Tuesday, October 18, 2022

(TV SERIES) She-Hulk: Attorney At Law - A Truly Unconventional but Quite Fun Addition to the MCU Series

When I found out that this series was already finished last Friday, I set the target to watch it immediately after completing another series. So two nights ago I started watching it and managed to finish by last night. OK, lets get into the details now.

Brief Story Line

After an incident, Jennifer Walters (Tatiana Maslany - Perry Mason TV series etc) who was working as Assistant DA had gotten the same powers as the Hulk. Although she tried to hide her powers, Jen did not have a choice when danger threatening the life of the people around her. 

While she juggle with her new identity as She-Hulk, Jen started the career as an attorney at a large law firm, accompanied by her paralegal Nikki (Ginger Gonzaga) and supported by another lawyer in her team Augustus Pug (Josh Segarra - AJ and the Queen TV series etc). 

During her work, Jen would have to deal with various clients who usually were people with powers. Things became more complex for Jen when some people were having bad intention on her. So what would happen to Jen and how would the story conclude? You can find out in this series.

End of Brief Story Line

There have been various news surrounding this series, from the comments of the poor CGI, the not so well received story and the various cameos with one particularly famous character which should have been a real excitement for me, but fail to do so because it was mentioned in one of the headline news. So when watching this series, I might have been a bit biased by these information. However, when I watched the first episode, I found myself to be enjoying the series, especially because of the comedic approach and breaking the fourth wall.

I particularly liked the various remarks made by Jen and her interaction with other characters. Oh, the duration of each episode that was only around half hour or so, gave a strong sit-com vibe to this series. But I have to agree with the comments of poor CGI because they were indeed not as good as the ones we usually saw in the Marvel movies. This was pretty surprising considering other series had pretty decent special effects, though perhaps CGI was much more expensive and would only increase the production budget (this fact was hilariously mentioned in one of the episodes).

While I enjoyed the light nature of the series, I somehow felt it to be lacking a large story arc. Every episode felt like focusing on individual case and Jen's struggle of becoming She-Hulk, but there did not seem to be a proper villain or at least not exciting enough. In fact despite the finale to be so anti mainstream and seemed like a proper ending to the series, I personally was not truly satisfied. It made the series felt unlike a proper superhero genre and a bit anticlimactic. Of all the 9 episodes, I liked the first episode as it was the proper origin story and the 8th episode because of that particular character. The rest were quite entertaining and have quite a lot of humor (my wife and I had plenty of laughs when watching this). But we both were especially bored with the 7th episode.

In term of cast performance, I think Tatiana Maslany was very good in portraying Jen who was struggling with her new life as She-Hulk and also the challenges she faced being single and as female lawyer. In addition to the names I mentioned above, there were also the appearances of Jameela Jamil (The Good Place TV series etc) as the influencer Titania, Mark Linn-Baker (Perfect Strangers TV series etc) and Tess Malis Kincaid as Jen's parents Morris & Elaine respectively, RenĂ©e Elise Goldsberry (The House with a Clock in its Wall etc) as lawyer Mallory Book and few others. Obviously there were few MCU characters as part of the cast and cameos (I better let you find out yourselves). Btw in the first few episodes, there was brief, usually funny mid end credit scene, but at latter stage only the finale has got an intriguing scene.

Overall, this series to me was fun and light with various humor and some even pretty hilarious. The breaking of fourth wall was a nice touch (apparently it was the characteristic in the comics) and the performance of the cast were generally OK. The poor CGI might not bother me too much (just a bit surprised), but the lack of large story arc and the anticlimactic ending was the part that did not make me truly satisfied. For a superhero series, this did not feel too strong but as a comedy series, this is pretty good. So I guess it would depend on your view. 

Mike's movie moments rating: 3.5 out of 5 stars

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