The Defenders (Netflix-2017)

The evil ninja crime syndicate, The Hand, led by Alexandra Reid (Sigourney Weaver), needs the Iron Fist (Finn Jones) to fulfill their scheme in New York city. Coincidentally, Luke Cage (Mike Colter) runs into pointless Hand activity in Harlem. Doubly coincidentally, Jessica Jones (Krysten Ritter) takes a case that leads to The Hand in the most unlikely way possible. Stretching the notion of coincidence far past the breaking point, Daredevil (Charlie Cox) becomes Jessica Jones’s unrequested lawyer. And requiring a new word to replace “coincidence,” the four of them all end up attacking The Hand’s headquarters at the same time. Along with Stick (Scott Glenn), who coincidentally (that word sure is popping up a lot) shows up at that moment, the four superheroes decide to team up to destroy The Hand, while saying repeatedly how they can’t be a team. And Electra (Elodie Yung), who is coincidentally Daredevils ex-girlfriend, coincidentally is resurrected for no reason ever explained besides Alexandra‘s personal prophecy, so that she can be the big bad.

The Defenders is bad. Not Iron Fist bad. Nowhere near. It is leagues better than Iron Fist. Iron Fist was terrible in every way used to evaluate a show. The Defenders is simply empty and unnecessary. You skip Iron Fist because it is unpleasant. You skip The Defenders because there’s no good reason to see it.

The Defenders is The Avengers of the MCU Netflix series. After two seasons of Daredevil, and one each of Jessica Jones, Luke Cage, and Iron Fist (go here to see my reviews of all of these), The Defenders should bring together the parts of the Netflix universe into a greater whole. It does bring the characters together, but only as a cheap, empty, crossover event instead of as a climax that brings additional meaning and depth to the individual pieces.

Discounting Iron Fist, the separate shows are worthwhile, but flawed. They are too long at thirteen episodes and often wander about aimlessly (a problem that The Defenders avoids by being a more appropriate eight eps long), but Jessica Jones and Luke Cage—and to a lesser extent Daredevil—overcome those and other flaws with powerful themes. They mean something. The Defenders is themeless. There’s no message here. There is nothing to think about. There’s a plot, but it isn’t much, and without theme, it is abundantly clear how little there is to the plot.

Joining lack-of-theme is lack of character development. The only character that has an arc is Electra, which could have been engaging if she was the main character (not something I am recommending), but as is just takes up time. The rest are just what they were before, with no change nor examination of their character. Danny—the Iron Fist—is still an unpleasant, juvenile, privileged douche bag, performed by Jones as if his laxative hasn’t kicked in. Matt Murdock—Daredevil—doubles down on the most annoying parts of his personality, making him little better than Danny. For Luke Cage, Marvel has forgotten what they did with Captain America. Luke is so noble, so good and pure and straight-laced that he is a walking sleeping pill. Only Jessica comes out looking good. We learn nothing new about her, but she is engaging and often funny. Krysten Ritter is superb in the role, perhaps even better than she was in her stand alone series, but one actress, and one character, cannot support an ensemble work. Making it worse is that she plays no part in the feather-light plot. This is The Iron Fist & Daredevil show, with Jessica and Luke just along because it said so in the comics.

The character interactions are a mixed bag. The jokes work, and it is cute to see the other three Defenders reacting to Danny the way much of the audience did in his solo outing, but the “I work alone” discussions get old fast. And like all the other shows, this one insists that the characters knowledge and beliefs are far behind the audience’s. We know that Danny has mystical, semi-racist, oriental powers, so watching the others catch up is a bore. “Sure, space aliens, Nordic gods, green rage monsters, mind control, and super science are all real, but I draw the line at ninja powers!”

The fight scenes are—with the exception of a bit in a hallway which was in all the trailers—nothing special. One glaring flaw is that everyone does the same thing. They all punch things. Danny and Matt even punch with the same style, the one used by all the villains. Sure you can have great action without Avengers-type power diversity—the Shaw Brothers prooved that over and over—but that requires talent and money not on display. To make the combat scenes work to the limited degree that they do, they resorted to old tropes: the villains shoot like stormtroopers and each wait to attack in sequence. That can produce enjoyable fights in a properly goofy show, but The Defenders wants to appear serious and real. If those scenes had been directed “realistically,” the heroes would all be dead. Why is it they can’t aim at anyone except Luke?

The villains are reasonably good for the MCU. Alexandra has some depth, even if her “Black Sky” plans are never explained and mean nothing; Weaver is a pro and it shows. The rest do their jobs. The sidekicks neither elevate nor depress the proceedings. Only Colleen Wing (Jessica Henwick) stands out for being horrible when she’s with Danny, but OK when she’s with anyone else. The dialog is significantly worse whenever he’s involved, a sign that the writers had no idea what to do with him.

I’m saying to skip The Defenders, but I’m not saying it emphatically. Ritter and Weaver almost save it, it isn’t too long, and except for anything related to Danny and a little of Matt, it isn’t a bad time. It’s just an inconsequential time. It clearly will not affect what is to follow in the Netflix MCU. It’s just…there. I’m not sure it is any worse than Daredevil Season 2, which I gave a very restrained thumbs up. But I prefer a positive reason to watch something. If you already are paying for Netflix, and you feel compelled to keep up the latest super hero shenanigans, letting this play as you make dinner or dust the living room won’t hurt anything.