2 out of 5

Created by: Cheo Hodari Coker

covers season 1

Howdy y’all, Marvel fan here.  Not a fanboy who’s Marvel uber alles – I hardly have much Marvel or DC on my pull-list nowadays – and not one who’s ready to line up and rally for the MCU, just a (-n almost) lifelong comic reader who’s generally empathized more with Spidey than Batman and who’s happy to see comics get their big / little screen dues, however flawed.  It’s a similar kind of fandom that led me to see Mortal Kombat in the theater multiple times, despite not being, in any way, a player of the game, and it’s a similar kind if fandom that gives me mixed feelings when cinematic success seeps back in to influence the comics, and/or when a giant financial win – e.g. Marvel – triggers other potential awesomeness to get un-awesomely shaped to be the same (but marketably different, e.g. DC’s thus far movie universe attempts).

Financials have run this game forever though, which is why it wraps back around to something pretty basic: I’m glad the media formats I love are getting wider acceptance (acknowledging that it’s exactly that it’s my generation of comic readers and game players, now powerful and spendy enough to influence decisions, who are helping this happen), and I’ll gladly watch a million Luke Cages and Batman v. Supermans while the pot is still hot.

That bias established, when this whole rigmarole was just getting started – phase one, agents of SHIELD – Luke Cage is more in line with what I expected, and, sincerely, it’s what I continue to approach Marvel (or translated comic book properties in general) expecting: Cheesy soap opera, flashy but empty style, and a fair amount of painful fan wanking.  Luke Cage, thus, is pretty much exactly what I expect, only it further wings itself to below average by trying to (admittedly out of necessity) blend that fan wank with some ineffective racial commentary and race wanking, if mine white, white sensibilities are capable of discerning such.  It bites off a lot, in other words, but man, it does not have the writing or lead actor to back it up.  So I’ll try to separate, to a certain extent, the quality of the show and the commentary considerations – though the very fact that they do feel separate enough to merit different conversations is one of the series’ failings –  and offer hopefully brief opinions on both.

First the more direct piece: Luke Cage the show.  We can enter into a discussion on what makes a compelling lead character, but we also have centuries of various media to draw upon to prove that the mundane or generic can he elevated to entertainment if the pieces are in the right place, so whether or not the general blahness of the material (as I perceived it) was due to limitations of the source character / text should be ignored: There was enough here to work with, and indeed, at times, that “enough” adds up to a fun and occasionally compelling show.  More often, though, the script was pretty lame.  Which was a clear hindrance to the actors, causing some standout stars like Simone Missick (as Misty Knight) and Mahershala Ali (as Cottonmouth) to have to chew on really base or repetitive dialogue.  The latter descriptor there was an odd sticking point: Over exposition is common enough in TV (“let me state out loud our history and what we’re currently doing to give the viewer context”), but Cage (the show) would often overly-exposit the same information twice in one conversation.  It felt like multiple takes that the editor / director thought were equally effective and so left them in.  This was so over-stated that I actually rewound a few times to see if I had missed some context…  Add to this the general turgidness of the plot: A struggle for street power that tries its damnedest to rope Cage (the character) in – and though the “friend caught in the crossfire” trick is cliche, it works with the show’s initial stoicism, which, when actually applied, is great – and the roiling family drama between thug-done-well Cottonmouth and crooked political candidate Black Mariah (Alfre Woodard).  The latter is laid on thick, but thanks to an amazing performance by Ali, it starts to work, and there’s a burbling show-off pending between his growing emotional instability and Cage’s need to see his streets clean.  Luke Cage finally gains ground when these mechanics are in motion: Reluctant street hero, slow-burn ganglord breakdown; but it decides to toss that shit out the window in favor of some deux ex machina Cage-killer bullets and a new villain.

On io9 there was an excellent roundtable discussion that suggested the show was purposefully trying to bridge between two genres of black cinema – blaxspoitation and the modern gangster epic as represented by Belly, and so perhaps we are to read the scene-chewing of the second act as a nod to the former, but it’s simply not enacted with the grace to make it work, or convincing cheek to make it clever.  All it does is ruin the buildup, and then tries to balance the ridiculousness by putting our lead through the ringer via life-threatening comic science.  And while the “point” of the first half only barely manages to peek around the corner during that buildup, the point of the second half – character motivations – is completely non-existent or non-sensical, with each pontificating villain speech making that more and more clear.  I understand the problem with providing a threat for invincible super heroes – Luke Cage has impervious skin and super-strength – and I can also understand the creators’ need to differentiate from the previous Marvel shows (Daredevil, Jessica Jones) which already approached the inner-turmoil hero concept, but I go back to my original point: We’ve told the same stories for years and have managed to continually make them interesting.  The cinematic interpretation of Luke doesn’t want to he a hero, but he’s not self-destructive like his fellow soon-to-be-Defenders; there would have been plenty to work with had the show not diverted into antics, or, alternately, had they woven the antics in throughout.   May have required some more subtlety in the style and script, though, which was not the show’s forte.

A criticism which we’ll lump into: All the rest.  Let’s start with the music.  The theme: Awesome.  The score: An awesome sounding mismatch.  Firstly, whether it’s an unintended side-effect of the mixing or the score is actually limited, it really only sounds like we hear two music stings throughout Cage: contemplative church organ, and a jive-talkin’ 70s ramblin’ wah-wah jam.  Taking a cue from the production design, which is much more colorful than what’s come before, the “spirit” of the look and sound is spot on.  But, like the similar unedited dialogue approach, there’s a disconnect that ends up occurring: The score never feels like it’s actually (or rarely) in sync with what’s actually happening.  Part of that is the repetition, which cheapens the themes, but the bigger part is the show feeling modern and the music going for anachronism.  It felt scored based on intention and not content.  But maybe that’s also due to lead actor Mike Colter, who worked well when played against Krysten Ritter’s Jessica Jones’ animatedness, but when required to do more than look debonair, he pretty much completely falls flat.  Whether its “screaming” in “rage” at the travesties around him, or “acting pained” at the bullets twisting in his flesh, or spouting poorly-scripted rhetoric on his rhymes and reasons, or even “acting unphased” during the fight scenes, not a single moment convinced me I was watching a character and not an actor playing a character.  Colter looks the part, but he simply can’t carry the lead.  And while the writing 101 script doesn’t do anyone any favors – and the possible lack of concise direction confuses people we know can act, like Woodard – everyone else brings something to their part except Colter.  Even his swagger felt forced, and I have to say that perception carries over into the way he represents himself during interviews.  I just don’t feel that connection to character.  Which sucks, of course.  Stepping back to focus on the director’s part in this, with such a wishy-washy script, Theo Rossi (as villain sidekick ‘Shades’) and Woodard definitely needed a better indication on how to pitch their roles.  Shades varies too much between behind-the-scenes manipulator and petulant underling to come across as an effective foil, and Alfre seems confused with how corny she’s supposed to play her role for the first 8 episodes or so, leading to an odd hesitation in her delivery.  Missick and Ali have meatier parts with more emotional shades and those actors manage to save the scenes most of the time through bravado performances, but man I wish they’d been gifted quality material to match.

More?  Let’s end Criticism Part One on the fight choreography.  Cage can’t be hurt, and he hurts a ton.  The io9 post review makes a good point of explaining how the fight scenes are sort of purposefully lazy, then, as all Cage has to do is slap someone and they’re dead, and I do agree with that, but again we have a couple of factors that end up not making it work: A lack of believable response from Coker and lack consideration for pseudo-science, and maybe those go hand-in-hand.  We understand this stuff is fake, but it’s a big immersion breaker all the same when it’s too fake, akin to the CGI monster that has no weight in its surroundings.  Our eyes just see too many discrepancies.  And that was true here: There was never any blowback from the force Cage generated, i.e. he was too clearly never generating any force (the hand-in-hand is that Coker – as directed or not – never embellishes any of the scenes, or never does so convincingly, so we don’t even get good pretend wind-ups or reactions).  And if I try to hit you with a board and it shatters, well, that force transfers somewhere also, but not in Luke Cage.  It’s not real, but you should try a bit harder to convince us.

With all of that unloaded, let me transition to the next bit by saying that I’m glad Marvel made this show.  It was important that Marvel made this show.  Even if we could call it a bid to cash in on the current “trend” of a hot button issue, it doesn’t matter: They went out and hired a showrunner with genre credibility (series creator Coker did his time as a music journalist and wrote the Notorious B.I.G. biopic Notorious) and he in turn brought on a team of notable names from that same genre.  The soundtrack is heavy into soul and hip-hop, leaning toward classics, and there are lots of unexplained references and slang.   And pause for a minute to consider what it means that “nigger” could be used in a Marvel show, multiple times, and without excessive contextualization.  While overall I didn’t feel this attempt – at mixing commentary with cultural forthrightness – worked, its heart was in the right place, and is a worthwhile step toward some eventual project that will be a lot more natural.  Because it wasn’t natural, alas.  All of the elements mentioned above were generally so grandiosely presented  you’d be forgiven for assuming that some white bread yokel was given an urban handbook and told to include a quota of references.  And I haven’t viewed / read Coker’s other works to say if this over-statedness was preexisting or not, but in Luke Cage, it’s a lot of say a phrase or point something out and then pause for effect.  When the show isn’t spotlighting this stuff and tries to speak to it – about black communities, the cops’ and city’s bias’, discussions on that n-word – it never really finishes the conversation.  It doesn’t shy away from them, but the point is said aloud and then dropped, like vocalizing it is enough.  It might have been – this is entertainment, after all – if there wasn’t such a clear line dividing the show’s identities.  Jessica Jones played its cards with gender, but it was so central to the story that it made sense.  Here, Luke Cage tries to do the same with race, but it really just wants to be a 70s action flick.  …And then there was the “responsibility” to do more, thus getting wedged into the story’s buildup and any leftover nooks and crannies.  Wedged in rather obtrusively, pieces sticking out and whatnot.

Had Luke Cage not come bundled with issues-of-the-time, perhaps the creators would’ve been able to smooth out their vision, and paint or more cohesive picture that successfully blended cool with commentary.  I don’t think they could overcome Colter’s over- and under-acting, but a less jerky script may have been able to let him play the silent, strong type and work the narration around him.  Maybe.  But: Would there be a Lule Cage if not for these bundles-of-the-time?  Probably not.  Someone had to go first, and I think it’s pretty cool that that first was part of a huge television property.  So the vision may be flawed, and flawed to the point of failing on both sides of the entertainment / think piece coin, but the effort is obviously there, peeking through in stylistic flourishes and some standout performances.