The Defenders

The Hand are going to destroy New York. It's not clear exactly what they are after. Something that is unmistakable, however, is that they need to be stopped. And it will definitely require four (preferably reluctant) heroes. The ones the budget will allow for.

This is the Netflix version of the first Avengers movie. In some ways it is superior. This includes the supporting cast showing up and being given things to do. There are even connections made. The story is more interesting and fleshed out. Now, aspects in which it is inferior include smaller stakes, less name recognition. So it boils down to the money and general expectation. This really delivered everything that I hoped it would.

With eight episodes instead of the usual 13, this is the tightest of its kin, of everything leading up to it. The story starts right away and keeps moving throughout. This is never slow or rushed. We yet again get a mystery and they continue to master the drip feed of information. They wisely don't give in to the urge to have everyone get together right away. Instead, they encounter each other, and the idea to form a team comes up very organically. Since all of them are used to going at it alone, they take some convincing. Each comes across what's going on in a way that fits what they've been doing.

The action is quite fun. In order to make it a challenge that requires multiple good guys, this features all Five Fingers. I've seen some say "I got tired of all the ninja punching", and for sure, there is a lot of it. Personally, I loved every second. No one is nerfed. Everyone uses their skills and abilities well. It's great to see so much use of the Iron Fist, not to mention how many times the user is called out. Too little super jumping. Good use of the enhanced strength: hitting people really hard, smacking them with heavy objects, throwing them into heavy stuff, folding metal like it's tin foil.

I felt like there was a proper sense of threat. No one ever felt truly safe. That might sound ridiculous considering how much some of them can take without getting knocked down. Trust me, everyone in this has some weaknesses, something that can be used to defeat them.

Perhaps the best part of this is the character interactions, and note that every major one has an arc. For the similarities between them, there are definitely some huge differences as well - level of experience, goal, who they usually face and how they handle them. Not a single note rings false. Not a single one of them just disappears into the background, as is the case with every single X-Men movie other than New Mutants. Keeping in mind that I do love those first two movies, and respect a lot of things about the sequels. And obviously Logan and the two Deadpool movies are amazing.

Jessica Jones still does not want to be considered a hero. Despite Malcolm's best efforts, she refuses to take new cases. She even covered the "Alias Investigations" sign on the door. When she begrudgingly agrees to look into a man who's disappeared, with his wife and daughter not knowing where or why, she ends up Involved. And at that point she can't let it go without resolving it.

Luke Cage is released from prison thanks to some excellent legal work by Foggy. He has coffee with Claire, who is surprisingly not as big of a part of having them all meet as theorized. It is suggested that maybe he could be the new Pop's, he's not sure. He does agree to talk to the last surviving brother of Candace. When he is unable to convince the kid, Cole, out of the shady things he feels he needs to do for money, he decides to follow him. This helps him uncover some of what is happening.

Danny Rand and Colleen have been traveling the globe to fight the war, and are told to return to NY. Since I was worried that their inconsistent writing would follow them over here from the solo show, I was very relieved when that turned out not to be the case. Don't get me wrong. He can still be ridiculously frustrating, making obvious mistakes. At least he doesn't jump back and forth between what his stance is, leaving it almost impossible to keep up.

Matt Murdock has not put on the cowl since hanging it up. When he helps people now, it is only as a lawyer. One of his first scenes has him talk to a child who will be disabled for an uncertain amount of time - possibly indefinitely. He tells him the most important thing is how he deals with this. To not give up. It is exactly the kind of thing that he can comment on. He is the only of the 4 to insist on a secret identity, which does cause some trust issues.

So this has to follow shows with very different tones. The use of color helps define whose world we're in, and later, shows their world's merging. Whether it's a cool icy blue, urban yellow, green, or red, you can immediately tell who you're with. When they all get together at a Chinese restaurant, the neon sign outside features all of those hues. It is true that this struggles with finding a balance between the fantasy of the billionaire, and the street level of the rest.

Ultimately, I understand why some people were disappointed by what they got here. I'm not going to claim that they are wrong for their opinion, or that their expectations were unrealistic. I tried to address some of their criticisms here, and make my case for why I think it is great.

This features some moderate to strong language, bloody gory violence including detached limbs, and brief sexual content. I recommend this to any fan of comic books. 8/10.

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!

It's unfortunate that most people who go through the trouble of writing IMDb reviews are pretentious, pompous, and hopelessly opinionated. As an effort to offset their negativity and wannabe film buff nonsense, I thought I'd chip in. I took some film classes in college, so I'm not totally ignorant when it comes to filmmaking, but I'm by no means an expert. I'll skip my criticisms altogether and just say that it's not a perfect show. Having said that, 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 have been only 2 exceptions to that rule that I can think of: the dark knight and legion. Go into this expecting to redefine your view of the universe, and you'll undoubtedly be disappointed. Go into it expecting to be ENTERTAINED and not much else and you should be happy. Also, if you're the type that enjoys poking holes in plots and spotting every error possible, you might have issues....but really, people....it's NOT BASED ON A TRUE STORY. Fiction and especially comic books have the luxury of telling stories unencumbered by facts. They're more like modern day Aesop's fables (which have many plot points that don't make sense btw).

Enjoy it for what it is: Good entertainment.

...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.

So you can google this, but in case you haven't here is what you should watch before seeing this, in the order I write them:

• Daredevil S1
• Jessica Jones S1
• Daredevil S2
• Luke Cage S1
• Iron Fist S1

If you watch those, you are fully informed about what is going on with every superhero and can fully enjoy the limited series as they call it that is Defenders. Now I have some issues with some character moments (Jessica Jones trying to convince us she doesn't care about other humans, when her first season was running on that premise, which made her look a bit weak to be honest, but more on that on her own show), but overall, this is just a lot of fun, with things happeninng that do have impact for the future. It is a bit of shame Netflix cancelled the shows, but it made it possible for me to finally say, hey let's binge those. Defenders may be stand alone and I would not have minded another reunion, but as it is, production values are high, effects are great and the fact it is only 8 episodes (the other shows ran for 13 episodes), makes it short and sweet and a lot of fun to watch. Especially with having some prior knowledge for the characters involved.