Alan Rapp

Arrow – The Brave and the Bold

/ / Television Reviews
  • Title: Arrow – The Brave and the Bold
  • wiki: link

Arrow - The Brave and the Bold

The second-half of The Flash/Arrow crossover brings Barry (Grant Gustin), Cisco (Carlos Valdes), and Caitlin (Danielle Panabaker) all to Starling City to help in the search for a former agent of Argus returned to take revenge on the organization that left him for dead. I’ll freely admit Captain Boomerang (Nick E. Tarabay) has one of the more ridiculous concepts of any Flash villain. He’s a killer with a boomerang fetish, but is that any more ridiculous than a hero with a bow and arrow? Presented here as a merciless and skilled killer as well as a battlefield technician whose arsenal includes several surprise trick boomerangs, the episode makes good use of the character by presenting him as a large enough threat that both heroes, and both supporting teams, are all needed to stop him.

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Marvel’s Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D. – …Ye Who Enter Here

/ / Television Reviews
  • Title: Marvel’s Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D. – …Ye Who Enter Here
  • wiki: link

Marvel’s Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D. – ...Ye Who Enter Here

The slow moving progression to the reveal of the hidden city and Skye‘s (Chloe Bennet) reunion with her murderous father (Kyle MacLachlan) moves ever so slightly forward in “…Ye Who Enter Here.” Despite locating the location in the last episode, and racing Hydra to discover its hidden secrets, the team barely gets a couple of steps into a tunnel to the city before the closing credits. We’re also given some foreshadowing about a (possibly nefarious) secondary purpose for some of Coulson‘s (Clark Gregg) new recruits including both Mac (Henry Simmons) and Bobbi (Adrianne Palicki) other than serving S.H.I.E.L.D. that unnecessarily draws your attention away from what little progress is being made to the overall season arc this week.

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The Theory of Everything

/ / Movie Reviews
  • Title: The Theory of Everything
  • IMDb: link

The Theory of EverythingTheoretical physicist Stephen Hawking is undeniably one of the brightest minds of our time, a fact that The Theory of Everything struggles to prove while being far more interested in the man’s personal life than his professional breakthroughs. The result is a strong romantic drama between Hawking (Eddie Redmayne) and his wife Jane (Felicity Jones) that is far less insightful of the man’s work.

Dumbing down Hawking’s theories for the audience, the script by Anthony McCarten based on Jane Hawking‘s book spoon-feeds us extremely basic doses of Hawkings theories without ever examining the work that went into studying or proving them. Instead the ideas seem to come from nowhere, take little effort to prove, and are instantly lauded. Does that sound like the cut-throat world of academia to you?

More concerned with showcasing the effects and unique challenges presented to Stephen and Jane after his diagnosis of motor neuron disease, The Theory of Everything succeeds far better here getting the most of its stars (even if the film, intentionally or not, turns Jane into a martyr).

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The Flash – Flash vs. Arrow

/ / Television Reviews
  • Title: The Flash – Flash vs. Arrow
  • wiki: link

The Flash - Flash vs. Arrow

The first-half of the two-part crossover brings Oliver Queen (Stephen Amell) and Felicity Smoak (Emily Bett Rickards) to Central City for Star Labs help in identifying an unusual weapon used in a recent killing in Starling City. Although we’ll have to wait a day for the story behind the boomerang and the official introduction of Captain Boomerang on Arrow, the latest episode of The Flash does offer a different challenge to the heroes who struggle to work together to take down a metahuman with the ability to put his victims into an uncontrollable rage.

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