thebahamasweekly.com - This Mediocre Netflix Series Is An Absent-Minded Misstep For Marvel

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This Mediocre Netflix Series Is An Absent-Minded Misstep For Marvel
By Rouén Robinson
Mar 18, 2017 - 5:39:24 PM

The Final Defender Arrives...

The presumed dead heir to a billion dollar company returns years after a plane crash in a foreign land to reconnect with his past and reclaim his family’s legacy. With his newly acquired ability to tap into the power of an ancient creature, he fights against the corruption in his family’s corporation and the city at large.

Daniel ‘Danny’ Rand is the orphaned child who has spent 15 years training to be the Iron Fist in the mystical city of K’un-Lun and must now fight to reclaim his identity in the modern world. Colleen Wing is the owner of a martial arts dojo in New York City who becomes Danny’s ally as she fights hard to keep her safe haven for the youth of the area operational. Ward & Joy Meachum are the brother and sister corporate team who are responsible for building up Rand Enterprises into a global brand and are unsure about Danny’s identity. Harold Meachum is the cutthroat corporate overseer who was partner’s with Danny’s parents at the time of their deaths and has been guiding the company secretly after his own apparent death.

Marvel’s Iron Fist is a sad example of a series that lacks direction and because of this we are forced to participate in a boring journey of discovery that is lackluster and anti-climactic. It feels like Marvel did with this Netflix series what Warner Bros. has been doing with their DC Extended Universe and rushed a product out so they could get to a grander product that it is a part of. I find myself comparing this series to the CW’s Arrow and wishing they had gone the route of showing us more of his time in K’un-Lun along with the struggle of him coping with the world he now finds himself in. Of course, I would probably have complained about them copying that structure but I am sure it would have been better than the slow paced season presented. Finn Jones & Jessica Henwick along with filling the Game Of Thrones cast member quota that productions seem to have now are also the worst and best thing about the show. The Danny Rand character is played a little too bland to truly engage the audience so it falls on the Colleen Wing character to keep viewers interested and intrigued by the reasons for her shift in allegiance. Showrunner Scott Buck does a run-of-the-mill job of giving this property an identity apart from being the weakest link in the Marvel Netflix franchise of shows. I hope that Marvel’s plan was to lower our expectations with this series so The Defenders series that comes after it will feel like a phenomenal crossover television event.

I rate this series a rating of 2.5 out of 5.

On Netflix

See other reviews by Rouén HERE.

Rouén Robinson has been an avid moviegoer since childhood and has been critiquing motion pictures for almost a decade. He has been a film critic for The Cinemas on Tempo and was a judge for FLIFF On Location: Grand Bahama Island, an off shoot of the Fort Lauderdale International Film Festival (FLIFF). Rouén lives in Grand Bahama and can be reached at redr1976@icloud.com and on Twitter @thereelrouen