Legends of Tomorrow, Season 3 (2017)

 

The Legends thwarted a plan to re-write reality itself, but to do so they had to break the cardinal rule of time travel: never travel to a time and place to which you've already time travelled.  The fallout of this desperate gamble is that time itself has become fractured, with people and objects disappearing from their proper places and re-appearing elsewhere and 'elsewhen'.

The Legends resolve to tackles these 'anachronisms' but are quickly informed by an officious group known as the Time Bureau that their services/meddling are most definitely not required.  Said Time Bureau is the creation of Rip Hunter, who hoped to a establish a much more controlled, less 'chainsaw'-like approach to mending the rifts in the continuum of time, and they are not interested in letting loose cannons like the Legends play in their time-pool.  The Legends are retired, whether they want to be or not.

As you can imagine, given that the title of the show is not 'The Time Bureau', the Legends don't stay on the shelf very long.  And it is just as well, since these anachronisms are not just a problem in and of themselves but are also instrumental in the plans of a caged Time Demon that intends to escape its prison and conquer ... well, all of history.  The Legends will have to battle this demon's agents across the length and breadth of the time-line, making new friends and enemies along the way.

The first season of Legends of Tomorrow was the weakest Arrowverse show of 2015.  Then it had a considerably stronger sophomore outing, and this third series is handily the best  Arrowverse show of 2017.  The writers have clued in to what makes the show click - snappy banter, quirky characters, and even quirkier situations - and they have committed to it wholeheartedly, with a fun-filled 18 episodes that culminate in a finale that manages be both epic and epically goofy, at the same time.

You Only Live Twice (1967)

 

James Bond is dead, murdered while lounging in the bed of his latest sexual conquest.

Or so this film pretends for a few seconds, but given the title it's probably no surprise to anyone that rumours of Bond's demise are exaggerated.  His 'death' is part of a scheme to allow him to be surreptitiously inserted into Japan, where he is tasked with investigating a mysterious space ship that recently hijacked a NASA vessel in orbit.

This was the last (at the time, anyway) Sean Connery Bond film, and seems clearly to have been planned as the biggest and most extravagant entry in the franchise to date.  Its $10 million budget would not be exceeded by another Bond movie until five films and ten years later.

Honestly, I feel like that ambition occasionally works against the film.  It's a big over-long, despite being 10-15 minutes shorter than the immediately preceding Thunderball, and I feel like Roald Dahl's screenplay leans too heavily on big action sequences and gadgetry and doesn't to enough to stitch them together into an interesting tale.

The fact that it is the third film in a row to climax with a big battle between hordes of SPECTRE goons and good guy soldiers/agents is certainly a misstep, I think.  Or at least, it becomes one when you are watching the films in relatively quick succession, as I am.  Probably when they were hitting theatres only every 1-2 years the "oh it's this again" factor was not so high!

And then there's the whole "let's disguise Bond as a Japanese guy", which I am not sure was a good idea even in 1967, and is certainly not one that has aged well, either way.

Ultimately though, this delivers an 'early Bond'-style adventure, with gadgets and smarmy comments and SPECTRE dreaming up crazy schemes.  If that's your thing, it should tick the boxes for you.

The Flash, Season 4 (2017)

 

They don't fight an evil speedster!

That may not seem like much, but after three straight seasons of the big bad on The Flash being a guy who is even faster than the self-styled 'fastest man alive', it's a real breath of fresh air for his enemy to something else.  Anything else.

This is not to say that I don't have issues with the execution of this season.  While the main enemy is finally different and that does help a lot, there are some underlying problems with the show and its direction.  The Flash continues to be more po-faced and grim every year - the team barely actually saves anyone this year, outside of the season finale - and it has some wonky writing and some decidedly odd direction.  I don't know what they were going for with Katee Sackhoff's guest character, but I certainly hope they missed the target: it's hard to imagine that the performance we see on screen was what they wanted.

(Note that I don't blame Ms Sackhoff for this: I have no doubt she delivered the performance that was requested of her ... I just think it was a bad request)

And then there is the new main villain himself, who I feel starts off with great promise but whose personality, backstory, decisions and schemes grow steadily less and less coherent over the course of these twenty-three episodes.  It also doesn't help that having decided on using a villain whose key ability is his intelligence, the writers heavily rely to the tiresome old 'intellect and emotion are opposites' rubric.  It's possible to have and/or value intellectual brilliance without being dismissive of or blind to the importance of personal connections, guys.

I did ultimately like this season better than I did the second, and would put it about the same level as the third.  If you've enjoyed The Flash thus far, you should find stuff to like here.

Thunderball (1965)

 

The criminal organisation SPECTRE implements a plan to steal two atomic bombs and use them to blackmail NATO.  Unfortunately for them, random chance puts James Bond, codename 007, in the same place as the agent they're using for the mission.  While they still succeed in stealing the bombs, Bond's seen enough to have a good lead on how to find the missing weapons.  That said lead involves a beautiful woman is certainly not something to disappoint 007!

Thunderball was apparently considered as the first Bond novel to be adapted to the screen, but rights issues - or possibly finances - saw it pushed back, so ultimately it became the fourth novel to be filmed.  It leans heavily into the tropes now established for the franchise, with beautiful women, sardonic quips and quirky gadgets all having a featured role.  Structurally, the finale of this movie also seems to be heavily inspired by that of the immediately preceding film, Goldfinger.  The extensive underwater battle this involves is definitely the film's major set-piece, and one I deeply enjoyed when I first saw this film in the 1980s.  Nearly forty years later, I am not as much of a fan: the battle choreography doesn't hold up well by modern standards, and the sequence goes on rather longer than I think it should, contributing to the movie's comparatively long run time (it is about 15 minutes longer than the previous 3 films).

How is Thunderball?  If you like Bond, you should enjoy it.  It ticks all the expected boxes and does so in quite entertaining fashion on the whole.

Arrow, Season 6 (2017)

 

The Green Arrow and his allies have finally overcome the threat of Prometheus, albeit at considerable cost.  Barely have they done so, however, before they are faced with a new threat: super-hacker Cayden James, who has decided - for reasons not initially known - that he must destroy Oliver Queen and the city he holds so dear.

I was not a fan of season five of Arrow, finding the villain to be dull, said villain's scheme nonsensical, and show's constant "This villain is just so awesome and unstoppable" writing to be deeply tiresome.  So you can imagine my delight that season six offers two new main villains who are cut from exactly the same cloth, except that they're even thinner and less developed as actual characters, their schemes are considerably more nonsensical, and the bombastic "OMG THE VILLAIN IS TOTES AWESOME!" writing is no longer laid on with a trowel but with a dumper truck.  When Alternate Universe Nazis turn up for one episode and your show is 100% more entertaining as a result, maybe re-think your main plot, guys.

I haven't even touched on the execrably executed Black Siren subplot, which is mishandled from start to finish.  I understand taking the opportunity to bring Katie Cassidy back as a regular on the show was probably too good to pass up, but surely it could have been done in a less ham-fisted manner, preferably one that didn't seriously undermine the coherency of several other characters in the process?

Arrow offers a perfectly good exit point at the end of season four.  Honestly, right now I rather wish I had taken it.

Goldfinger (1964)

 

When the CIA ask British Intelligence to take a closer look at bullion dealer Auric Goldfinger, whom they suspect of smuggling gold, James Bond happens to be the nearest available agent.  Taking his usual subtle approach, Bond promptly costs Goldfinger a large sum of money and sleeps with the businessman's girlfriend.

Said girlfriend promptly ends up dead, making Bond's desire to catch Goldfinger a bit more personal.  Only a bit, though - you can be sure he'll have a new lady in his life by the end of the film!

You might be thinking that gold-smuggling, no matter now profitable, is a bit low key for a Bond villain.  Don't worry, though.  Old Auric has something considerably more outrageous in the works, though it will be quite some time before Bond - and thus the audience - learns what it is.

Considered by some to be one of the best Bond films, Goldfinger is notable for a couple of 'firsts' for the franchise.  Auric Goldfinger is the first antagonist to have a henchman - the Korean "Oddjob" - as memorable and quirky as he himself.  I think we can assume that Oddjob's success as a character is a key factor behind later adversaries like Jaws and May Day.  This is also the first film where the climax involves both a personal struggle for Bond and a sprawling firefight involving dozens of extras as the US Army clashes with Goldfinger's forces.  This works really well here, which perhaps explains why it is also the structure of the finale of both the next two films (with, I think, diminishing returns).

Content Warning: One thing I do have to mention as a negative: while this film is actually not as bad as the book on which it is based, it's still got a racist and sexist script, and there's a scene where Bond essentially rapes a woman, in the process converting her to his side.

Supergirl, Season 3 (2017)

 

Kara Danvers is mopey.  Her lover Mon-El was forced to leave Earth due to its atmosphere being poisonous to him.  And since she is Supergirl, the planet's sworn defender, they are separated forever.  Forever.

She's going to need to get over herself pretty quickly, though, since there are as always plenty of threats to the planet.  Threats that will need the efforts not just of Supergirl herself, but also the considerable skills and resources of her friends and colleagues, for Earth to survive.

Overall, I think this third season of Supergirl is its strongest yet.  The primary on-screen antagonist has a  bit of a wonky-looking mask, but once the show gets past Kara's angsty stage (which it does pretty quickly) it delivers mostly satisfactory superheroic adventures.  It's helped in this - as it always has been - by the solid and likeable cast.  Probably more important, though, is that the show has largely moved away from its early season tendency to have Supergirl constantly need saving by men.

One thing that this season does repeat from earlier seasons is that the "big bad" once more exists because of Krypton and the destruction of that planet.  While that event is what led to Supergirl (and the mostly off-screen Superman) being on Earth and available to defend it, it's also notable that the planet often needs their defence from threats created by the same event.  It's very much a recurring motif to date, and one I hope they move away from at some point soon.  I understand the desire to make the main threat have personal significance to Supergirl, but there are other ways to do this than "here's another Krypton-related threat".  Even Smallville eventually moved away from kryptonite-powered enemies, after all.

From Russia with Love (1963)

 

When Soviet cipher clerk Tatiana Romanova contacts British Intelligence, telling them that she has fallen in love with a photo of James Bond and wants to defect, they are understandably suspicious.  However, given that she promises to bring a Lektor cryptography machine with her, which would be a massive Cold War coup, they decide that Bond must risk the trap.

Of course, they won't be sending him empty-handed: the boffins in Q Branch have several special gadgets for Bond to help keep him safe, including a collapsible sniper's rifle and an attaché case loaded with a tear gas canister.  Will all these gadgets see use before the film is over?  I think we can safely say they will!

In any case, Bond heads off to Turkey, where Tatiana Romanova is stationed, to prepare for her extraction, all the while staying alert for any sign that this is a Sovet double-cross.  But as it happens, he's looking for entirely the wrong enemy, this time ...

The second Bond film makes significant strides toward the "classic Bond formula" of quips and gadgets, though it's comparatively light on the third pillar of said formula, that of casual sexual dalliances.  Heck, at the start of the film Bond is actually spending time with one of the women he casually dated in Dr No.  I'm not sure we've ever seen that happen again in the series!

Overall, From Russia With Love is pretty good fun Cold War spy nonsense, though it does of course remain very much a product of its time.  Expect lots of casual sexual and racism, in other words.