Movie Review: Spider-Man: Across the Spider-Verse

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Clocking in at over two-hours long, this sequel is filled with story, character moments and great audio and visual. While it doesn’t feel as groundbreaking as the first film and ends with a big cliffhanger, the film is still captivating through the entire runtime. The plot works despite remaining somewhat vague. Even by the end, some of the stakes still haven’t been totally laid out. The movie also alternates between its villains. It spends some time setting up the primary bad guy but leaves most of their arc for the upcoming sequel. The rest of the time Spider-Man’s main antagonist is technically a good guy, but he puts a lot of obstacles in Miles’ path. And although Miles is still the main character, Gwen gets such a significant amount of screen time that it’s pretty much her movie too. Between the two leads and their families, there are some strong character moments that are rooted in reality, which helps them land the emotional impact. The visuals are once again amazing, and the score and soundtrack compliment everything very well. The jokes usually land, with a few standout gags. The action is fine, but a lot of it feels like it’s more of an inconvenience for the heroes and not a life-or-death battle. The secondary characters aren’t as memorable as the first film, but they did grow on me. There are probably hundreds of easter eggs, and some of them push the boundaries on feeling too fan-servicey.

**** out of *****

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 *****