The basic plot of the series is that Simon Williams, a very modestly successful actor, hears about an upcoming Wonder Man movie, reviving a franchise he loved as a kid. With the help of fellow actor Trevor Slattery, he works hard to land the lead role and not get in his own way, which is what has been the primary reason he hasn't become more successful already.
That's it. No major villains, no end of the world scenarios, no superhero origin story. One guy, trying to get his dream job.
In a lot of ways, this doesn't feel like an MCU project because of that. The past several years of movies and shows have been this interconnected web of continuity, and there was a lot cross-referencing plots and story arcs. While Wonder Man is clearly and overtly connected to the MCU -- primarily via Ben Kingsley's protrayal of Trevor -- the smaller, human nature scale of the story grounds things in a way that make it feel somewhat separate from the MCU.
What also separates the show is that there's very little in the way of super powers. They establish he does have them in the first ten minutes or so of the show, but it's something he tries hard to keep under wraps. (More on that in a bit.) The impact this has on the show is 1) I'm sure the visual effects people were relieved they didn't have another She-Hulk situation on their hands where every second the character was on-screen meant hours and hours of computer work, and 2) it more importantly puts the focus on the character development, and not the theatrics. And that they've got Yahya Abdul-Mateen II and Kingsley in the two lead roles is what really sells the series.
Because of the story's focus on character, that puts the onus of success very much in the hands of Abdul-Mateen's and Kingsley's performances. They don't have special effects or even flashy costumes to hide behind; Simon is in a sweatshirt and jeans for much of the show! And they both deliver some excellent performances, especially when they're able to play off one another. The actors seem to have a chemistry as much as their characters are supposed to. Of course, Kingsley has a long enough history of great performances that I don't think anyone would doubt his abilities, but I was particularly impressed with Abdul-Mateen. His heartfelt moments were indeed quite heartfelt, but what struck me too was his ability to intentionally depict a mediocre performance. The character is an actor, so Abdul-Mateen is repeatedly required to act like he's acting. But not acting badly; he can't take it to that extreme. It has to be a performance that would work well enough to get him acting gigs with speaking roles on a TV show, but not so good that he outperforms the ostensible star of said show. It strikes me as a very fine line, and Abdul-Mateen walks it well.
This does lead me to one of the issues I had with the show, though. Namely, that there was a not insubstantial part of it that did feel a little too inside-Hollywood. Again, with Simon as a working actor, we're going to see a lot of usually-behind-the-scenes stuff like auditions and rehersals and contract discussions and such, and that's fine. But there also seemed to be a number of elements that were added in seemingly narcissistic, self-referential manner mostly for the amusement of other people who work in Hollywood. The inclusion of Joe Pantoliano, for example, doesn't add much to the story -- it does add some depth to Kingsley's character, but the one or two lines that do that don't warrant an entire third of an episode. (Pantoliano's performance is fine, by the way. The issue I have is more about the scene's inclusion in the first place, not its execution.)
That was the big stand-out in that respect but there were other lines and references I caught that felt like they were included for the sake of people who work in Hollywood, and most of the audience wouldn't catch. Beyond just phrasing and lingo to make it seem authentic. I know enough about writing and performing that I caught some of them, but I strongly suspect the whole self-tape studio sequence has slew of in-jokes that I completely missed.
Along those lines, the show overtly references -- and tries to parallel in some ways -- the movie Midnight Cowboy. While that is indeed a piece of classic cinema, do audiences today know it at all? It was an X-rated film in 1969, so to have seen it in theaters when it came out, you'd have to be at least in your 70s now. And it doesn't seem like the type of film most people would come to casually; it's not exactly an uplifting, feel-good movie so the people who seek it out are doing so for its cinematic merits, not because they want something to zone out on after a long week at work. So even with the overt references to the movie here, they seem more self-referential.
I also felt the "Doorman" episode was entirely unnecesary. There's a couple references earlier in the show about how it's almost impossible to be an actor with superpowers because of a "Doorman Clause." The "Doorman" episode explains that through a flashback with the character Doorman. While it was kind of interesting to see a D-list character like Doorman get an MCU appearance, the entire episode could've been covered with a couple of additional lines of dialogue. We didn't need an entire episode to go off on a tangent about characters that aren't involved in the main plot AT ALL.
To offer some praise in the same vein of "stuff that I expect most viewers won't catch," I quite liked how they leaned into Simon's Haitian-American background. Obviously, the comic version of the character is Caucasian, but there's never been anything about him that was strictly racially driven. So conceptually, the race-flipping for the show doesn't detract from any character elements from the comics. But what I found pleasantly surprising was some of the subtle layering that helped to round out the character. Some of it was small stuff, like when he made a casual reference to his agent about code-switching or the brief shot of family members donating clothes in a plastic barrel to send back to Haiti when they visit Simon's mother. Stuff that goes by quickly enough that it probably doesn't even register for viewers who don't get it, but will absolutely look/sound more authentic to those that do. Even the thematic notion of Simon having to keep his powers in check when he gets angry has some racial undertones to it for people of color. (Go back and read my piece on the Hulk metaphor for more on that idea.)
Despite my criticisms, though, I rather enjoyed Wonder Man overall. It's a unique take on superheroes for the MCU, and it stands out as both very much centered in the world built in and around superheroes but very grounded in its avoidance in showcasing that. A show like Daredevil is grounded in its street level realism. Daredevil has powers but they're not grand or showy, and his primary villain is basically just a mob boss. And it takes the approach that "grounded" means "gritty" -- that you're seeing the dirt and grime that inhabits the real world. Wonder Man isn't dirty like that. Simon's apartment is a little messy, but the world for him is still pretty clean superficially. At least the parts that matter; the dishes are done, they're just not put away. He's in a world where your co-workers see the nice wall of books behind you on your Zoom call, but not the absolute disorganized mess of life just off camera.
There's a lot of Hollywood shown in Wonder Man, and we all know the stereotypical artifice of that. But isn't that what we all do? We present our life's highlight reel on social media while in reality we're scrambling to get the dog walked and the car fixed and didn't-I-just-buy-AA-batteries-where-the-hell-are-they all while maintaining a day job that leaves us too exhausted to do anything over the weekend besides crashing on the couch. I think that's the grounded reality of Wonder Man. The show has some really fun moments, just like we do in life, and it's got messy family drama, just like we do in life, and it's got that one friend who does okay but just can't quite get his act together, just like we have in real life. It's a good show. It could be a bit tighter in places, but it's solid. It's more focused on character than any Marvel show since Moon Knight, I think, and definitely makes for a nice -- and unique -- addition to the MCU.
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