She-Hulk Is Fun, But Just Mildly Funny

The new nine-episode Disney+ MCU series She-Hulk: Attorney at Law drops tomorrow, and I was lucky enough to get a preview screening of the first four episodes. Below I will give you a spoiler-free review of the series so far, but the Tl;dr is in the headline. It’s a fun watch that carries one of the worst curses a comedy can be labeled with — it’s amusing.

The story follows Bruce Banner’s cousin Jennifer Walters, a talented Assistant DA in Los Angeles, who as a result of an accident gets the same ability as Bruce and can turn into a hulk. The series is strongly inspired by the second She-Hulk solo comic book series The Sensational She-Hulk, written and drawn initially by John Byrne, and also the 2004 series She-Hulk, written by Dan Slott and drawn by Juan Bobillo and a variety of artists. Going forward, when I refer to She-Hulk, in italics, I mean the Disney+ series, not the comics.

Clocking in at around a half hour per episode, the series is described by Marvel as a comedy lawyer show, with superheroes. She-Hulk definitely has superheroes (if you’ve seen any trailers or commercials, you know that the Hulk (Mark Ruffalo), Wong (Benedict Wong) and even Daredevil (Charlie Cox) are in it. And it certainly has lawyers. What it doesn’t have much of is successful laugh-out-loud comedy. MCU content aside, any given episode of She-Hulk is pretty close to any given episode of Ally McBeal. And it clearly could have been funnier.

The series creator and head writer is Jessica Gao. Her CV includes writing for Robot Chicken, the HBO series Silicon Valley, and serving as executive story editor for a bunch of Rick & Morty episodes — including writing the famous (or infamous) “Pickle Rick” episode. So, she knows comedy. Weirdly, IMDb.com only lists Gao as a writer on the series, but Wikipedia lists Francesca Gailes, Jacqueline J. Gailes, Melissa Hunter, Dana Schwartz, Kara Brown, Zeb Wells, and Cody Ziglar as writers, including identifying which episodes each wrote.

Gao wrote the first episode, and the mid-credits scene (so far, every episode has a mid-credits scene) shows us what this show might have been like. Without spoilers, it is the funniest bit in the first four episodes and pushes the TV-14 rating to its edge.

The problem with the humor isn’t the fault of the cast. Tatiana Maslany as Jen/She-Hulk is her typical talented and charming self. So far, the show doesn’t require her to dig as deep into her acting ability as Orphan Black did, but there is a world of difference in tone between that drama and She-Hulk. Ruffalo could be funny as the Hulk in his sleep at this point, I think. And Tim Roth as Emil Blonsky/Abomination, and Wong as, well, Wong, both do a fine job. But it’s some of the secondary players that really shine.

Steve Coulter as the “H” in the law firm GLK&H, Holden Holliway, is particularly good as Jen’s boss, saying volumes with single lines. Josh Segarra is also a standout as Jen’s coworker Augustus “Pug” Pugliese. And I can’t find anywhere a credit for the actress that plays one of the funniest characters in the first four episodes, Madisynn. But I would watch a spinoff series with her in it in a heartbeat. (Ed. Note: One day before the embargo lifted Marvel finally credited the actress, Patty Guggenheim, in a tweet from the Green Carpet Launch Event.)

The VFX, including the motion capture and CG character replacement for Maslany as She-Hulk, is better than many thought it looked in the earliest trailers. There is still a bit too much uncanny valley, particularly when it is She-Hulk and the Hulk in the same scene. I think that is because the facial capture for Ruffalo is more detailed than for Maslany — it seems like Marvel Studios decided to go with fewer facial lines and less skin texture in order to “glam” her up. Which is a shame because Maslany is beautiful in her own right and her facial performance deserves to be translated as precisely as Ruffalo’s is.

For MCU fans, She-Hulk is, in just the first four episodes, loaded with Easter eggs, references and obscure characters not yet seen in the MCU. It already has set up what I assume will be a major plot point in the larger MCU, with five episodes left to go.

Also, as a very episodic series (yes, some story lines continue from episode to episode) with a “guest of the week” vibe, it is probably the closest to an actual comic book series of anything in the Disney+ MCU oeuvre so far. And the breaking of the fourth wall, taken right from the comic books (and before Deadpool did it), works better than I thought it would.

I want to be clear — as I said in the headline, She-Hulk is fun for anybody who likes comedies, and lots of fun for MCU fans. But it isn’t particularly funny, which I was hoping it would be, and which it clearly could have been. Gao and the writers do a better job taking pot shots at the failings of the media, and the still ongoing terrible treatment of women in the workplace and on the dating scene than they do with the jokes. And if that is the ultimate strong suit for She-Hulk, I’m fine with that.

With five more episodes to go, the jury is still out (all pun intended) on the ultimate fate of She-Hulk: Attorney at Law, but I give the first four episodes a 7 out of 10.

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