Wednesday, March 29, 2017

Iron Fist: "Shadow Hawk Takes Flight"

Better, I guess? But still not good.
Two episodes in, Iron Fist still has problems at both the conceptual and execution levels.

The execution is still a mess. The acting is still ranging from workmanlike at best, to straight up bad at worst. Tony Pelphrey's Ward Meacham is particularly tough to watch - a character defined by daddy issues and assholery, played without any subtlety at all. But everyone seems to be just going through the motions. None of the ccharacters pop. The second episode was almost stolen by a dude playing a stock psychiatrist role because he was slightly appealing.

The fight choreography in the first episode wasn't great, but at least it was CW Superhero Show level good. The second episode, not so much. I mean, yeah, one of the fights was supposed to be clumsy, and it definitely succeeded at that, but still, none of them were exciting and compelling.

There's also a weird conflict between the mystical, er, intradimensional martial arts ideas and the drab, low-affect tone of the series. It reminds me of how the DCCU completely misunderstands what it means to be "grounded". It's just off-putting.

But I did say this episode is better, and it is, mainly because Danny Rand is generally less creepy and shitty to every single person he meets and, while he doesn't exactly make good decisions here either, he at least makes fewer decisions overall so he makes fewer bad ones. Progress!

At this rate, all I can hope for is that this series takes Iron Fist to the point where he's at least a tolerable character in The Defenders.

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