Marvel's The Defenders

Not able to achieve the (expensive) scope of, say, an all-out, multi-pronged Avengers melee, the group fights aren’t nearly as grand but enjoyable in their own right. But again, just as when the Avengers first assembled, much of the joy here is seeing disparate personalities get to know each other and reluctantly embrace the T-word--team.

Overall, The Defenders runs leaner and meaner (more on that in a bit) than any other Netflix Marvel show. Even under the lingering shadows, the first episode feels downright breezy at times.

The images are sharper and more inspired, the dialogue is wittier, and the pace is breezier than the usual Marvel-Netflix escapade. Kudos to showrunners Douglas Petrie and Marco Ramirez--the team behind the disappointing second season of Daredevil--for upping their own game, honoring the best parts of every series, and elevating the franchise.

Though Marvel’s The Defenders is and will continue to be arcane, it’s also thoroughly engaging, almost entirely thanks to its cast.

While the show starts as something of a slow burn, once the heroes come together, it more than lives up to the promise fans have been clamoring to see realized. It may not be the strongest Marvel Netflix series thus far (that would be a toss-up between Daredevil and Jessica Jones), but The Defenders splits the differences between its leads, creating something that even casual fans of these shows shouldn’t miss.

The ultimate weakness of The Defenders is found in its plotting, especially the way it indulges in one massive superhero storytelling cliche towards the end. But when the show focuses on character, it’s at its best, especially when the secondary characters,--the women!--get a chance at the spotlight.

A little clunky at times, but otherwise all is well here, thanks especially to Alexandra [Reid (Sigourney Weaver)].

Some of the mystical stuff in The Defenders remains just that: mystical. But after a couple of episodes, and a couple of fights that resemble high-tech barroom brawls, viewers will get the rhythm of the story.

Together, they’re a riot. Both their heroic vulnerabilities and the franchise’s weaknesses are superseded by the collective and the joy of watching a super-sensed, ultra-strong, bulletproof, luminous fist-wielding foursome smash soulless corporate henchmen into smithereens.

Some eye-rolly writing drags down even the best parts of The Defenders, which is partly the fault of the writers of course but also partly due to the wholly weak comic DNA, where obvious shows of emotion and declarative sentences dipped in gooey cheese are part of the deal. And yet, despite all of that, The Defenders morphs into a likeable and enjoyable collaboration by the third episode.

The Defenders manages to overcome Rand’s initially central role in this plot by leaping between the narratives of his more compelling teammates without spending an excessive amount of exposition on their backstories. Ritter, Colter and Cox are still wonderful in their roles, though some may miss the wit that pervaded “Jessica Jones” and the first season of “Daredevil.”

It’s a fine superhero adventure even if you don’t know all the characters. Just go with it. It may not be super, but it gets in its hits.

The Defenders isn’t as sharp and powerful as “Jessica Jones,” as deep as Season 1 of “Daredevil” or as stylized as “Luke Cage,” but it does the job as a holdover until these flawed heroes return with follow-up seasons.

The product of meticulous planning, Marvel's The Defenders starts slowly but rewards patience, gradually uniting its "street level" heroes against a somewhat amorphous but bigger-than-any-one-can-handle threat.

The Defenders is a workmanlike series that gets the job done with a reasonable amount of energy and a few bursts of flair.

So far it feels like another prelude, and it makes one wonder if we’ll ever get to the main event.

Not a tone-deaf disaster on the scale of “Iron Fist,” nor a triumph of complex characterization and cultural commentary like “Jessica Jones,” “The Defenders” is ultimately adequate, treating each of the shows that preceded it like squeezed-out dollops on a painter’s palette to be applied selectively to an otherwise blank canvas.

The Defenders is yet another Netflix ultra-slow burn. None of the heroes interact at all in the first hour. ... The parts of Defenders that actually, you know, feature all the Defenders are promising enough--if only for the chance to watch Jessica continually insult the others--for me to gladly watch the second half.

Defenders rises and falls on what its cast can bring to the mix. The less Finn Jones is onscreen, the better. He might be the most miscast actor in any series ever. Colter brings Luke’s look and nothing else. Now Ritter and Cox, on the other hand, I could binge on a Jones/Murdock spinoff all weekend long.

The Defenders should be the best Marvel series Netflix has produced. Except... it isn't. Keep in mind it's very fun to watch and with a shorter episode order of eight, it won't be a slog to get through. But when it comes to the villains, the show gets bogged down in the worst aspects of the Netflix series.

The Defenders is a pretty grim slog for the most part, enlivened mainly by Jessica’s hard-bitten one-liners, “surprise” appearances by major characters from Marvel’s other Netflix shows, and a couple of lively fight scenes (though not the opening bout, which is so darkly lit and chaotically edited as to be barely comprehensible).

Suffering from a slow-burning self-importance, Defenders is punctuated by rousing action sequences and enlivened by an urban aesthetic grounded in realism. [21 Aug - 3 Sep 2017, p.13]

There’s nothing terribly wrong with Marvel’s The Defenders, but there may not be enough right about it to make it worth the time of anyone but the completist.

Iron Fist is the weakest link here, but because he is just a link, there are other characters who can do more of the heavy lifting. The first four of the series’ eight episodes are enjoyable, and Jones, Colter and Cox are especially fun to watch. Whether you’re a Universe denizen or a newbie, there’s no heavy lifting in The Defenders for audience members, either.

While it’s undeniably fun to see at least three of these charismatic characters come together, The Defenders suffers from the same bloat that has been plaguing Netflix series of late--everything feels like it’s moving much slower than it needs to in order to stretch out a thin plot to a season length.

Like all of the solo series, it’s poorly paced, and takes far too long for the heroes to team up. They don’t appear together until the end of Episode 3. And even after all that lead time, they don't fit together. Jessica and Luke gel--he was introduced on her series. Daredevil and Iron Fist share mystic roots. But they lack chemistry as a group.

The sprawl of television allows a familiar story--the protracted rivalries between differing superheroes giving way to hard-won if tentative cooperation--to bloat beyond recognition and become too reliant on darkness.

[The Defenders] is a plodding, clumsy and unlikable dud. It takes too much time ramping up, wastes its resources on unnecessary characters and subplots and lacks the visual appeal of Marvel’s previous Netflix outings.