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Positive:
36
Mixed:
7
Negative:
0
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Critic Reviews
Jun 20, 2018
Season 2 Review:
As season two unfolds, the show and its protagonist draw power from the past, both in confronting and embracing it. And in doing so, Luke Cage becomes the first Marvel show to not only best its first season, but also maintain most of the momentum (it’s not omnipotent, after all). The character and show regain a lot of their swagger.
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Sep 27, 2016
Season 1 Review:
In many of its moments, it's wonderful, but it suffers from the narrative sag common not only to the previous Netflix/Marvel team-ups, but most of Netflix's attempts at the "our season is really a 13-hour movie" model. ... Still, Mike Colter is every bit the charismatic hero promised by his Jessica Jones appearances.
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Sep 26, 2016
Season 1 Review:
At times, Luke Cage feels like a series in search of a story, or a series intent on drawing one out, scene by chatty scene, over 13 episodes. (Six were available for review; I watched the first two, sampled the rest.) A cast this good, especially a Luke Cage this good, should compensate.
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Sep 30, 2016
Sep 29, 2016
Season 1 Review:
This isn’t a story show, it’s a vibe show, simply told but not simplistic, confident but not overbearing. It’s a pleasure to enter this world, a pleasure to watch these magnetic actors ping-ponging the dialogue, a pleasure to watch McGuigan’s camera float through Stokes’s nightclub, a pleasure to see Colter posed against skylines like an onyx god.
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Sep 29, 2016
Season 1 Review:
Even those who are normally allergic to capes and spandex are likely to be intrigued, particularly by Colter’s simmering performance. ... The supporting cast is equally enjoyable, particularly Alfre Woodard as Mariah Stokes, Cottonmouth’s cousin and a corrupt city councilwoman, and Simone Missick as Misty Knight, a streetwise detective and Luke’s would-be love interest.
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Sep 27, 2016
Season 1 Review:
The early episodes are so charmingly brainy and move with such a light step--Paul McGuigan of Sherlock and Scandal knows his way around a flashy pilot--and the cinematography is so stylish--not surprisingly, everybody loves photographing Mike Colter--that you only sometimes realize that the things you expect to get out of a superhero show are largely missing.
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Sep 23, 2016
Season 1 Review:
A wildly charismatic performance by star Mike Colter and solid work from the rest of the show’s cast are usually enough to power this addition to the Marvel TV universe through its rough spots, which include a somewhat clunky pilot and a notable tendency to sprawl (a common trait among streaming and pay-cable dramas, and not just in the superhero realm).
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IndieWireJun 22, 2018
Season 2 Review:
The show is, to be clear, worth admiring for the way it deeply cares about its ensemble and their journeys--Misty (Simone Missick) in particular is well-served with plenty to do. But that’s where most of the bloat lies: long scenes, with pretty quick emotional conclusions.
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Sep 30, 2016
Season 1 Review:
The most interesting aspect of Luke Cage, at least early on, is the sheer volume of its artistic and cultural references. ... Savor those details--maybe even put together some reading and Spotify playlists while you’re at it--and hang on until the fourth episode, which finally delves into Luke’s prison-based origin story. The show begins to pick up energy at this point,
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Sep 30, 2016
Season 1 Review:
Luke Cage succeeds where so many Marvel ventures have failed in finding a unique, if not perfect, pitch between seeing the hero at its center as an icon for social good and understanding him as a human being, and it's important that the writers don't ignore or sublimate the fact that he's also African American.
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Oct 6, 2016
Season 1 Review:
Despite its languid narrative style, Luke Cage is doing many fascinating things. Its mood and visual aesthetic are as well-honed as the perfectly bleak Jessica Jones; its action scenes, when they arrive, are brutal and swift; and its lead performers are uniformly terrific, most of all Mike Colter as Cage, who wrings endless charisma from his character’s resolute stoicism.
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Sep 29, 2016
Jun 15, 2018
Season 2 Review:
[Luke Cage's] personal desires are in direct competition with his obligations as a celebrity and role model. The Netflix series struggles to coalesce those roles and present Cage as one coherent, if conflicted, person; instead, we see different iterations of the hero from episode to episode. It's a flaw that makes for a season of Luke Cage that's alternately bland and thrilling, formulaic and insightful--which is to say, as variable as Luke Cage himself.
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TV Guide MagazineSep 23, 2016
Season 1 Review:
Mike Colter as Luke is a physical marvel and an appealing center of moral gravity in a show that all too often telegraphs its plentiful punches and twists. [26 Sep 2016-2 Oct 2016, p.16]
Jun 28, 2018
Season 2 Review:
Despite its improvements in season two, that reality is something that Luke Cage still struggles with. In many ways, Luke Cage reads as a would-be groundbreaking superhero show from the ’90s displaced into 2018: earnest, a bit hollow, and more primed toward political resonance than artistic grace.
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Jun 21, 2018
Season 2 Review:
It's a step up from other recent Marvel/Netflix shows when it comes to a memorable villain with season-long objectives. It's still a season with wildly fluctuating spikes and valleys in energy. One moment it walks with the same swagger and purpose and ideology that carried the initial seven episodes of the first season, the next moment it slumps into a fallow funk as if saving its energy and budget.
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Jun 20, 2018
Season 2 Review:
Even beyond the imbalanced plot/time ratio, there's a flatness--and cheapness--to be found across the whole run. For every one dynamic scene, whether straight-up superhero action(*) or simply a moment involving many characters bouncing off each other at once, there are at least a half-dozen lifeless two-person conversations.
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