TV Review: The Flash (Season 9)

**This review contains minor SPOILERS**

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Despite “The Flash” pretty much giving its all last season as it seemed poised to end its run, the show was given a last-minute reprieve, which results in this final season mostly being a hodgepodge of stuff they hadn’t gotten around to yet and some other odds and ends. The result is an uneven season, that if nothing else, has more high points than low.

Like most seasons of “The Flash,” this season features both “Graphic Novels” and Interludes. The first set of episodes finally introduces Red Death. While it made sense for the Arrowverse to use Batwoman in this role, it was a little disappointing not to see Batman used like the comic book counterpart. The overall story was weak, and just never really clicked. The show then switches gears for a four-episode batch that makes up the intermission. These standalone episodes were hit and miss, but it was nice to have simpler stories that were wrapped up in single episodes. The final arc introduces the long-awaited Cobalt Blue. While the story itself had some good ideas, the overall execution was confusing and ultimately rushed. In the end, the finale felt a bit on the over-bloated side as opposed to feeling like the proper conclusion to the series.

Most of the character arcs were fine, more or less continuations of what we’ve seen before from the leads. The biggest wildcards were Chillblaine and Caitlin. Chillblaine’s character arc was all over the place and he was so inconsistent that it seemed apparent they had no clue what to do with his character without Frost in his life. As for as the Snow family, the new iterations of this character was initially pretty subpar, but she slowly grew into one of the more interesting aspects of this season.

The show looked about the same as always, with the effects mostly being fine for what the show needed out of them, but there were still signs of cutting corners. And while the action sequences still mostly consist of Barry running up buildings and throwing lightning bolts, there were a couple nice hand to hand fight scenes thrown in the mix.

Feeling more like a tacked-on epilogue to season 8, the 9th and final season of “The Flash” is more like the show running in place than racing towards the finish. Some cool returning characters and the show wrapping up some loose ends kept things interesting, but the same old story beats and character arcs dragged the show down.

** out of *****

Movie Review: Fast X

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As it heads into its final lap, the “Fast and the Furious” franchise has pretty much run out of gas long before the finish line. This film series has reinvented itself several times, and thanks to the growing cast of characters, it has extended its lifetime well-passed what should have been possible. However, with each film the cracks in the armor become harder to ignore. There’s not much new here, but they do mix things up to make it interesting. The biggest change here is that the team spends much of the film separated and dealing with their own sets of problems. This works for a while, but these stories aren’t balanced out enough. Some have very little going on, some are interesting but get little screen time, and the biggest one takes up so much of the plot that it makes it feel less like an Avengers-level team-up and more like Iron Man and Friends. The action is a little bland overall and when it’s ridiculous, it’s pretty ridiculous. (With the hand-to-hand battles being more interesting than any of the car stuff.) Jason Momoa is hit-and-miss and the big bad. While he shows off both his brains and his physicality, the over-the-top flamboyance doesn’t suit him…even though I appreciate him playing against type and having some fun with the roll. This film is part 1 of 2 (possibly 3), and I’m not quite sure the story is strong enough to carry on for that long. On that note, there is a mid-credit scene that’s worth checking out and leads into the next film.

** out of *****

Video Game Review: Hogwarts Legacy (PS5)

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Despite giving players a chance to explore Hogwarts and the surrounding area as an aspiring new wizarding student, the dated game mechanics prevent this open-world game from rising above average.

First of all, the more of a fan of the “Harry Potter” franchise you are, the better experience you’ll probably have with this game. As someone that’s seen all the films but hasn’t delved into series beyond that, I still had a good time playing in this world and it definitely helped me overlook the game’s flaws. (I’m assuming people unfamiliar with the Wizarding World maybe be much more turned off by the shortcomings.) The basic story is solid, but predictable. Like most games like this, the side quests are a mixed-bag. There’s some pretty good ones and some mediocre ones.

As far as gameplay goes, it’s relatively smooth once you get the hand of things. Spells are easy to cast and having access to different spell hubs for quick access for your favorites is a nice touch. You can also que up either a potion or an attack plant, but the selection wheel is a bit wonky. The fast travel system is fantastic, easy to use and plenty of fast travel points inside the castle and in the open world. (Which is much larger than I anticipated. And very little of it is quest related, a lot is just pure exploration.) Once you get the broom, flying makes getting around a piece of cake…outside the few no-fly zones. Combat is actually pretty good, but there is a learning curve. Once you learn when to learn which spells when, you can take out your enemies’ defenses much more easily.

On the negative side, the most frustrating thing in the game is the Gear Slots and how quickly the fill up. Almost immediately, you’ll open a chest only to get a message telling you that you’re out of space. While you can add more spaces, it takes quite a while and you don’t add that many. Even worse, you don’t know what new items is in the chest. You can destroy an item in your inventory, but there’s no way to know if the new gear is better or worse ahead of time. There’s not much jumping in the game, but the mechanics are not the greatest and you tend to take wide steps after landing so there’s not much margin of error for precision jumping. (On that note, you take small steps forward when you’re launching basic attacks from your wand, so you’re constantly moving towards your target which you might not want to do, especially if you’re on a ledge.) Also, there’s very little swimming in the game, but your character swims insanely slow and there’s no way to pick up the pace. And while your broom is great for getting around, it handles like crap and makes racing a chore instead of exhilarating.

The game looks pretty good, while the graphics are kind of on the mediocre side, there’s so much detail in the environments, especially in the castle where there’s something of interest around every corner. It can be glitchy on occasion, and I’ve had the game crash a few times, but normally it all runs well. There’s a ton of collectibles, but unless you’re trying to be a completionist, none of them are really anything special and the become a bit repetitive after you’ve done a few of them. One thing that sucks the life out of the game is the NPCs. Since you can’t interact with most of them, they feel more like set-dressing then background characters. (At least you’ll see the bad guys fighting other enemies like wolves and trolls, so they feel a little more real.)

Overall, the game has open-world mechanics that were groundbreaking a few years ago but feel dated now. Thankfully, the main quest is pretty solid by itself, and the Wizarding World setting makes it rewarding for those fans.

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

TV Review: Titans (Season 4)

**This review may contain minor SPOILERS**

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In what ended up being its final season, “Titans” ended its run by continuing what it’s done in all its previous seasons and that’s having moments where it looks like it’s going to be brilliant, only to fail to deliver and never quite get out of mediocrity.

The plot was all over the place this season, with a poorly defined threat and a lot of mumbo jumbo involving magic. And just as the season finally started to bring everything together, it took several months off and lost all that momentum. Not only that, once it came back, it shifted gears to stall the storyline once again. Even the character arcs were somewhat muddled this season. While there were some interesting wrinkles for some characters, many of them really didn’t amount to much.

For the most part, Nightwing and Starfire only had minor plot lines. Beast Boy and Raven each had more relevant stuff, but hers was wrapped up by mid-season and his took longer to develop but didn’t have that great of a payoff. The meatiest stories went to Superboy and Tim Drake. While both were pretty solid, the conclusions felt a little anti-climactic. The show’s big bad never quite worked. They did a great job of making him a sympathetic character, but his full turn to evil was kept getting delayed just as it looked like it was going to happen, and when it did it wasn’t all that interesting. Not to mention his powers were never really that clear so his threat-level wasn’t apparent enough and his master plan came out of nowhere and didn’t make a lot of sense.

Overall, the special effects still looked really good for the most part, and there was some decent action. Also, the updated costumes and looks for the characters were much better and leaned more towards the comic books.

The fourth and final season of “Titans’ was another mixed-bag. While it leaned even heavier into more comic-accurate territory, the overall story and big bad were letdowns. There are moments where a great show starts to appear, but then the writing on both the main plot and the character arcs drop in quality and the show becomes average at best.

** out of *****

Movie Review: Guardians of the Galaxy Vol. 3

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Despite the mediocre villain and the uninspiring plot, this film is still an emotional ride thanks to the character moments that pay off many plot points, some going all the way back to the first film. The basic plot is fairly straightforward, but with a few obstacles peppered-in plus some additional bad guys that feel a bit tacked-on. As far as the main villain goes, The High Evolutionary is set-up to big a Kang-level threat, but ends up not living up to the hype. What makes the movie work is the characters. This dysfunctional family, despite all the infighting, has created strong bonds with each other and so many moments hit the mark by taking advantage of those relationships. There’s a couple cool action sequences, and the humor works more often than not. The film looks good, with vibrant colors and bizarre landscapes, even though the CG can be obvious at times. As expected, the soundtrack adds an extra level to the movie. There’s a mid-credit scene worth checking out, and a post-credit that’s not as important.

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