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Showing posts from June, 2017

Marvel's Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D. - Season 4, Episode 22 Review

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So here we are the fourth season finale of Agents of SHIELD and...boy, there's a lot to unpack here. Firstly, Robbie Reyes returns to wreck some havoc as Ghost Rider, being the only person able to stop Aida/Ophelia with his fire chain - which can also open Doctor Strange-style portals now too. Sweet. Ghost Rider's return was a welcome one for the series, and while it may have been brief, it was pretty neat to see Coulson himself go full Ghost Rider and destroy Ophelia for good. While I'm not sure what will happen to the rest of the LMDs, it seemed a rather appropriate end for our season big bad, showing a culmination of all of season 4's various threads. Also weaved into the episode were the deaths of both Hope and Radcliffe, the former played perfectly by the actors on-screen that it was difficult not to feel some of Mack's pain in the moment, while the latter's death was appropriately poetic - even if a little too poetic perhaps. With Radcliffe gone from t

Marvel's Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D. - Season 4, Episode 21 Review

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So, Agents of SHIELD rockets towards its season finale by...continuously building additional plot-points into the over-arching narrative. With Aida now in human - or Inhuman - form as Ophelia, she tries to confess her newfound feelings for Fitz, who tries to use these sudden emotional outbursts to encourage her to save the team from the underwater base. It really is Mallory Jansen's show this week as Ophelia tries to adjust to human life, and she comes so very close to even potentially joining the SHIELD team before everything goes horribly wrong. Just as it looks as if all is settled (for the most part), Fitz makes his own feelings clear and Ophelia embarks on a murder rampage, ready to slaughter anyone who gets in her way, and preparing to create a new world suited to her. Jansen is quite possibly this season's MVP, able to flick between different, albeit similar characters on a dime, and her interactions with the other cast members are consistently fantastic. In a way, it&

Marvel's Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D. - Season 4, Episode 20 Review

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"Farewell, Cruel World!" is appropriately enough the episode in which the SHIELD team finally escape the Framework with Radcliffe's help, and it's an...interesting one to say the least. The episode fills in a huge amount of much-needed plot points, but also decides to throw in some important elements such as the death of Fitz's father, and Madame Hydra's creation of a new human body. It's not over-stuffed, but seems a little too much for one episode. When the team finally make their way to the 'back door' of the Framework, one can't help but feel a little underwhelmed. Maybe part of this is because of Ward's absence - I mean, didn't he live through the last few episodes? Or have I forgotten something here? The fact that the series made Ward's appearance such a key part of the introduction to the Framework arc only to drop him so close to the end just seems a little odd. There's not much of an actual good-bye to this alternate

Marvel's Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D. - Season 4, Episode 19 Review

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This week on Agents of SHIELD, the team band together in an effort to fight back against Hydra in the Framework, in an episode dealing with surprisingly strong themes of propaganda and fake news - promoted by a surprise cameo return from Season 2 Hydra villain Bakshi. One particular inclusion in this 'Agents of Hydra' pod I wasn't so keen on was the return of Grant Ward - a character the show had managed to bring back time and time again to little avail, even going as far as to have an alien with a squid head possess his dead body - and bringing him into a third part of this fourth season in a Hydra-dominated world seemed a little predictable almost. However, what's surprised me is that even though Brett Dalton is technically reprising his early Season 1 role of good Ward, he's actually a much stronger character here than he was then. Sure, evil Ward is much more fun to watch, but if the series does wrangle its way into making him a regular into Season 5, I actua

Arrow: Season 5 (2016-17) - Written Review

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So here we are at the fifth season of Arrow, and after two great seasons and two distinctly underwhelming seasons, the show makes some necessary course-corrections in this fifth run to bring the show back into popularity. The slightly lighter tone adopted last season is dropped in favour of a return to the dark and gritty nature of the first two seasons, and the magic and meta-humans is toned down so severely you could be tricked into thinking they'd done some kind of un-reboot on the show. Despite this though, Arrow season 5 actually manages to throw in quite a bit of humour and levity to the series, and does keep in the mystical elements of super-powers but to a lesser extent. In fact, Oliver Queen as a character is almost reverted back to his Season 2 self, questioning his heroism and somewhat dropping his no killing rule. In terms of Oliver's potential character growth into the more traditional Green Arrow superhero, this seems like a step backwards, but in many ways its i

Wonder Woman (2017) - Written Review

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At long last, with 75 years of comic book history, Wonder Woman makes her way onto the big screen in Warner Bros' and DC's Wonder Woman . Directed by Patty Jenkins, the film tells the story of Princess Diana of Themyscira, who upon meeting World War I spy Steve Trevor vows to travel into the heart of the war to thwart the presence of a sinister enemy to humanity. Look, I'm going to cut right to the chase and say this: Wonder Woman is the best DC movie since The Dark Knight in 2008, and quite possibly up there in terms of classic status with Superman I and Tim Burton's Batman. It might not be quite perfect, but Wonder Woman , despite its slightly long running time, is a really fun, entertaining and heartfelt action blockbuster with a more sinister edge laced in there to create some truly terrific drama. The World War I setting gives the film a unique setting against the landscape of other superhero films, and actually plays a key role in the story and Diana's ar