My Review of DC TV's Crossover: "Crisis On Infinite Earths: Hours 4 & 5" (Arrow/Legends Of Tomorrow)

Last month, we had the first three episodes of the Arrow universe's most ambitious crossover event with Crisis On Infinite Earths. There were a lot of surprise moments in those three episodes and the game certainly changed for a lot of our main heroes. Could these last two episodes do better? You bet they could.

Written by Marv Wolfman & Marc Guggenheim & Keto Shimizu & Ubah Mohamed
Directed by Glen Winter & Gregory Smith

Barry: "An end."
Sara: "And a beginning. Thank you, Oliver."

Last time we left our seven, well one of them got replaced with Lex Luthor and the rest of them were slowly beginning to lose confidence in their mission. New boy, Ryan Choi somewhat went to town on bringing us all up to speed on that one while Lex continued to scheme and generally get on Kara's nerves while Barry was feeling a bit out of sorts to boot. On top of that, we did get a bit of a trip into the Monitor's past, met his wife, Xeen Novu (Melanie Merkosky) while also seeing the formation of the Anti Monitor. Between Lex trying to blackmail the Monitor for his own schemes, the Paragons also took some trips in past events, which made for seeing certain events in an interesting new way but then we got this moment to boot.

In the first three episodes of this event we got nods to Burton's Batman movies, a continuation of sorts to Superman Returns as well as characters from Smallville, Lucifer, the 90's Flash TV series, Titans and Birds of Prey and Burt Ward for Batman 66. All of that in itself was ambitious and shocking that they pulled it off. However the fourth segment went one better and had Ezra Miller's Flash from the DCEU pop up in a brief cameo where he got to interact with Barry. Seeing the two Flashs fanboy each other while trying to figure out what was going on was absolutely amusing and I'm kind of hoping now that Grant Gustin makes a cameo in Miller's Flashpoint influenced movie that's coming out in July 2022. It's a credit that the producers managed to keep that cameo concealed when pretty much every other one leaked and it's by far the best we've had in this five episode event.

As for Oliver Queen, well his days certainly seem to be done. It took a little way but the former Spectre, Jim Corrigan (Stephen Lobo) got through to him and he helped the Paragons to fan the flame while he lit the spark and battled the Anti-Monitor. In the end, things took a big change but before getting into that, there was no denying that Oliver made the ultimate sacrifice and while you can argue that it should've been Diggle and Laurel at his side during his final moments but the inclusion of Barry and Sara worked just as well for me. Of course whether or not Oliver is truly gone considering there are two episodes of Arrow left though is the other thing.

As for the changes, I think we all knew that worlds were going to merges so having Earths 1 and 38 become Earth Prime was hardly a shocker. More shocking was Lex winning a Nobel prize, being loved by everyone and also being Kara's boss at the DEO but I loved Kara's joy at being on the same Earth as everyone else even if it were tempered by Oliver's death and the Anti Monitor still being at large though. Of course as various characters banded together and we did get a rather quick defeat for the Anti-Monitor but not strictly a death as such. Either way, he's out of the Paragons hair for the time being.

As for the last few moments, things have certainly changed. Oliver's dead but no-one will be forgetting him any time soon and Barry setting up a Paragon council with himself, Sara, Kara, Clark, Kate, J'onn and Jefferson definitely means we should be psyching ourselves up for another crossover event at the end of the year. I've wanted Kara's world to merge with everyone's for a while now and while I was disappointed that we didn't see more Legends in their segment of this part, I do think it worked not having them as the show forges into a new status quo. Worlds may have died but many came back and at least two merged. The DC Universe certainly got a lot bigger now.

- Cameos: Marv Wolfman who wrote the original comic and co-wrote the fourth segment appeared as himself in the fifth part of this event.
- Other cameos included Stargirl and her gang from Earth 2, more Titans from Earth 9, Green Lanterns from Earth 12, Swamp Thing from Earth 19, Doom Patrol from Earth 21 and of course, Superman again from Earth 96.
- Superman and Lois have two boys instead of one and both Diggle and Lyla have Sara back again. Is Ryan also a single parent now too?
- Sargon the Sorcerer (Raúl Herrera) appeared and tried to use Beebo to distract the gang while Weather Witch also crossed paths with Supergirl and The Flash.
- I still can't believe they managed to get the DCEU into this event in some capacity.
- Chronology: Months passed since the events of the third part of this event.

Well, this was certainly a stunning event series and Crisis On Infinite Earths is definitely the pinnacle of what the Arrow universe has managed to achieve in the space of eight years and multiple shows. It's a credit to the CW they were able to pull this whole saga off the way they did and between the various nods, cameos, character moments and game changing events, things have certainly gotten a lot more exciting in this part of the DC Universe.

Rating: 9 out of 10

My Review of Superman Returns (2006)

Written by Bryan Singer & Michael Dougherty & Dan Harris
Directed by Bryan Singer

Superman: "Listen; what do you hear?"
Lois: "Nothing."
Superman: "I hear everything. You wrote that the world doesn't need a savior, but every day I hear people crying for one."

Before he'd win us all over as Ray Palmer/The Atom on both Arrow and Legends Of Tomorrow, there was a brief time in which Brandon Routh was Superman. It's not often as talked about, probably due to both Christopher Reeve and Henry Cavill's versions of the character being more prominent within the media but for one movie only, Routh more or less made us all believe that a man could fly again.

Oddly set within the continuity (or at least inspired by it) of the Reeve movies, Superman Returns has the titular hero returning to Earth after being absent for five years and catching up with a world that has changed around him. The biggest change being that Lois Lane (Kate Bosworth) is now married to Perry White's (Frank Langella) nephew Richard White (James Marsden) and has a little boy named, Jason (Tristan Lake Lebeau), who is heavily implied to be Superman's kid throughout the movie.

I'm not going to lie. In terms of chemistry, both Routh and Bosworth don't really radiate much chemistry, even though they're believable enough in their dynamic as Lois and Clark and Lois and Superman. Heck, in Superman's absence, Lois even wrote a scathing article on why the world didn't need Superman even though this movie proved otherwise of course.

Of course while things have dramatically changed for Lois, things somewhat remain the same for Lex Luthor. This time around played with a slightly darker tone in Kevin Spacey, the bald billionaire still wants to cause chaos and kill Superman and yet again nearly succeeds in both before getting his respective comeuppance.

Spacey's take on Luthor isn't quite as beguiling as Hackman's was in the way but it's still preferable to what Eisenberg would do with the role a decade after this movie's release. Lex gets to have some decent scenes with both Lois and Superman and also has another ditzy female assistant with Parker Posey turning in a charming enough performance as Kitty Kowolski and character wise, she's better utilised that either Richard White or Jimmy Olsen (Sam Huntington) are in this movie.

In terms of movies, it's not actually a bad one as such. All the leads are fine in the role and Routh's near resemblance to Reeve is actually striking enough to make you believe this movie could exist in the continuity of the latter's. Saying that though, Lex's plot is a bit too run of the mill at times but the movie does succeed in giving the character a decent return.

- Noel Neill appears at the start of the movie as Lex's elderly wife who dies while Jack Larson is the bartender in a scene with Clark and Jimmy. We also got some Jor El, courtesy of this movie being allowed to use recording of Marlon Brando in the role.
- Amy Adams who would play the role of Lois after Bosworth, actually auditioned for this movie. Then again, she was also in Smallville, which Brandon Routh auditioned for.
- Zod was meant to appear in the movie, but the role got scrapped at the last minute.
- Even though this film was a box office failure, it actually out performed Batman Begins, which was considered a success.

Superman Returns isn't quite the triumph for the Man of Steel that everyone was hoping for at the time. While it's a movie that could've lost about half an hour and maybe gone for a different antagonist other than Lex Luthor, it's a decent enough take on the character with Routh being charming enough in the role.

Rating: 6 out of 10