The Defenders Early Review Round-Up: Here's What Critics Are Saying

In a couple of weeks, Netflix is poised to drop another Marvel series. The Defenders will finally team up for their long-awaited miniseries, and San Diego Comic Con attendees were lucky enough to screen the show’s first episode ahead of its premiere. Press sites have now gotten their hands on the first-half of The Defenders, and reviews are starting trickling out.

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So far, it looks like The Defenders will be a bit of a slow burn, but it should stoke into a full-on fire by its latter-half.

You can check out nuggets of various reviews for The Defenders in the slides below, but ComicBook also has its thoughts on the show. Charlie Ridgely was on-site at San Diego Comic Con, and he had this to say about the first episode of The Defenders:

“The first episode of The Defenders is a bit of a slow burn, setting up what’s to come from the entire series. All of the acting is excellent, with Finn Jones showing a ton of improvement on his previous outing. The color scheme and editing are the stand out stars of the show, proving that the technical side of television can truly make or break a series. The Defenders didn’t come together in episode one, but there’s a lot of potential heading into the other episodes. Very, very solid start.”

Empire

“From Day One, when Netflix and Marvel first heralded a set of series based on some of the comic-book company’s fringe superheroes, we knew this was coming. And just as the early MCU movies teased the Avengers over four years, so its smaller-scale small-screen cousin has been gradually, inexorably building up to a crossover that sees Daredevil (Charlie Cox), Jessica Jones (Krysten Ritter), Luke Cage (Mike Colter) and Iron Fist (Finn Jones) sharing the frame as the Avengers’ scrappier, grittier, street-level equivalent.

But while Daredevil first streamed only two years ago, it feels as if it’s been a much longer journey than the Avengers’. It’s taken 65 episodes to get here via four shows, whose moments of genius (those long-take Daredevil fight scenes; Luke Cage’s musical numbers and slap-fu; all of Jessica Jones) have been tempered by chunks of frustration (the irritatingly perky Foggy & Karen show; the non-event that was Diamondback; much of Iron Fist). We could but hope The Defenders would put right all the solo-shows’ wrongs — not least the stretching of thin plots over 13-episode structures — while playing to each hero’s super-strengths.” – Empire

Collider

“Let’s start with a truth: The Defenders are much better together than they are apart. And that is why the show doesn’t really come together until they do. Until then, it checks in on our solo-series heroes each in turn: Luke Cage (Mike Colter), Jessica Jones (Krysten Ritter), Matt Murdock (Charlie Cox), and Danny Rand (Finn Jones). Unfortunately, it also kicks off with a pitch-black fight scene starring Danny. Not the way to get people hyped, even if you are an Iron Fist apologist.

If you were hoping that The Defenders, with its short 8-episode run, would rectify some of the issues of the solo series regarding pacing and narrative choices, it does not. But like in those series, there are still things to enjoy. Jessica Jones is again a standout, as the PI’s story is the only one with any forward momentum. She’s still dodging calls to take cases, but she alone has a clear sense of who she is and what she wants to be doing. It’s a marked difference from Matt Murdock, who has retired from his vigilante work but still feels its call, continuing to be deeply conflicted between the man in the mask and the lawyer in a suit. Meanwhile, as encouraged by Misty Knight (Simone Missick), Luke Cage is embracing his role as a hero and a mentor to the youths of his neighbor. And I’ll let Stick (Scott Glenn) introduce where Danny is: “The Immortal Iron Fist, protector of the sacred realm, is still a thundering dumbass.”” – Collider

We Got This Covered

“Five years have passed since Marvel Studios changed the face of franchise filmmaking with The Avengers, the culmination of four separate superhero stories into one epic team-up. Since writer/director Joss Whedon’s film popularized this serialized narrative for big-budget properties, seemingly every studio has begun creating its take, with everything from Warner Bros.’ DC Extended Universe to Universal’s Dark Universe vying to match Marvel’s critical and commercial success (with incredibly mixed results). Now, the company that made shared universes the next big thing is applying that same approach to the small screen with The Defenders.” – We Got This Covered

Decider

“Marvel’s the Defenders has a lot of hype to live up to. Like its big screen predecessor Marvel’s the Avengers, the Netflix series unites four previously solo heroes (Daredevil, Jessica Jones, Luke Cage, and Iron Fist) into a city-saving unit. And while this team-up is on TV, it feels just as big as the 2012 blockbuster. Along the way to this Netflix series, fans have watched five seasons of four other shows. Not only does The Defenders have to be an awesome in its own right, but this eight-episode run has to somehow live up to the 58 hours of television that came before. Going off of the four episodes made available to the press, The Defenders delivers.” – Decider

Coming Soon

“We’ve gotten to know the characters that will become The Defenders in over 60 episodes of television, so we’ve been waiting a long time to see them as a team. Well, there is more waiting to be done. For a show that boasts only eight episodes, it takes an awfully long time to see the superheroes (though Jessica would hate that description) team up. Though we see the first meetings of a few here and there (as you’ve seen in the trailers), we don’t get the final group together until the end of episode three. One could argue that for a show that releases all their episodes at once, this might not seem like a bad decision. You’re not waiting weeks to get watch the next chapter in the story. You can certainly binge watch them all in one night. The thing is, The Defenders takes a very, very meandering path to get there. Sure, that path is full of Sigourney Weaver and cameos from Foggy (Elden Henson), Misty Knight (Simone Missick), Claire Temple (Rosario Dawson), Trish (Rachel Taylor) and Hogarth (Carrie-Anne Moss), but it’s not enough to keep you from yelling at the screen, “Oh, just get them together already!”” – Coming Soon

Washington Post

“”The Defenders” is the type of superhero streaming that we’ve come to expect from Netflix’s live-action Marvel productions. Well worth the wait, the new show is every bit the event that Marvel fans hoped it could be.

The coming together of the streaming service’s four superhero shows — each with varying styles on how to be a hero — works in part because of how they focus on why such a get-together shouldn’t work at all.

But before Daredevil (Charlie Cox), Jessica Jones (Krysten Ritter), Luke Cage (Mike Colter) and Iron Fist (Finn Jones) team up to defend New York City, the producers of the show divide the four into pairs.” – Washington Post

More Defenders News

Marvel’s The Defenders is the miniseries that will bring together all of Marvel’s Netflix stars, including Iron Fist (Finn Jones) Daredevil (Charlie Cox), Jessica Jones (Krysten Ritter), and Luke Cage (Mike Colter), to protect New York City from its greatest threat yet.

Marvel’s The Defenders is developed by Douglas Petrie and Marco Ramirez. The miniseries will also feature Sigourney Weaver as the villain, Alexandra (Sigourney Weaver), and several recurring guest stars from Marvel’s Daredevil, Marvel’s Jessica Jones, Marvel’s Luke Cage, and Marvel’s Iron Fist, including Eka Darville as Malcolm Ducasse, Simone Missick as Misty Knight, Deborah Ann Woll as Karen Page, Elden Henson as Foggy Nelson, Carrie-Anne Moss as Jeri Hogarth, Scott Glenn as Stick, Rachael Taylor as Trish Walker, Rosario Dawson as Claire Temple, and Jessica Henwick as Colleen Wing.