Reviews: Netflix's 'Iron Fist' Isn't Worth The Weekend Binge
Netflix opened its Marvel collaboration with a string of 4 good to great seasons of television: Daredevil season one and two, and seasons one of Jessica Jones and Luke Cage. Alas, the streak has been broken — the newest entrant, mystical martial arts show Iron Fist, is a disappointing dud— with a 33 on Metacritic and a 14% on Rotten Tomatoes at the moment. Here's what those reviews have to say.
'Iron Fist' Is Thinly-Sketched, To Say The Least
While Daredevil is the vigilante, Jessica Jones is the noir-style detective and Luke Cage is the neighborhood champion, Iron Fist remains the least defined and therefore blandest addition to the team so far.
The number of basic character archetypes absent in Iron Fist is baffling. There's no villain, but there's also no comic relief or voice of wise authority and well-delivered exposition. There's nobody you like spending time watching.
And we've mostly seen it all before anyway:
[W]e're stuck with a show that feels disappointingly rote, despite a few charms. There's precious little here that we haven't seen before, and in an entertainment landscape saturated with superhero storytelling, that's both a crippling flaw and an unforced error.
[Vulture]
It's Wildly Boring
There's a difference between the (rightfully) exalted "Slow TV" movement and what I could call Stagnant TV. Unfortunately, too much of Marvel's Netflix universe has fallen into the latter category. By focusing so intently on making these series… much more grounded in a gritty real world than what we typically expect from a superhero show (like DC's candy-colored series on The CW), the problem is that they miss out on the key element: this should be fantastical entertainment.
[Collider]
On a more general level, these episodes just flat out boring, saddled with bad exposition, interminable pacing, and a blatant identity crisis that appears to have created a mystical martial arts action show that's petrified to discover that it is a mystical martial arts action show. To be fair, every one of the Marvel Netflix show's so far has had problems like these, like brief lapses in characterization or especially their myriad pacing issues. But they all had something to override those issues and ultimately make them compelling to watch.
[io9]
The Fight Scenes — A Strength Of 'Daredevil' And 'Luke Cage' — Are Lame
The action scenes throughout the first six episodes are few and far between, and when they come, they're filmed and edited in a manner where it becomes hard to tell what Danny is doing, or if he's remotely the brilliant fighter he's being sold as. The first few fights have all the actors, Jones in particular, moving so slowly and tentatively, it feels like they filmed the first rehearsal and moved on. I wanted to write that off as the show's way of demonstrating that Danny is so good, he barely needs to make an effort against civilians — an approach that served Luke Cage well at times — but later fights aren't any more impressive, even if Danny is moving slightly faster.
[Uproxx]
[T]he fight scenes in this martial arts hero show are, well, bland. Nothing in these episodes approaches what Luke Cage or either season of Daredevil did by combining choreography, cinematography and emotional stakes into scenes that riveted the viewer. An entire episode about Danny fighting Themed Assassins was barely worth sitting forward in your seat for.
[Polygon]
Jessica Henwick's Colleen Is A Bright Spot
The clear treasure of Iron Fist so far, however, is Jessica Henwick's Colleen Wing—Danny's future partner in his mission to take out the Hand—even when the series consistently trips her up to remind us that Danny is a Very Special White Male Protagonist… Six episodes in, I'm already longing for Colleen to be the actual hero of Iron Fist.
[io9]
This character deficit is made most clear when the series introduces and intermittently focuses on Jessica Henwick's Colleen Wing, who is not only more compelling than Danny, but she has also been given a clear and obtainable want. Colleen is fully immersed in the world of martial arts, so when a subplot is introduced that requires she use her fighting skills, it does so in a way that complicates the character's story physically, emotionally, and ethically. The idea is familiar, especially in the world of superheroes, but at least it gives Colleen and Iron Fist a reason to throw some much-needed punches.
TL;DR
[Y]ou get what could be Iron Fist's alternate tagline: come for the fights, but stay for the corporate litigation!
[Collider]
Watch The Trailer