FilmSnobReviews

Title: The Defenders
Network: Netflix
Starring: Charlie Cox, Krysten Ritter, Mike Colter
Episodes: 8
What it is: The Defenders follows Daredevil, Jessica Jones, Luke Cage, and Iron Fist as they team up to take on The Hand. It is the fourth show from Marvel to be exclusively on Netflix.

What We Think: The Defenders opens with a really bad action scene and then goes on to focus on the characters and their individual stories, eventually leading up to them meeting and fighting The Hand. For a first time watcher, meeting these characters and learning more about them was great, but for a fan of the Netflix shows, the fact that they don’t team up until half way into the show could be disappointing. I can see now why people don’t like Iron Fist. Danny is horribly miscast and is just a bad character overall. Jessica and Luke are pretty cool, but the standout is Matt Murdock/Daredevil, who is badass and just a great character to watch overall. Some other characters bring a lot to the series, while others feel like they are just there to please the fans, Sigourney Weaver is great as Alexandra, the villain of the series, but her actual character was also dull. This entire show could easy of been a movie or a shorter series (even with only 8 episodes) but The Defenders on the big screen ultimately means that they have to fight along The Avengers at some point, and I don’t think street level fighters would be good additions to the team and neither does Marvel.

Our Grade: B-, My point here is that The Defenders doesn’t have an interesting plot at all, and it didn’t hold my attention. The plot is so thin, that a lot of the scenes are just there to make the run time longer. Lots of this could have been taken out without much change, you could even start the series at episode 4 or 5 and not be affected. When the show focuses on the central story, there are some great moments, I really enjoyed watching the hallway fight, and some other fights, and some of the character interactions, especially between Matt and Jessica are very entertaining. The visuals are great, the way the show in the first couple episodes used different colors depending on which Defender was present at the moment I thought was cool. For the most part, The Defenders is a mixed bag, episodes range from horrible to great, and the plot only has enough for 3-4 episodes, which makes a lot of the show a drag. It will make fans constantly smile, and entertain many, but I wasn’t a fan.