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Critic Reviews
- Critic score
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- By date
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Much of the real beauty of Power lies in the details, conversational and visual.
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Created by Courtney Kemp Agboh, the Emmy-nominated writer/producer of The Good Wife, and fueled by a powerful yet understated performance by Omari Hardwick, the series captures the spirit of Fitzgerald's novel while telling a story that's very much of our time.
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The opening episode--already posted online--is a bit sluggish, but Power gets better in subsequent episodes. Starz, and Fitty, appear to have a winner.
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The volatile combo of elements leads to occasionally sloppy storytelling, but the cast--particularly the icy Hardwick and the oft-nude Naughton--makes it a deeply bingeable guilty pleasure. [30 May 2014, p.115]
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While the series is not exactly imaginative or subtle (stretch limos, Chivas Regal, call girls), it’s surprisingly enjoyable.
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Hardwick might be the most jacked actor working on TV and has some nice moments with Loren as he tries to reconnect with a love that has only grown fonder over the years. But the dialogue, slathered with f-bombs, seems lazy, and there’s not much urgency to the plot.
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Power has some pull, but maybe not enough to win a tug of war. Its overall pacing could use a perk-up and its portrayals of minorities (who twice drop the n-word) might take more heat if 50 Cent wasn’t both calling the shots and rapping a theme song that includes the lyric, “I’m an undercover liar. I lie under the covers.”
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It moves along, dutifully moving the players to their appointed plot points. And there are some nice performances; I would draw your attention to that of Naturi Naughton, as Ghost's wife, consistently a warm body in an often chilly show.
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Power is fine but it doesn’t live up to its title. It’s not a powerful drama because viewers have largely seen all its tricks, plots and character relationships before.
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The show was created by Courtney Kemp Agboh and has so much going for it--on the surface, anyway--that it's almost criminal that a powerful, attractive cast and high-end production values are hobbled by such a stupefying absence of originality.
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Mostly, this is undemanding escapism with all the requisite pay-TV trappings, along the lines of what Cinemax is offering in episodic form.
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If The Sopranos, in all its intricacy, finds layers in its antihero that are relatable even as it reveals how damaged the man is by a life of violence, then Power comes across as nothing more than a warmed-over soap opera only superficially obsessed with Ghost's relationship to guns and drugs.
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As it stands now, Power spends far more time telling the audience that everything is at stake for Ghost than showing how everything he holds dear is at stake.
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Power is a paint-by-numbers effort when Starz could really do itself a favor by putting a masterpiece in the market.
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Everyone seems to be imitating someone they saw in another gangster movie. It would be funny, if it weren't quite so tedious.
Awards & Rankings
User score distribution:
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Positive: 66 out of 88
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Mixed: 11 out of 88
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Negative: 11 out of 88
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Jul 7, 2014
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Jul 6, 2014
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Jun 16, 2014