Mike

Much like the man himself, Mike is a series of fascinating yet well-crafted contradictions. At times riveting, sad, funny, and appalling, there are times when you just don’t know what version of Tyson you’re going to get when watching this program.

Mike refuses to equivocate on Tyson’s guilt and, as a result, finally seems ready to reckon with everything that its lead character truly is. And unless they pull their punches, the final three episodes are squared up to deliver a total knock-out.

Not a knockout, that’s for sure. Call it a respectable loss on points. No biting involved.

Few scenes last long enough to gather any dramatic weight, and relationships are more suggested, or simply stated, than explored. That isn’t to say that some aren’t affecting — the actors see to that, though they must often work against the series’ stylistic breeziness. ... “Mike” does seem intent on ticking off the bullet points of Tyson’s life; its aspirations feel serious, even if the end product doesn’t always measure up.

Rhodes, of “Moonlight” fame, is terrific in the role, nailing both Tyson’s sibilant voice and the air of petulant self-regard that can at times be detected under it. But the show exhibits a certain incuriosity about how various elements will play on camera.

It’s yet another case of style over substance, or at least it is until its fifth episode, when it focuses on the one human about whom it has a clear point of view: Desiree Washington (Li Eubanks). ... Yet in its first five installments, Hulu’s venture paints a portrait that’s less complicated than scattershot and superficial, revisiting Tyson’s rough upbringing and dully illustrating how it molded him into the ferocious fighter and off-the-rails individual he eventually became.

Just because there can be no objectively correct answer to these questions, doesn’t excuse Tyson biographers in any medium from engaging with them. Anything less is a glorified Wikipedia entry. Which is pretty much what the makers of Hulu’s eight-part docudrama Mike have created.