The Defenders (2017)

We have always already known it was all building to this. Back in 2015 (only two years ago!), Daredevil debuted with the promise that its protagonist would eventually join Netflix’s Jessica Jones, Luke Cage, and Iron Fist in The Defenders, echoing the successful franchise building that culminated in 2012’s The Avengers. And so it is all but a little impossible not to compare The Defenders to The Avengers; on an instinctual level, Defenders is not as successful as Avengers, but then again it’s more successful than it could have been, and it has the unbelievable ability to make me care about The Hand.

How do these lovable nutjobs end up together? While Danny Rand, the Immortal Iron Fist (Finn Jones), pursues The Hand in fulfillment of his mission from the mystical K’un-Lun, Luke Cage (Mike Colter) rejoins Harlem and finds its youth in danger. Likewise, Jessica Jones (Krysten Ritter) becomes embroiled in corporate terrorism when her client tries to bomb his own office, and through a friend of a friend (Rosario Dawson) she finds herself represented by Matt Murdock, alias Daredevil (Charlie Cox). All the while, The Hand’s leader Alexandra (Sigourney Weaver) has sinister plans for her latest protégé Elektra (Élodie Yung), the new Black Sky warrior.

The Avengers did this remarkable thing where it built on what came before and moved it into new territory without ever losing sight of the audience members who might not have done all the homework from Iron Man on. The Defenders aces those first two categories, finding clever ways to bring these characters together while setting up some intriguing new stories for them, but it isn’t the best introduction to some of these characters, particularly Daredevil and Luke Cage (whose standalone seasons left them in places that Defenders contorts to resolve in time for them to unite). Then again, I’m not sure that there are too many folks out there who haven’t followed the Netflix universe as closely, and so maybe it’s folly to expect Defenders to be entirely its own thing.

Then again, The Defenders is such viscerally engaging viewing material that I almost wish they’d discontinue the bulk of the Netflix project and just do a few more seasons of The Defenders instead. The Defenders ably collects all of what works about each show, scraps what doesn’t, and blends it all together in a show that doesn’t have any dead spots – likely a casualty of its eight episodes (compared to Marvel/Netflix’s standard thirteen). For all that Daredevil can be a mopey sort, The Defenders pairs him with three others who will call him out on that. The show even seems hyper-aware of the creative problems of Iron Fist, hanging a lantern on Danny’s idiocy and protracted self-introductions, in the process matching him with characters who can finesse him into a more capable character. Jess and Luke change the least, for my money because they’re characters who are already in stellar shape, and it’s a real delight to see them sharing the screen again after Luke’s turn on Jessica Jones.

Without fail, The Hand has been the least inspiring aspect of the Marvel Netflix Universe; I didn’t care on Daredevil (and I really didn’t care on Daredevil: Season 2), and The Hand was just one more element that didn’t add up for Iron Fist. However, The Defenders takes The Hand bigger, showcasing their ancient influence, sweeping plans, and fascinatingly distinctive leaders, including Weaver’s Alexandra (who brings a genre pedigree to the role with charisma and grace) and my personal favorite, Madame Gao. While the Defenders learn to work together, The Hand struggles not to kill each other in a gripping give-and-take that feels a little like Game of Thrones mixed with the more interesting kung-fu bits of The Matrix. Elektra too, somewhat dull in the overstuffed second season of Daredevil, emerges on top as her character struggles to find her place within The Hand and at Alexandra’s side.

Where Marvel/Netflix has done well, The Defenders continues to thrive. What the universe hasn’t cracked, The Defenders patches up. I would have liked to have seen more from the non-super supporting characters, as The Defenders largely relegates Foggy, Trish, and Colleen to a police holding room; additionally, it’s a little surprising that there’s nary a nod to Frank Castle in here. Instead, The Defenders lasers its focus on its four protagonists, who crackle in every scene they’ve got; even separated, when the show feels more like an anthology than a team-up, there are fine moments of characterization and plotting that make The Defenders feel like a win.

Make mine Marvel, and roll on The Punisher (because I hear Inhumans isn’t very good).

The Defenders is rated TV-MA. Created by Douglas Petrie and Marco Ramirez. Based on the Marvel Comics. Starring Charlie Cox, Krysten Ritter, Mike Colter, Finn Jones, Élodie Yung, Rosario Dawson, and Sigourney Weaver.

Monday at the Movies - May 1, 2017

Welcome to another installment of “Monday at the Movies.” We’re not at the movies, though; if you’ve wondered what your Cinema King thought about the last few rounds of the Marvel/Netflix experiment, look no further.

Daredevil: Season Two (2016) – After falling head over heels for the first season of Daredevil, knocking it out in about four days thanks to the binge model of Netflix, I definitely felt the law of diminishing returns in effect for Daredevil’s sophomore outing, which took me a few weeks to wrap up. After last season’s singular focus on how Wilson Fisk’s rise paralleled Daredevil’s, this season has two main components: an arc introducing the gun-toting vigilante The Punisher (Jon Bernthal), followed by the return of the deadly Elektra (Élodie Yung) into the life of Matt Murdock (Charlie Cox). The first of these is exceptional, and had the rest of the season been as good it would have pushed Season Two to the top of what Marvel Television has been able to accomplish; Bernthal is frankly definitive as the violent, tortured Punisher, with iconic moments ripped from the comics and given their due. The Punisher’s arc over the season takes him to fascinating places, interacting with fantastic characters, and setting him up for a dynamite solo series (which, of course, is happening). It’s the second half, though, which failed to impress this reviewer, as it goes full ninja into what I think is the least interesting aspect of Daredevil – his battles against The Hand. The stakes of this conflict are nebulous – the city is in danger, but isn’t it always? – and would appear to pull their punches in advance of The Defenders. Though Yung is a fine choice for Elektra, the plotting never fully convinces us that she’s anything but trouble for Matt Murdock, who’s exceptionally angsty this season. Hat-tip, though, to Elden Henson, whose portrayal of Foggy Nelson ends up being a major show-stealer and a bright light in a season that can be dismally dark.

Luke Cage (2016) – Fresh off a stint on Jessica Jones, Mike Colter is back as the man with unbreakable skin, and his performance as Luke Cage deserves to stand shoulder to shoulder with some of the top performances in the Marvel Cinematic Universe. His Luke is a resolute figure of unflappable grace, of tough decisions, and uncompromising morality, and for all that we say that superheroes are figures of admiration, Colter really embodies it. Put another way, I want to be this guy. Like Daredevil: Season Two, Luke Cage is narratively bifurcated, though it’d be a spoiler to say precisely why; suffice it to say that the villains, Cornell “Cottonmouth” Stokes (the recently-Oscared Mahershala Ali) and Mariah Dillard (Alfre Woodard, who’s deft enough to make you forget she’s an entirely different character in Civil War), are as variable and fascinating as Luke is stalwart and unfaltering. It’s unquestionably among the timeliest, most political material Marvel has turned out of late, and that thematic resonance gives Luke Cage a weight that I don’t think the other Netflix programs have quite attained (though Jessica Jones felt psychologically and personally heavy). Consequently, we feel quite tangibly all the struggles and expectations placed on Luke, justly or otherwise, as he finds himself in a position to navigate issues so much larger than a man without superpowers might be able to bear on his own. Notably, Luke Cage has a real pulse in the form of its soundtrack, which significantly differentiates it from the rest of the Marvel Cinematic Universe; the show’s use of music, both diegetic and otherwise, becomes the lifeblood of the show and a fitting barometer for the mood of the community.

Iron Fist (2017) – For the past month, everyone’s been talking about Iron Fist, though not for the reasons Marvel would have liked. A good number of people are upset about the character’s race, while an even larger contingent is dubbing this show the worst thing Marvel’s ever done for other reasons altogether. For my money, and this may be a reaction to having my expectations titanically lowered by early reviews, Iron Fist is not terrible, but it’s not especially good, either. If you can power through the first episode (as seems to be the advice for most shows), you’re in the clear; Iron Fist has one of the least successful openers of any show I’ve watched, with characters who behave irrationally and without any sense of a motivation or indeed of characterization in any sense. As the show progresses, though, the characters crystallize a little more clearly, particularly the increasingly compelling brother-sister duo of Ward and Joy Meachum (Tom Pelphrey and Jessica Stroup). Aside from the fact that I still don’t care what The Hand is doing, a recurring problem for the show is that its titular protagonist Danny Rand (Finn Jones, late of Game of Thrones) is a bit of a stunted man-child who behaves like an idiot and makes one ill-advised decision after another between bouts of temper tantrums and social awkwardness. If the character is deliberately crafted that way, Jones is bang-on, but it’s off-putting to have a show where everyone knows better than the main character. The show’s women, though, end up its greatest strength; Colleen Wing (Jessica Henwick) is the capable badass Marvel’s Netflix universe deserves, Madame Gao (Wai Ching Ho, back from Daredevil) is a captivating character and a continuity hound’s delight, and it’s always a treat to see Claire Temple (Rosario Dawson) try to talk some sense into the self-destructive vigilantes who headline these shows. Iron Fist seeds a few tantalizing developments for a likely second season, but the show needs to do some major work on its eponymous hero if audiences are going to connect with this aloof kung fu dope.

That does it for this week’s edition of “Monday at the Movies.” We’ll see you next week!

Jessica Jones (2015)

It took me four days to get through the Netflix-exclusive Daredevil back in April, but this weekend’s release of Jessica Jones only lasted me two days. Not that Marvel has delivered fewer than 13 episodes this time around – same Bat-time, same Bat-channel, true believers. It’s just that I found Jessica Jones more engaging, more accomplished, and more addicting than the already first-rate Daredevil. As wonderful as Marvel’s first Netflix series was, Jessica Jones is the new crown jewel in Marvel’s television stable.

Krysten Ritter stars as the eponymous private investigator, hard-talking and even harder-drinking. Using her remarkable super-strength only when she has to, Jessica picks up the case of a missing athlete (Erin Moriarty), only to discover that the case is linked to an old enemy (David Tennant), whose fixation on Jessica makes him a dangerous foe. Against her instinct to isolate herself, Jessica draws on the help of her old friend Trish Walker (Rachael Taylor) and new flame Luke Cage (Mike Colter), while her lawyer/employer Jeri Hogarth (Carrie-Anne Moss) wrestles with an impending divorce.

I’ll say right off the bat that I think the major reason I rank Jessica Jones more highly than Daredevil is freshness. Not that Daredevil was stale, by any measure – and I should also clarify that my praise of Jessica Jones isn’t at all to denigrate Daredevil; rather, it’s a mark of how much higher Jessica Jones sets the bar, due largely to the character’s novelty. We all had a sense of how Daredevil was going to play out, tracing the simultaneous rise of Hell’s Kitchen’s greatest hero and villain, culminating with... well, you know how these kinds of stories play out.

A few hours into Jessica Jones, I realized that I couldn’t say the same for this show. I know how I wanted it to end, certainly, but I couldn’t guarantee that we’d get the ending we wanted. Indeed, there are a number of twists and turns in the show that I honestly didn’t see coming, which makes for a comparably more enjoyable show in terms of edge-of-the-seat viewing. I don’t want to spoil anything here, but the narrative winds around story beats that are really only possible when a character isn’t caught up in 50 years of iconic stories (because let’s face it, Daredevil has had many long-running arcs to which any adaptation must pay homage).

At the center of it all, you have two extraordinarily dynamic performances from Ritter and Tennant, who get to play off each other much more than Charlie Cox and Vincent D’Onofrio, who were kept apart for much of Daredevil. Ritter gives Jessica Jones the hard edge the character needs, distinguishing her from other “strong female protagonists” by emphasizing the brokenness under the surface, a tragedy repressed by alcohol, cynicism, and casual sex. Her character crackles, especially in scenes with Tennant, who plays the sadistic sociopath Kilgrave (known to comics fans as the mind-controlling Purple Man). Tennant is getting cascades of praise for his role as the show’s villain, and rightly so – short of Kingpin and maybe Loki, Kilgrave is Marvel’s new best villain because of how intensely and immediately loathsome he is. And yet – there’s a creepy way that Tennant pitches for the audience’s sympathy, even in light of his casual and frankly terrifying violence; there’s something of Kingpin’s childish tantrums in Kilgrave, but in a way that’s more horrifying for how little he seems to care.

The supporting cast are equally strong, with only Colter’s Luke Cage managing to wrestle the show away from its two leads – in large part, that’s due to Luke being next in line for his own Marvel show, but he also has a unique chemistry with Jessica that makes me think neither standalone show will be getting a second season; rather, I’d put money on a Jones/Cage team-up (following, I’d wager, the comics couple’s quirky courtship). There are winks and nods to elsewhere in the Marvel continuity; the films are kept at arm’s length, but we have allusions to Hellcat, Nuke, Iron Fist, and maybe even Spider-Woman and Gladiator (because, to be fair, how many Melvins are running around Hell’s Kitchen?). But as a piece, Jessica Jones doesn’t feel too tied into the Marvel Cinematic Universe, and I’m not sure that’s a bad thing. I think there’s room in the MCU for these standalone stories, which can easily be woven into the larger tapestry later. With Jessica Jones, Ritter is poised to be the next big star of the MCU, and it’s easy to imagine an Avenger turning to her to track down someone, or just to lift a car over her head.

Along with feeling a step away from the MCU proper, there is the matter of tone to consider – by which I mean that Jessica Jones is the uneasiest entry in the ten years of Marvel productions, giving me the feeling of physical revulsion more often than ever. At one point, I literally had to stop and shower, and not just because I’d been in my pajamas for hours at a stretch. This show is much more uncomfortable, more unsettling, and more frank than anything else we’ve seen with a Stan Lee cameo (and yes, he’s in there). Kudos to the showrunners for sticking to a vision and a tone which must have rattled the bottom-line-conscious brass.

Jessica Jones is dark, it’s daring, it’s uncomfortable – and it’s bloody brilliant, television most foul as in the best it is. As the best binges induce, I want more.

Jessica Jones is rated TV-MA. As Marvel productions go, it’s the sexiest; although there’s no nudity, there are some pretty intense sex scenes and frank discussions of rape. Language is fairly salty in the S-words range, but the violence is substantially less graphic than in Daredevil. Psychologically, though, it’s much more troubling.