‘America’s Got Talent’ review: How Mothmen Dance, Kelli Glover, Smoothini fared

Tonight, “America’s Got Talent” followed up a very fantastic performance show with one that was, quite frankly, a dud. There were a couple of pretty good acts, but we cannot sit here and say that a single person actually brought it to another level. Instead, we had weak dancing, a card trick that fell apart, a magician with great tricks but bad blocking, and some singers with off notes.

Can we petition to advance a few acts through from last week’s show rather than some of these? That’d be preferable. Anyway, let’s go ahead and get to what we thought of the performers tonight, in order (as always) from worst to first.

12. Dom the Bom’s Triple Threat – We didn’t rank them last because we thought they were bad, but just because there was a low ceiling here. Tonight, though, that ceiling crashed. There were way too many mistakes, and they were just too young to handle this.

11. Bad Boys of Ballet – They were our favorite dance crew performing tonight from their original audition, but this just didn’t have it. The moves were predictable, and the lack of rehearsal time they talked about in the pre-show package showed.

10. Jonah Smith – An okay singer with an okay performance. This was another one that was easy to telegraph. The show barely featured this guy at all before the live shows, and we imagined that he would get buried early on in the broadcast.

9. One Voice Children’s Choir – This was about as good as a choir like this can be at this point in the competition. Also, we don’t get the name; if you are “one voice,” why not just be a solo singer? It’s hard to imagine a choir winning this competition unless they are the greatest thing ever.

8. Nina Burri – The truth here, unfortunately, is that Nina is going to have to do more than just artistic contortion moves while on a platform. This was very nice and at times mesmerizing to watch, but it felt us feeling a little hollow. There’s just nothing distinctive enough here.

7. Quintavious Jackson – A very good vocal performance, but we are seriously sick beyond words of “And I Am Telling You I’m Not Going” as a song choice. Does this show only clear three songs for people to sing, and they are all either “Listen,” this song, or “I Have Nothing”?

6. Extreme – We still hate the name, but there was a lot of good stuff going on here. The crew was put together well, and it felt like there was real work done on the precision of the moves. That is so hard to get down.

5. Jonatan Riquelme – Another surprise tonight, given that this was a guy who really did not get a lot of airtime or attention from us in the early rounds. With that being said, was it anything that new or different? Not really, but this was a weak night.

4. Smoothini – Some very good tricks, but the problem with the act tonight was that it was really up close and not very smooth at all. The music was distracting, and we don’t know if the camera crew messed this up, but one of these wasn’t even visible to us watching.

3. Kelli Glover – The biggest problem with Kelli right now is just that she tries a little too hard. We know that she can sing, but the nerves and the story just all feel like a little too much. She just needs to relax; the voice is there, but there needs to be more.

2. Mothmen Dance – What was Mel B doing tonight? We don’t think that this was the most brilliant routine that we’ve ever seen, but it was at least unique. We like to think that this is really worth something in this competition, right?

1. Emil & Daniel – We don’t feel like it was perfect (the start was slow), but in closing the first hour of the show, these two gave us a little hope after a lot of duds / disappointments. They are also different than anything else, which we appreciate.

Who was your favorite on tonight’s episode? Share in the comments below, and head over here in the event that you want to get some other talent-oriented updates via our CarterMatt Newsletter.

Photo: NBC