Bendis’ and Gaydos’ four-volume arc, it might have made a hell of a movie, too. What makes it work is Ritter herself.

Jessica Jones could use a bit more wit, overall. But its messed-up, tough, brave heroine holds our interest every moment.

The New York City-based hero earns her living as a private investigator, which gives the show its engrossing noir vibe, along with Jessica’s deadpan--occasionally corny--narration, which is delivered sporadically throughout each episode.

With its dark edge, low-key action sequences, and dry humor, Marvel's Jessica Jones is a unique addition to TV's growing Marvel universe.

It’s dark, funny, edgy, spooky, and through the first seven episodes, there’s barely a whiff of capes or costumes. The second thing that jumps out is that it’s really, really good.

There’s a tricky balancing act going on--crossing a moody detective show with both a comic action thriller and a woman-in-peril psychological drama--but Ms. Rosenberg proves to be mostly up to the task.

Smartly adapted by Melissa Rosenberg, Jessica Jones doesn't require an advanced degree in comics history.

Even more than Murdock in Daredevil, Jessica Jones dominates the proceedings in the show that bears her name--and thanks to Rosenberg and Ritter, the first season is well on its way to delivering.

The series is one of the more emotionally complex and intermittently bleak Marvel adaptations to date, a kind of melodrama about the fight for self-assurance and personal strength in the wake of immense psychological abuse.

The series isn’t perfect. To be honest, it drags a bit and seems repetitive, as though Rosenberg is stretching things out to increase audience tension. In fact, you’re likely to feel the opposite from time to time, a desire to say, “oh, get on with it.” But stick with it.

The show's biggest weakness is the same as Jessica's: It starts out with extraordinary potential, but somewhere along the way, it loses what makes it special. [20/27 Nov 2015, p.99]

It took five episodes for me to get interested--three too many, in these days of television glut. And only after the seventh and eighth did the cruel and clever plot twists (which include graphic torture) become truly gripping. In the early episodes, the pacing was logy and the action muddy, with several subplots that itched to be trimmed or recast.

Jessica Jones could still use more levity, but its second episode reveals a streaming series that’s headed in a more balanced, intriguing direction.

Like all Netflix shows, Jessica Jones has serious problems with pacing; in this case, it’s because Kilgrave’s crimes are of such an enormity that time spent away from him, on tangential aspects of Jones’s sleuthing, feel like filler material. But what works about Jessica Jones is its understanding of how, particularly, Kilgrave’s crimes tie into Jones’s identity as a woman.

[Marvel's Jessica Jones] is all Jessica all the time, and as terrific as Ritter is at playing this damaged hero, the narrow constraints of the focus begin to wear.

Some of the supporting characters (including fellow superhero Luke Cage, played by Mike Colter, who is set to get his own Netflix series) end up with more character development than they would in a feature film, but in the end everything comes back to the same plodding conflict between Jessica and Kilgrave, and it drags down too much of what surrounds it.