The Defenders

...and I don't get it.

Certainly not a big budget, heavy on the special effect blockbuster like the Avengers, but then again it wasn't supposed to be.

On the good side:

Excellent choreography of the fight scenes. Not quite up to the Daredevil series, but definitely well above average.

Cinematography and use of color well done.

Well acted by all 4 of the lead characters and excellent work by the supporting cast. Personally thought the actors had a decent chemistry.

Plot...not overly original but not bad.

Writing...again not overly original, but gives a workable vehicle for the actors.

The not so good:

CGI...not much here...the glowing fist doesn't see too impressive.

Directing and especially the pacing could have been better.

Overall:

I found this to be a highly watchable show, though well short of great. While I found Luke Cage and Iron Fist series heavily mired in mediocrity, this one holds its own in my opinion.

As a huge fan of Marvel I'm a little biased because I pretty much like everything they put out. My bias aside, The Defenders is a pretty good show. If you don't believe me just read through the reviews here and look at the ratings. Even the critics loved this show. It's definitely not as good as the characters original shows but it's still worth watching. This wanted to be like Avengers where they take a bunch of Superheroes from their core shows/movies and bring them all together for one amazing team up. This is not the Avengers. All four of these heroes (Daredevil, Luke Cage, Jessica Jones and Iron Fist) are used to working as individuals but quickly realize that won't work this time and have to have to come together and team up to save New York City. The show starts a little slow but after the four heroes finally come together the show finally picks up and becomes a lot of fun. It blends the best of the four shows into one and makes it pretty enjoyable. This is a must watch for any fan of the MCU.

First of all, the cinematography is extremely bad. Throughout the season, it looks like there is zero effort to the make visual appealing, as if characters and camera are placed randomly, with no regard to the composition of a scene. Episode 8, the culmination of the whole show is terribly lit, oftentimes with just one or two lights THAT ARE VISIBLE ON SCREEN. As a result, the whole show looks lazy. It's hard to believe that Netflix was able to make Daredevil look simple yet elegant and screw up so badly for Defenders.

It doesn't help that the production value is extremely low. There is no attention to detail and sets are badly designed. Or is there any thought process in set designs at all. Jessica was googling on ADOBE FLASH. Simple but unforgivable mistakes like this really marks down the quality of the show. Interior design for major fight scenes are crude and uninteresting.

Camera work and editing looks interesting for episode 1. It's all downhill from there. There is way too much spinning around characters, and shooting at extremely low angles up at characters, making them look powerful. But the technique is cheesy af, extremely so when it's used a hundred times per episode.

Technically, Defenders doesn't have the most basic production quality. In terms of story telling, it's not the best either.

It's hard to imagine how an 8 episode show with 4 protagonists can possibly drag, but the writers managed to do so. There are too many standing-talking scenes that yield little progress or character development. Plot wise, it is simple, straight forward, and predictable.

What I loved about Daredevil and Jessica Jones is the depth of character. The scene in Daredevil where Matt holds a balloon alone in his empty apartment is one of my favorite scenes in TV. It effectively shows the loneliness and conflict Matt feels. Karen, Foggy, Trish, Jessica are developed to be extremely complicated persons in their own shows. But in Defenders, there are not one scene that has sufficient emotional depth. That's why the characters feel like shells of themselves. We see what they do and accept it because that's what they would do, as they continue to be what they were in their own shows. But within Defenders, they have no arc or innate incentive .

Defenders is disappointing and only a shadow of what Jessica Jones and Daredevil is. It has no depth and low production quality just makes it unwatchable at times. What a wasted opportunity!

Enjoy it for what it is: Good entertainment. I thoroughly enjoyed it. It was engaging, suspenseful and fun. The music, setting, acting, cinematography, etc was all pretty solid. It's a superhero show, folks...no one should expect something that rises to the level of 'high art.There are good parts in this series for sure. But this show did not fulfill its potential. The story is generic and much simpler than Daredevil .The actors are mostly good, but their characters don't really evolve. They just go through the action like they are doing the dishes. just i think it was some problems in this series like:

1/ What goes wrong always end wrong. The first and biggest wrong foot step was Finn Jones in the shoes of Danny Rand, it can't be, it just can't, he wasn't up to it. That said, along with the bad writing that made the show in the bottom of the four shows "Dare/Jessica/Luke", we had the first flaw in The Defenders.

2/ Daredevil is no longer our Daredevil, the one we knew in his own fabulous show was darker, wiser, calmer and smarter than this copy. In The Defenders we saw another Daredevil, with a bad nerve and more good looking than Danny, just that and nothing more.

Overall it's definitely still watchable , and a good TV superheros series .

While not as good as the original shows, The Defenders is still a pretty good superhero show that brings all of the Netflix Marvel heroes together in one show (except The Punisher). I have to admit that it wasn't as good as I hoped for a crossover, because most of the original shows were so amazing, but it's still a pretty good show that's absolutely worth watching!