TV Review: Arrow (Season 4)

*This review contains some spoilers*

While improving on last season, this season of “Arrow” hasn’t recaptured the magic from its first two seasons. A lot of steps were taken to move things closer to the comic book version of the characters. Starling City is now Star City, The Arrow is now The Green Arrow. The Atom is now a superhero that can shrink. The show has embraced many supernatural and metahuman elements that it wouldn’t dealt with in the earlier seasons.

Damian Darhk is a strong addition as the season long villain. Neal McDonough seems to be having fun in every scene that he’s. The mystical elements of his abilities grow increasingly convoluted as the season gets closer to the finale, and his League of Assassins fighting skills seem to alternate between unless and almost unstoppable. The addition of Curtis Holt never pays off. Instead of getting Mr. Terrific, we just get a male version of Felicity. Felicity has some strong character beats this season, but the on and off relationship with Oliver and her mommy and daddy issues often drag the show down. Both Paul Blackthorne (Quentin Lance) and David Ramsey (John Diggle) have the most emotional performances of the season. Meanwhile, Malcom Merlyn continues to overstay his welcome, and Black Canary has an oddly written death to left much doubt on her fate with the viewers. Besides a nice cameo from John Constantine and a revamped version of the Batman villain Anarchy, there wasn’t much of interest as far as new characters.

The overall story took a long time to get to the point, and was all over the place, especially with the infamous “mystery” character death flash-forward. While there was some setting up for “Legends of Tomorrow,” it didn’t seem as obvious as what happened on “The Flash.”

This season probably had the weakest island flashback content. It was a very short storyline stretched out for entirely too long. It really did nothing to add to Oliver’s character in the past or present.

** out of *****

TV Review: The Flash (Season 2)

*The review contains some spoilers**

After the amazing first season, this season had a lot to live up to. When it succeeds, it does spectacular. Unfortunately, there are a lot of missteps.  After teasing Jay Garrick and Earth-2 to end things, we quickly get a taste of things to come. While the “Escape from Earth Two” episode was the highlight of this season, they really never captured the magic of this parallel world again afterwards.

Villains were the show’s weakness this time around. It’s always cool seeing various DC bad guys popping up, but almost all are just “villains of the week.” It becomes quantity over quality. This is especially true for the horde of Earth-2 villains that don’t even make it past the first commercial break of the episode they are introduced in. And then there’s Zoom. Yet another evil speedster who masquerades as a friend to team flash before his secret is revealed. The character design is great, buy much of the menace is lost once he’s unmasked.

The first half of the season suffers as it serves as setup for “Legends of Tomorrow.” It gets distracting at times and undoes some of the character work “The Flash” already established. For example, killing off Ronnie Raymond to cast a younger Firestorm takes away the happy ending he had getting his second chance with Caitlin.

The actors are solid as always. With Jesse L. Martin having some of the strongest work as Joe West, and of course Gran Gustin shines in a few emotional episodes. Tom Cavanagh seems to have a lot of fun playing Earth-2 Harrison Wells, and he’s able to shift gears and play the Reverse Flash Wells in a standalone episode. While the addition of Wally West and Jessie Quick don’t add much, Shantel VanSanten’s Patty Spivot actual has a lot of chemistry with Barry, and it’s disappointing when she leaves the show. I was also a bit disappointed that they never acknowledged the crossover with “Supergirl,” and only had a tiny wink to the fans that it really happened.

The show again ends with a cliffhanger, and Barry’s decision seems to undo all the good that he accomplished, this season and the last.

***1/2 out of *****

Movie Review: X-Men: Apocalypse

A generally entertaining, but somewhat flat, film. The plot is just mediocre. Pacing problems aside, there’s just something that never quite clicks with the story. Even though a lot of time is spent introducing the various characters, things still feel rushed. And as the movie continues on, the characterizations don’t get any better. Despite the fact the Storm has been one of the essential characters throughout the X-Men film series, here she does very little. Aside from the beginning of the film, she has barely any dialog and doesn’t even have much to do for any of the action sequences. In fact, all of Apocalypse’s Horseman are pretty one note. Only Magneto truly gets to shine. Michael Fassbender does most of the dramatic work here, and puts forth a moving performance. Luckily, humor becomes the film’s saving grace. Nightcrawler, Quicksilver and even Professor X all add some levity to the dark storyline. There are really no great action scenes and even the anticipated Horsemen vs X-Men anything too memorable. In the end, it’s Quicksilver who steals the show with another amazing super speed-filled moment that is just a lot of fun. There are a couple of concepts taken directly from the X-Men mythos that will be gratifying to the fans. The effects are surprisingly inconsistent, with quite a bit of poor CGI work. The movie gets quite brutal at times, and pushes the envelope with the carnage, so it may be too much for very young children to watch. There is a post-credit scene, but unless you’re extremely well-versed with X-Men lore, you will probably be left scratching your head about what you just saw.

**1/2 out of *****