Arrow S03 E14: "The Return"

We have a very interesting switch in the storytelling dynamic in this episode. As Oliver and Thea go to Lian Yu, which I've called Flashback Island for the last three years of reviews, Oliver and Maseo from Flashback Hong Kong, along with Amanda Waller, pay a secret visit to Starling City during the time it is believed Oliver is dead. Like I said, interesting.

Oliver had asked Malcolm to train him so he could beat R'as al Ghul, and apparently the island is his idea of training. As if we didn't already know Malcolm was a bit twisted, right? I loved the camera pan approach to Flashback Island, with the shipwrecked Amazo near the shore, nice touch.

How crazy is Merlyn? Very. He released Deathstroke on the island so that Oliver can get his killing edge back. But wait, wasn't Captain Boomerang also imprisoned on the island? Where was he? It was a bit of a cop out to say he was elsewhere in the prison.

In the past, Oliver and Maseo are still tracking China White and her bio-weapon. Being in Starling past gives us a chance to not only see cast members in a variety of bad "Undercover Boss" hairstyles but also see dead folks like Colin Donnell returning as Tommy Merlin. We also see the past addictions of Thea, Quentin, and Laurel in more revealing light.

What's fun about the past is watching Oliver sneak around in disguise dodging anyone who might recognize him. It reminded me of Marty dodging his past self, mom and dad, and Biff, when he returned to the 1950s in Back to the Future Part II. Quentin's possibly drunken outburst at Tommy's party echoed what I was thinking earlier in the episode - Oliver had destroyed everyone's life.

I loved when Oliver, trying to say he was good at hiding from his family and friends, said he pulled his hoodie down to cover his face - and Maseo countered with "that disguise wouldn't work even if you smeared grease paint over your face." Beautiful. It is also a testament to Stephen Amell's acting skills that he can pull off both naive and spoiled, and then brave and resourceful - in the same character years apart and make it believable. He's damn good.

Past, present, Deathstroke, Merlyn, Waller... but none of it matters more than the real boogeyman in this episode. The truth. Oliver tells Thea the truth, the real truth, that she killed Sara. It nearly pushes her over the edge. That said, watching Oliver and Thea, Green Arrow and Speedy, fight Slade, Deathstroke, could only have been better with costumes.

And then there's Deathstroke's line to Oliver about Thea, how she's been touched by darkness and that Merlyn must be an interesting man to do that to his own daughter. Although we've seen a character in the show called Ravager, in the comics Slade did do something very similar to his own daughter who then called herself Ravager. And let's not even discuss her brother, his son, who was the original Ravager.

There are other connections and separations made in this episode. Thea will cooperate but no longer have family ties with Malcolm. Quentin and Laurel are at odds, but for the first time the name 'Black Canary' is uttered. Again I worry for Quentin as this would be tragic if he was to die now, and because he's the TV version of Larry Lance, we know he's doomed sooner or later.

Colin Donnell isn't the only actor to return from the dead this time out. There's also Jamey Sheridan as Robert Queen as seen in a recording for Oliver, solving another minor mystery of the series. This is neat tie-up of a small but missing piece of Arrow's origins.

The final closer however is the appearance of General Matthew Shrieve as played by a rather worn and aged looking Marc Singer. This is a surprising addition to a TV series based on Green Arrow. In the comics, Shrieve is the human leader of Project M, better known as the Creature Commandos, sort of a war/horror hybrid comic. They are a squad of soldiers made up of classic monsters - a werewolf, a vampire, a gorgon, and Frankenstein monster-like creature. Who knows where this plot point will go...

Next: "Nanda Parbat!"



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Looper

Looper ~ This is one of those movies that's hard to explain, and once you explain it, as complicated as it is, you go wow, that's a great idea for a movie. Looper is like that, only then it turns everything upside down and plays with possibilities. Plus time travel. And it's awesome.

Loopers are assassins sent into the past to dispose of targets from the future. Eventually their future selves are sent back, killed by themselves, whereupon they are retired and can live happily for thirty years until their loop is closed when they are sent to the past. Got it?

Joseph Gordon-Levitt is living the life of a looper, and everything is perfect until Bruce Willis, his older self, shows up, and escapes. That's when all hell breaks loose. That's when all the rules of time travel you thought you knew get turned in their ass.

Writer/director Rian Johnson has fun with this time travel twisting thriller, and puts both JGL and Willis through their paces. It's full of shocks and surprises, and even Emily Blunt comes off looking good. If you think you know time travel, this will put your Terminator and Back to the Future philosophy to the test. Good stuff, worth watching.

Men in Black 3

Men in Black 3 ~ This movie beats the odds several ways. First it's fun and entertaining, which for a sequel, let alone a second sequel, let alone a second sequel almost fifteen years after the original, and a decade after the lackluster first sequel. To be a good movie, and do well, against those odds is definitely an achievement.

The Men in Black concept is based on the brief and rarely seen Malibu Comics feature by Lowell Cunningham, which is in turn based on the ufology myth of the men in black from the government who cover up alien encounters. Through three movies now, Tommy Lee Jones as senior agent K and Will Smith as junior agent J have protected Earth from the scum of the universe as part of a top secret organization who do what you would expect them to do - kicking alien ass and erasing everyone's memories of said ass-kicking.

The films have been successful mainly because of Jones and Smith's almost perfect extreme buddy cop chemistry, as well as the sharp humor of the writing, and of course the cutting edge special effects. Even with all that, the first sequel was a weak entry almost ensuring MIB3 would not happen, but here we are.

The plot of Men in Black 3 bucks the odds even further, as it's about time travel. The common thinking in Hollywood, even in scifi movies, is that time travel makes people's heads hurt. Only when it is done well, like in the Back to the Future or Terminator series, does it come off successfully with mainstream audiences. MIB3 does it as well.

An alien villain, Boris the Animal (played by Jemaine Clement from HBO's "Flight of the Conchords" although you'd never guess it), escapes prison and goes back in time to 1969 to kill K before he can put him in jail. K vanishes from the present, so J must go to 1969 to save him and put time right. And here's where we hit the third odds-breaker. The younger K, played by Josh Brolin, is Will Smith's partner for most of the movie. His impression of Tommy Lee Jones as K is dead on, and half the entertainment of the flick. The chemistry is intact despite a new actor in an old role.

This movie is so much fun, captures the spirit of the original, and covers new territory while being funny, exciting, and fresh. The only thing that could have made this better would have been a Will Smith theme song. Recommended. I wouldn't have thought I would say this, but bring on Men in Black 4.

Disney Does It Better

I recently had a chance to visit Universal Studios in Orlando. It was my first time there after visiting Disney World almost a dozen times in the last two decades. I gotta say, I was unimpressed. Universal tries hard, but in most cases not nearly hard enough. It’s all in the attitude.

The rides are fun, but have to stand on their own because the staff just doesn’t support them. Disney characters stay in character and aid to the ‘enchantment.’ I saw a Cyberdyne employee at the Terminator 2 ride chatting with guests about the weather and agreeing with them about how the park’s hours suck. Would an evil corporate employee of an evil mega-corporation about to eradicate mankind really do that?

I personally engaged Doctor Emmett Brown from Back to the Future in a conversation about Kanye West’s new single and how upset he was about the closing of the Adventurers Club, and how he wished he could have “gotten that gig.” Way to break character, Doc. Doc Brown, it should be noted, now that his ride has vanished from Universal, had been exiled to a nuclear-powered tricycle in the vicinity of Mel’s Drive-In from American Graffiti. The fifties, get it? Yep, that’s about the extent of Universal’s originality.

Have you ever tried to get the guides at Disney’s Haunted Mansion to break character? Ain’t gonna happen. You’d have better luck trying to make guards at Buckingham Palace crack a smile. Disney definitely does it better.