Make no mistake about it. The Cape is the cheesiest thing you can find on TV. I watched this despite my distaste for the rather obvious moniker the protagonist goes by because of the high budget and production values that were being flaunted around during every one of it's advertisements. But that isn't enough to save this...terrible, terrible show.
Note, this review will be harsh. So I'll get the one "redeemable" quality out of the way first. The acting...isn't all too terrible. Especially considering it's a TV show. It's astonishing how much David Lyons actually buys into his character. He does a nice job with the relatively poor writing.
However, his acting doesn't disguise the horrible cliché-ridden show that is The Cape. Let me start out by saying after I watched the show, I honestly believed a 13 year old watched The Dark Knight and impulsively decided to write his own superhero tale about a corrupted government and the symbol the town needs to rally behind. I've noticed that comparisons to Batman are seemingly encouraged. That does not make it OK to basically airlift the concepts from Batman into your own show. I mean seriously, I recall a line that was something like "Your the symbol this town needs." That isn't JUST in Batman, it's a recurring theme in a lot of comics. However, the comparisons to Batman don't end there with the seemingly mirror city of Gotham and the cape that can be used as a weapon.
It should also be noted that the main villains name is Chess. OK... Does he have a sidekick named Checkers? The basic idea is this guy sees his life like a game of Chess (yeah, haven't heard that one before) so he decides to call himself Chess. The thing is, for a guy who is supposed to calculate every attack with pinpoint accuracy, he sure is stupid. And when he gets into a little fist fight with the protagonist, he goes from chess player to brutish fist fighter. Continuity is nice, yes? There are seemingly limitless areas of problems here. Poor storytelling, NO character development whatsoever, horrible quick pacing that doesn't clue you in on what's going on (who is this guy, what is he doing, WHY should I care?). It's as if you're supposed to care about The Cape's family because the show seems to want to assert that these people ARE indeed his family for 2 scenes in the least subtle way possible. How about the 15 seconds where his best friend is introduced, give the protagonist some lip service about how he's a good cop and proceed to stab him in the back a total of 4 scenes later. Then he gave perhaps the most lazy, half witted evil glare at the audience as if to say "yes, I am evil." But why should I care? You've only given me a few seconds to even get to know the character. I have no idea if he's a good guy or why he's best friends with the protagonist. As far as I know, he's always been a conniving douchebag and that whole scene shouldn't have been a surprise anyways.
There's even a scene where the guy who teaches The Cape to fight (Keith David) is about to die. And he gives The Cape some sort of cliché, I'm-about-to-die speech. But this is the same guy that robs banks at gunpoint and was seriously about to behead and chop off the limbs of the main protagonist not 30 minutes beforehand. What the heck? How are you supposed to empathize with him? These are BASIC storytelling flaws. BASIC. I cannot emphasize that enough.
In any case, this show is bad. Very, very bad. It is so unprofessional and so terribly written that I am surprised NBC would pick it up. It actually has me missing Heroes even though I wasn't a big fan of that. You give ME the money and the time slot this thing got and I will churn something 1000x better. And that's not me thinking highly of myself, that's me thinking very, very poorly of this utter garbage.
The Cape is riddled with clichés, poor storytelling and horrible character development. This isn't a show I can watch every week and care about the characters. The characters are boring and fill out whatever necessary archetype needed in the show. Except they're not needed because nobody cares about them. The Cape's useless sidekick (Summer Glau) should be the most evident reason not to watch this show. Any show that feels the need to validate itself by including a sexy useless sidekick who literally does nothing but sit behind a desk the entire time and provide awkward sexual tension is BAD news. Especially when it's trying to take itself seriously.
Note, this review will be harsh. So I'll get the one "redeemable" quality out of the way first. The acting...isn't all too terrible. Especially considering it's a TV show. It's astonishing how much David Lyons actually buys into his character. He does a nice job with the relatively poor writing.
However, his acting doesn't disguise the horrible cliché-ridden show that is The Cape. Let me start out by saying after I watched the show, I honestly believed a 13 year old watched The Dark Knight and impulsively decided to write his own superhero tale about a corrupted government and the symbol the town needs to rally behind. I've noticed that comparisons to Batman are seemingly encouraged. That does not make it OK to basically airlift the concepts from Batman into your own show. I mean seriously, I recall a line that was something like "Your the symbol this town needs." That isn't JUST in Batman, it's a recurring theme in a lot of comics. However, the comparisons to Batman don't end there with the seemingly mirror city of Gotham and the cape that can be used as a weapon.
It should also be noted that the main villains name is Chess. OK... Does he have a sidekick named Checkers? The basic idea is this guy sees his life like a game of Chess (yeah, haven't heard that one before) so he decides to call himself Chess. The thing is, for a guy who is supposed to calculate every attack with pinpoint accuracy, he sure is stupid. And when he gets into a little fist fight with the protagonist, he goes from chess player to brutish fist fighter. Continuity is nice, yes? There are seemingly limitless areas of problems here. Poor storytelling, NO character development whatsoever, horrible quick pacing that doesn't clue you in on what's going on (who is this guy, what is he doing, WHY should I care?). It's as if you're supposed to care about The Cape's family because the show seems to want to assert that these people ARE indeed his family for 2 scenes in the least subtle way possible. How about the 15 seconds where his best friend is introduced, give the protagonist some lip service about how he's a good cop and proceed to stab him in the back a total of 4 scenes later. Then he gave perhaps the most lazy, half witted evil glare at the audience as if to say "yes, I am evil." But why should I care? You've only given me a few seconds to even get to know the character. I have no idea if he's a good guy or why he's best friends with the protagonist. As far as I know, he's always been a conniving douchebag and that whole scene shouldn't have been a surprise anyways.
There's even a scene where the guy who teaches The Cape to fight (Keith David) is about to die. And he gives The Cape some sort of cliché, I'm-about-to-die speech. But this is the same guy that robs banks at gunpoint and was seriously about to behead and chop off the limbs of the main protagonist not 30 minutes beforehand. What the heck? How are you supposed to empathize with him? These are BASIC storytelling flaws. BASIC. I cannot emphasize that enough.
In any case, this show is bad. Very, very bad. It is so unprofessional and so terribly written that I am surprised NBC would pick it up. It actually has me missing Heroes even though I wasn't a big fan of that. You give ME the money and the time slot this thing got and I will churn something 1000x better. And that's not me thinking highly of myself, that's me thinking very, very poorly of this utter garbage.
The Cape is riddled with clichés, poor storytelling and horrible character development. This isn't a show I can watch every week and care about the characters. The characters are boring and fill out whatever necessary archetype needed in the show. Except they're not needed because nobody cares about them. The Cape's useless sidekick (Summer Glau) should be the most evident reason not to watch this show. Any show that feels the need to validate itself by including a sexy useless sidekick who literally does nothing but sit behind a desk the entire time and provide awkward sexual tension is BAD news. Especially when it's trying to take itself seriously.