Critic Reviews

Target is pure, utter, ridiculous, over-the-top-into-the-ravine entertainment.

Fox’s Human Target is the closest thing on TV to swigging a keg of Red Bull. It’s one hour of pure energy, a blast of fun action and stunts.

Still smart, still good, still fun, Human Target remains one of TV's best comic books.

Target is a helluva lot of fun. Valley delivers punchlines as well as he does elbows to the faces of villains.

Although the series departs from its comicbook roots, the premiere establishes a topnotch look, clever style and bigscreen tone. Perhaps most significantly, the second hour happily matches or surpasses the first.

Writer and executive producer Jonathan E. Steinberg does an admirable job preserving the smart-mouth humor and ker-pow, splat fun while creating story lines and characters grounded in the alpha-male charm that made guys like Pierce Brosnan, Bruce Willis and Robert Conrad so popular.

In that way, he's not unlike the super-competent Michael Westen from "Burn Notice," and "Human Target" has the same fun, retro-chic vibe as that USA series. But because it's on a broadcast network, the show works on a broader scale.

Mark Valley, droll and dashing, is long overdue a hit series, and I’d like to think this fast-paced piece of popcorn fluff could be the ticket. I’d watch Human Target for the retro-cool opening credits alone.

It's a somewhat old-fashioned and pretty kick-ass hour of TV, with great action sequences in the first two episodes and, probably more important, well-turned performances by its three regulars: Mark Valley, Chi McBride and Jackie Earle Haley.

Human Target was a good wise-guy action adventure last season. It's already looking like a better one this season. The main reason: Two girls, Indira Varma and Janet Montgomery, have crashed the testosterone party.