Back when Netflix announced that they would be doing a bunch of Marvel properties, culminating in a Defenders series, I was happy to see Daredevil would kick it off. I'm not as excited for the other ones. I don't know much about Jessica Jones. Luke Cage seems like a good fit, and Iron Fist might be kind of fun. But Daredevil is the only one of them I was genuinely excited about.
What I want is Moon Knight. And I would rather see a Spider-Man series than another movie for him. The Death of Jean DeWolff? That would be a fantastic crossover story.
So I was excited, but I didn't have specific hopes in mind.
I was happy to see that the episodes are typically around a solid hour long. The running time, combined with the structure of a season on Netflix, gives the show an unrushed quality. There are character scenes that rely on compelling delivery, particularly with Fisk. It's luxurious.
I've watched the series twice now. It's just as good the second time through.
I have a few complaints.
1. The color palette. It's usually appropriate for the series, but it isn't conducive to watching it. I had to watch it in a darkened room at night in order to tell what was happening in the darker scenes. The tinting for annoying over time.
2. The hand-held camera approach. This was the weirdest thing, since the action is normally really well done. It's choreographed well. Some of the camera work is fantastic, gliding the camera in close quarters, timing the action around it perfectly. Then... during stretches of dialogue, the camera would stay mostly stationary, but move around a bit. I didn't mind this at first. It usually depends on where you focus your eyes, but it became more annoying the second time through.
3. There is one plot decision that really bothered me. I can't say much about it, since it involved a character dying that I didn't expect to get killed off. They are fairly important in the long run, and I don't know how well they thought that through.
The action is great. The biggest problem with it is that the greatest action sequence happens in the second episode, and I don't see how any other ones will top it.
There are plenty of tiny easter eggs for Marvel fans, but none of them are really important to following the story.
The Kingpin came out as a much more fantastic character than he's been in the comics. My appreciation for the performance increased over time.
