Reviews & Ratings for
"The Defenders" More at IMDbPro »

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84 out of 131 people found the following review useful:

So bad... Feels like it's been written by the same people as Iron Fist

Author: n-m-bertin from Melbourne
18 August 2017

*** This review may contain spoilers ***

I've watched all the Netflix Marvel shows, and this is bad... It is as slow and badly written as Iron Fist. Nothing happens, the whole 8 episodes spans over 2 or 3 days in real time, it's ridiculous. Villains come and go, don't make sense, the Hand feels more ridiculous now than ever because we've seen who's leading it... It's a succession of REALLY awful dialogues, cheesy line after cheesy line, and cheap fight scenes. Where is the Punisher fight scene ? The Daredevil corridor scene ? The Luke Cage invincible scene ? The Jessica Jones tortured manipulation ? There is 0 impact, it's so weak...

To go into detail : Weaver's character is poorly written, never really developed. Elektra is what we expect, puppet at first then remembers Matthew. 0 originality. And no explanation as to how she can take down Luke Cage... Matthew can fight Elektra, but Luke Cage can't ? Give me a break... Rand is annoying and weak as hell (he needs an hour to recharge before giving ONE punch...), Daredevil faces the same old problems. Only Luke Cage saves a bit of the show, but Misty is still awful and clueless, Stick a parody of himself, Claire has nothing new to say... All the budget was spent to pay the actors, clearly neither the writers nor the stunt guys...

Honestly, I thought 8 episodes was good. Afterall, we all said 11-13 episodes is way too long. But they managed to make us feel like the Defenders only needed 2 or 3 episodes to tell that awful story... The Hand tease, then leave, the Defenders hide, the Hand find them, they escape again etc... I mean Jessica Jones basically sums up the show herself in episode 7 "Oh my God, this is the dumbest...". Marvel can do no wrong ? Well that's two in a row...

67 out of 99 people found the following review useful:

After mass: it could been a a lot better.

Author: haythamkm from Turkey
18 August 2017

*** This review may contain spoilers ***

First of all let's agree on something: I don't like the way that some people evaluate the series, someone gave it 10 because they grab the four stars together, another one gave it 3 due to of-course the "outstanding" acting of Finn Jones, between these unwise evaluations here what could been better:

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.

3 - You don't link all the four worlds of them with this silly and very direct way, I mean how the hell you just grab every one and put them in a police station to make sure they will remain safe from the Hand, an organization that _ according to the plot _ have the resources to shape the world, any one did see how ridicules this is?

4 - Basic Rule: if you can eliminate a character from any series without any bad consequences for the viewers then you this character is an invisible liability.

5 - those weren't the most evil empire's leaders, no depth and no darkness at all in them. Reference: Vincent D'Onofrio

6 - Who should we blame for all the evil? no not the Hand, THE WRITERS, The script was lazy, not a smart one, perfunctory.

I really hope they correct this mess in S2, and lets start with make the series a real dark series with enough intelligent plot.

61 out of 88 people found the following review useful:

Had high hopes for this mediocre series

Author: yvettebeaton from Ontario, Canada
19 August 2017

Oh boy....I was so looking forward to this and, unfortunately was disappointed.

'The Hand' are the most boring group of Super Villains ever, nothing about them seems intimidating. And the 'Black Sky'? Yawnnnnn...

Sigourney Weaver and Rosario Dawson; both wonderful actresses, are completely wasted in this.

The plot was dull, something could have been done with an earthquake- like event but like everything else was a huge letdown.

The actors do the best they can with mediocre material but two characters are just plain annoying: Danny Rand and Misty. Every time either of those two come on screen I want to fast forward; they're both in constant serious/panic mode but neither actor's performance made me care about them.

And the 'Iron Fist'? Worst. Superpower. Ever.

Jessica Jones rolled her eyes throughout the entire 8 episodes and I have to say I agree with her.

58 out of 86 people found the following review useful:

Grotesquely disappointing

Author: Akwel from Sweden
20 August 2017

Everything about this mash-up feels rushed, the heroes themselves are pale shadows of themselves(except Iron fist, he's equally bad in this as he is in his own series), the villains are 2-dimensional uncomplicated stereotypes, writing/cinematography and production value in general seems to have been compromised because of time restraint.

Instead of cherry picking the best parts of all shows the creators of this debacle read the description on the back cover of the DVDs and conceived a poor 80s-esque action flick that they stretched out for 8 episodes.

Why don't they take away anything from their own achievements? Daredevil; The amazing fight scenes, overall dark tones, well-rounded villain. Luke Cage; Atmosphere, Soundtrack, Luke Cage style berzerking. Jessica Jones; Mental Struggle, looming but ever present villain. Iron Fist; *Blank* (They took to much from Iron fist actually.)

When you give a great recipe to a sub-par chef on a time-limit the yield is not gonna be fantastic. Give the reins over to someone with a deeper understanding of your already set-up framework.

For the love of god just turn this bad streak around, no more Iron-fist casting or Defenders writing.

68 out of 108 people found the following review useful:

Cheap and badly produced

Author: cherik_mcfassy
18 August 2017

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 unable at times. What a wasted opportunity!

37 out of 53 people found the following review useful:

If you liked daredevil...avoid this rubbish

Author: godspeedilluvia from London
19 August 2017

The only good things about this show was the last few dialogues/scene between daredevil and Electra and stick. Guys it is bad: I kid you not. I loved DD 1 and 2, Jessica Jones and even half of Luke cage. Who ever made the horrible iron fist probably made this too and made it worse at that. Guys there is no further character development. No new villains. A repetition of most of what we've seen in iron-fist/DD with respect to 'The Hand'. Weaver added nothing but her credentials to this show. The class of kingpin , the fight scene cinematography DD is so famous for was no where. It seemed like all the heroes had to have a dialogue even when it was completely unnecessary. All the supporting cast especially Claire did not need to be in more than one episode but they squeezed them in with a few lines every episode which made the show even more stupid. The supporting cast even kept repeating their same insanely stupid lines.The awesome Electra/daredevil chemistry that drove season 2 was publicly molested throughout this excuse for a show as the makers clearly knew that was all they could bank on. Do not make season 2 or at least change the director and kill off Danny rand. I'd rather see sequels Of daredevil, JJ and Luke cage then this pile of .....Avoid it guys or just watch the last episode: I promise that will be enough.

35 out of 51 people found the following review useful:

A bit better than Iron fist but still a mess and disaster

Author: otto-hu
19 August 2017

*** This review may contain spoilers ***

This show does not live up to the hype.

For starters, the pacing is slow. Storytelling is inconsistent. The whole plot is a silly mess. The fight scenes are slightly better than Iron fist considering Iron fist has the worst stunt works in all the Marvel Netflix shows. This is spoken from a huge marvel fan who watched every movie and series Marvel has to offer. I loved both seasons of DD, Luke Cage was watchable, but not so much for the other Netflix series. Especially the more recent Iron fist. Well this show bothers me in similar ways Iron fist did. Characters say and do things that doesn't have any meanings and doesn't contribute anything to the story. Every time Iron fist speaks I want to give up the show. The characters make decisions that make no senses at all. Below are some of them.

***spoiler here***

Why would they tie Iron fist up? Instead they could come up with a simpler and better plan like using him as a bait and ambush the enemies.

Why would Iron fist use his fist in front of the wall? Yeah Denny Rand is a dumb character and we have to somehow break the wall right?

Why would they decide to blow up the building? It just doesn't sound like what Daredevil would do, and the setup is silly. Couldn't them beat up people down there then blow it up?

The hand respect the defenders that much that they don't use guns in the final battle?

Why would Matt or Daredevil stay in the hole at all? They already beat most of the enemies. They could just knock Elektra out and carry her up. They are four super people against one.

The heroes keeps information from the police force because they think the police is incapable of dealing with the hand, but they send their cared ones to the police station for protection from the hand. This is just pathetically stupid and insulting. I don't believe the police force can't fight the hand in this show since the hand is nowhere as intimidating as in DD season 2. Even if the hand is so powerful, what harm would it cause to inform the police and make a proper plan of attack with them?

How could the public accept and believe that there is an evil organization that dug a deep hole under the building to extract dragon bones so the heroes have to blow up the building to prevent the city from collapsing? Say they did, the heroes still ruined billions of dollars of property and they just get away with their lives and not feeling guilty at all?

There is so many other dumb moments that I can't quite describe.

Also BTW, how the heck did Matt survive it at the end. I mean the hole is like half the building deep? He would at least suffocate because the whole building collapsed right?

***spoiler ends***

There are also some not so interesting sub lines that make me fast forward. I was bored out of my mind about the Claire and Colleen story line and the stuff about the cops.

The show is very forced and rushed. The writer was probably started with objectives like: make the four heroes come together; they have to fight a strong army; there has to be conflicts and fights between the heroes cause those are eye catchers; none of the heroes should die cause they are money etc. However, the villains were weak, the conflicts were stupid. Almost of the executions failed so we have this pile of bs.

There are a couple clever things they pulled off. The color themes for each hero's shots was pretty cool. How they got the heroes together was meh but acceptable, though a bit too few about how Matt/DD. It's understandable but overall the heroes are all shallower than they were in their own shows except Iron fist, because even his own show sucked.

In the end I'll say save the time watching this show. The Marvel Netflix TV series have fallen.

20 out of 22 people found the following review useful:

Disappointed

Author: jefcon1201 from United States
20 August 2017

After waiting patiently for months this series was a disappointment. I enjoyed Daredevil, Jessica Jones and Luke Cage. Iron Fist wasn't what I thought it should have been but I made allowances for a first effort. And while I appreciate the difficulty in bringing all of these together, I think the effort was lacking. The story line was boring. The bickering among the main characters got to be totally annoying. The relative strengths of the characters powers seemed out of proportion to each other most of the time. And my biggest problem with the whole thing was the fact that most of it was so dark you couldn't see what was happening. I don't know if they were trying to hide cheap sets or sloppy stunt work but please turn on a light once in a while!

45 out of 72 people found the following review useful:

This isn't the Avengers for TV

Author: Soulpunch
18 August 2017

*** This review may contain spoilers ***

For the show that could have been the culmination of everything build up in the other Marvel Netflix shows, it felt very hollow, and not true to its beginning.

Most of the show is bickering, and contrived misunderstandings, with very little actual plot movement. It seems the show is scared to have us actually root for all the heroes at the same time.

But what kills the show, is its lack of focus. Hopefully this is only a rocky start, to a better future of hero team ups, on the small screen.

Ohh, and don't expect to see the Punisher, like I did.

52 out of 86 people found the following review useful:

Meh

Author: nate-wilson618
18 August 2017

*** This review may contain spoilers ***

Boring, with every character whining and arguing with each other until the very last episode. Luke Cage is as preachy as he was in his show, Iron Fist is as oblivious and immature as in his show, Daredevil was just OK and never the main attraction just as in his own show, and Jessica Jones, well I like Jessica Jones. I've waited as long as every marvel fan has been for this show only to be thoroughly let down. I gave it a five star only because I'm a sucker for superheroes, but I probably shouldn't be so kind.

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