So close and yet so far. *sigh* Ok, so to recap, everyone gets back together at the police station with all their side character friends to waste time expositioning about what we've already seen and then bicker about what to do about it before breaking out to go do something about it. Elektra uses Iron Fist's idiocy against him and tricks him into doing the thing she just told him she wanted, which I guess is to punch a wall. Then in the final episode, they fight bad guys they've fought before and blow up a building to save the day. What works? Seeing Colleen Wing take action and contribute to the final conflict. Her and Misty Knight have every reason to be among the Defenders and their continued sidelining never made much sense. One has a gun and real training. The other has a sword and fights better than Iron Fist. I get why they would focus the promotional material on the four "stars" of the series, but when the plot begins to unravel, you want to play with all the toys you got. Colleen's confrontation with Bakuto has more personal significance than everyone else's action, save maybe when Daredevil confronts Elektra... Again. Misty Knight losing her arm is also a long time coming for comics fans but it just sorta... happens. It's a box to check off the list and little more. But we'll get to complaints soon enough. The final zoom out in the penultimate episode of Danny inside a fossilized skeleton of a dragon resembling his tattoo was actually pretty well staged, as far as imagery goes. Likewise the scene of Matt Murdock, Jessica Jones and Luke Cage on a subway is a perfect representation of what this show is supposed to be about. These are your blue collar heroes, not the ritzy Avengers with their jets and skyscrapers. Besides this and another reunion with the sidekicks... that about sums up the good stuff. Unless you count the non-twist at the end of Daredevil surviving. Comic fans should be anticipating a little story called "Born Again" which is very exciting news. On the other hand if the one of the best things about a show is the mere idea of some other show it makes you think of instead, then that tells you how good it really is. What doesn't work? Where to start... This picture captures -- oh, I dunno -- 25% of the problem, at least... From here, let me broaden my critique to not only the final two episodes but the entire series, because let's face it, the issues are the same. Iron Fist is so bad in his portrayal, that he literally brings down the others around him. I don't just mean acting, either. He's clearly being written this way on purpose by some goon who doesn't know the source material at all, or simply lacks the nuance to capture it in functional dialogue. And yeah, bad acting. The directors should've found a way to minimize this, as well, so I don't let them off the hook either. Petulant is the best word I've seen used for him. Spoiled and privileged and out of touch. Whiny. But the worst of it is that unlike other more sophisticated shows with "unlikable" characters, he's not played off as unlikable on purpose. It's not part of his character arc to become more mature and likable along the way. It's not part of the theme of the series to be a sniveling self-righteous religious nut with your head in the clouds and then to develop into a grounded and thoughtful person. His temper tantrums are seldom depicted as a character flaw in the way that Matt Murdock's addiction to being Daredevil is a complex psychological component of his identity. And this isn't even getting into his unconvincing martial arts "skills" or the paradox of someone so petty and childish also being somehow capable of ever centering his xi (or chi), much less centering it more than anyone has ever centered it so as to make a fist like unto iron (or the fact that when he uses it, it is completely incongruous with his emotional state on those occasions). Lastly, I must mention one further failing, and that is the objectification of Iron Fist in general which neither helps the show nor solves his shortcomings. By that I mean the continued reversion of his role on the team to that of a macguffin needing to be saved or captured at any given point in the series. Not the best way to redeem your weakest character. Ok we get it, so what else besides Iron Fist? Fight scenes are mostly flat but after Daredevil Season 1 the producers seem to be going out of their way to prove it wasn't just a fluke and with a few exceptions all they've proven is the opposite. The boardroom brawl and the elevator exit from Episode 3 for example was excellent and iconic, as well as many of Elektra's fight scenes. But the final confrontations in The Defenders were so poorly edited and confusing I found myself getting bored and looking at my phone which wasn't shaking around all over the place like a Michael Bay movie. The juxtaposition of different characters fighting in different places was not well executed at all. Dim lighting and poor camera angles made the whole thing murky. And there was not much in the way of weightiness, it felt simple and basic and repetitive. Luke says he has a plan but all it amounts to is jumping out really fast? I really feel like the writers went on vacation and let an intern finish the script. I've seen this a lot lately where a movie or TV show will go for broke early in the narrative with a really cool scene only to fall short at the climax. That early climax is key in building anticipation and sending an unconscious message about what kind of ending is still coming. AT least it's supposed to be. Creed, for example (remember, that Rocky spinoff a year or so ago?) used a really cool "uncut" editing technique in the style of Birdman to show what three rounds of boxing feels like. It was super slick and I figured they would use it again for sure in the climax when you weren't expecting it to really hammer home the finale. They didn't. I was disappointed. The Matrix on the other hand famously used bullet-time at different points of the film and succeeding in making it mean something in the climax. In the case of the Defenders, they had a really cool, well-timed and choreographed fight in the boardroom, but when they tried to echo it in the climax, it fell apart. The heroes weren't working together, and they weren't fighting anyone of consequence. The camera just kept panning like it was looking for talent and couldn't find any. A total let down. The failure to make use of their individual fighting styles as an extension of their personalities is especially disappointing since it's so easy to imagine. Also, as a writer, I must note the importance of scaling up toward the climax in order to create the sensation of satisfaction. Save the best for last. A mediocre fight scene in episode three would not have broken the series (indeed I overcame many mediocre scenes as it was), but a killer conclusion could've saved the whole experience and made it feel like a reward for getting there. There's no reward here. Just tired filmmakers losing steam. Chemistry. Your lead characters must have some chemistry and that is on both the writers as well as the actors for flopping so hard. Daredevil and Jessica Jones had it. Luke Cage and Iron Fist did not. Thankfully Charlie Cox and Krysten Ritter are good enough that they save most of the scenes they are in (unless those scenes feature a lot Finn Jones). Like the fight scenes above, the dynamic among the team at the conclusion is not nearly as compelling as it was earlier in the season. Scenes with Karen Page and Trish Tilby at the police station are completely deletable, as well as most of the tough-cop crap Misty Knight is forced to shout to try to build tension. Even worse is the garbage they make the talented Rosario Dawson say. The poor girl is trying but this gig ain't what she expected, I'm sure. At the end of the day, The Defenders is actually less than the sum of its parts. Plotting. Daredevil Season 2 and Jessica Jones Season 1 are examples of good, dense plotting in which each episode packs a lot of punch and feels like it changes the entire show from what you thought you were watching into something new. Game of Thrones is the king of this. The Defenders is not. So much of this eight part series was filler and paint-by-numbers. You can almost literally see the list of cool ideas and imagery they brainstormed at a weekend retreat after which they patted themselves on the back and said, "this will be awesome." But when they sobered up and got to work writing it, the energy was gone. Some of the ideas were good. Let's have them get on the subway awkwardly. Let's have Iron Fist inside a dragon skeleton resembling his tattoo. Misty can lose her arm. Elektra can take over The Hand. But mostly when these moments came, they felt watered down like the GMO apples I buy at the supermarket. Not much flavor. I liked the attempt to include so many disparate characters from their respective shows but if the only relevance is ham-fisted plot contrivances and superficial character emoting, than is that really the kind of show you want to make? A soap-opera? And teasing out the villainous agenda was another failed attempt to drum up suspense through the unnecessary omission of information rather than true ominousness. Conclusion: 3 stars out of 5. The comics are always better. I watch these shows to see live action versions of my favorite comics, as I mentioned at the beginning of the first post. Those were prestige comics of a high storytelling quality. This show was not. I give them credit for actually having cool moments and high points at all, but they lose an equal amount of credit for being so crappy and underdeveloped everywhere else. It's uneven. It's what everyone feared Avengers would turn out to be, but unlike Joss Whedon, these showrunners just don't have what it takes to juggle that many balls in the air at once. Oh well... At least I have the solo series to look forward to again. Who's next, Punisher? Jessica Jones season 2? Bring it on!
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