Marvel's The Defenders

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.