Hoooray for Hollywood!
Wonder Man
All eight episodes debut Tuesday, January 27, only on Disney Plus.
Created by Destin Daniel Cretton (Marvel's Shang-Chi and the Legend of the Ten Rings, 2011) and Andrew Guest (Marvel's Hawkeye), the series leans terribly hard on the idea that life in Hollywood is intrinsically fascinating to audiences worldwide.
Perhaps when Marvel Comics' Wonder Man first went to Hollywood in 1981, the premise of a superpowered individual seeking success as a struggling actor was far more intriguing. Actually, a superpowered individual starring in action movies of the era sounds like a natural fit.
Decades later, however, the life of a struggling actor has been examined, dissected, triumphed and disparaged dozens of times in movies and television shows; the only unique angle might be the idea of a superpowered actor making a splash. Rather than amplify that idea, creators Cretton and Guest decide to focus on a struggling actor named Simon Williams (Yahya Abdul-Matteen II), whose utmost devotion to his craft -- call it perfectionism, call it The Method, call it outright lunacy -- costs him one job after another in modern Hollywood.
And when Simon's strangely superior strength begins escaping his control and manifesting in great physical damage, he does everything he can to keep it a secret, which returns the focus to the life of a struggling actor, which is no longer inherently fascinating.
The two stars, however, together with the supporting players, put all their considerable talents into making the series as watchable as possible. Yahya Abdul-Matteen II is terrific at capturing an actor's overriding desire to make his character as believable and authentic as possible, even if the casting agents stop calling.
Ben Kingsley reprises his role as Trevor Slattery from Iron Man 3 (2013) and Shang-Chi and the Legend of the Ten Rings (2021), and is an utter delight. He may not have found any success in Hollywood, but Kingsley is such an incredible actor that when he casually performs Shakespeare, it's mesmerizing.
The narrative arc of the series follows Simon and Trevor as they audition for multiple roles, including a remake of a (fictional) past Wonder Man film, to be helmed by an Academy Award-winning director, Von Kovak (Zlatko Buric). Simon's extreme acting has frustrated his long-suffering agent, Janelle Jackson (X Mayo), and Trevor has a handler who is also frustrated by him, but for entirely different reasons that are best left for the viewer to discover.
Individual episodes are enjoyable enough on their own, though binging the series brings little reward over watching them individually. (The recaps before each episode suggest that the show was not made for binging.) The series was made under Marvel's Spotlight banner, meant to cover shows that are not filled with wall-to-wall visual effects; the only previous series with the banner is Echo, which moved quite nicely for a five-episode series, though it had a wider cast of characters.
Wonder Man is not bad, by any means, but it remains resolutely average in the action sequences and narrative twists, bolstered by the performances, which are the signature elements that make it rise above what might be expected.