Marvel's Luke Cage Season 2 Review: 4 Ups And 5 Downs

3. The Lacklustre Action

Luke Cage's action style is based around efficiency. This isn't Daredevil where he's going to be spinning and kicking his way around, but instead he wants to bludgeon his opponents in the quickest way possible. And while that is fitting with the character, it does nothing to make the action sequences memorable or particularly interesting to watch.

Bushmaster, who does adopt a more martial arts based approach, fares a little better, but his style only serves to highlight the slow, ponderous nature of Luke's own fighting, and means even their clashes lack the requisite excitement. Instead, it feels like they're in there because the fight scenes were a pre-requisite, rather than something we really need to see because of how visually interesting or narratively important they are.

The closest it comes to succeeding on this front is, ironically, when it involves characters from Iron Fist. A brief Luke Cage/Danny Rand team-up shows potential, and even more so does a bar brawl involving Misty Knight and Colleen Wing, which should at least have execs thinking about a Daughters of the Dragon series.