Enter Arrow, the 2012 take on the classic DC character Green Arrow. I will be the first to admit I know almost nothing about the Green Arrow except he dresses like Robin Hood and uses a bow and arrow. I don't have a dog in the hunt for the changes, such as dropping Green from his name or changing the name of the city to Starling City. I guess I'm going into this cold and that isn't a bad thing.
Arrow is the tale of Oliver Queen, the son of a billionaire who is spoiled rotten. While on a yachting trip with his father the boat sinks and he winds up on a deserted isle. Five years pass and he is rescued.
We find the spoiled boy has returned as a man. He has scars, tattoos, and a mysterious crate. Inside the crate we find a bow, arrows, a costume, and his father’s little black book. The book contains names to the rich and elite who have helped turn the once great Starling city into cesspool.
Oliver Queen takes no time to establish his lair. A network is set up. From here he trains in some pretty impressive exercises. And then he gets to work finding those who live off the backs, pain, and misery of Starling City and makes them pay.
This task is not easy because his family wants to find out what he has been up to for five years. After he and a friend are kidnapped (and rescued by Queen himself, telling the authorities a green hooded man rescued him) he now has a bodyguard that he must evade.
He must also deal with his former girlfriend, whom he was cheating on with her own sister on the yacht that sank. He has to deal with her father, who is a police detected who is not overly thrilled at the return of Queen. Oliver has to come to grips that his young sister has begun to follow in his footsteps – drugs, alcohol, and general teenage angst.
With each episode we have flashback scenes that show us snippets of what happened on the island after he landed. We find that his father made him promise to help clean up his mistakes and to rescue the city. We also find that the island is not as deserted as he has told people.
I am three episodes in and I am digging the show a lot.
The good:
The cast:
Stephen Amell plays Oliver Queen/Arrow. He is young and for me plays the loner vigilante quite well. I am not sure if he is doing all of his stunts and the scenes of training but if he is then damn.
Susanna Thompson is Moira Queen, the matriarch of the family. She is a caring and concerned mother who sees the road her daughter is going down and tries to stop her from becoming her brother. However we do find not everything is at it seems.
Willa Holland is Thea Queen, Oliver’s younger sister. She has hit her rebellious phase and is not the little sister Oliver left. He finds her doing many questionable things and rebuffing any attempt of his to steer her away from the life he once led.
David Ramsey plays John Diggle the bodyguard hired to protect Oliver. He is former military who spent three tours in Afghanistan. He is no nonsense and does not appreciate how Oliver eludes him. He suspects that something more is going on.
And my favorite – Paul Blackthorne. He played Harry Dresden on the failed Sci-Fi show the Dresden files. In Arrow he plays Detective Quentin Lance, father of the young girl who died on the yacht with Queen five years ago. He is also the father to Laurel Lance, Oliver’s old girlfriend and now a district attorney for the city.
The pace of the story:
The stories are fast moving and include quite a bit of action. Far more action and violence then I expected in its timeslot. We discover more each week about what is going on in Starling City and another facet of what Oliver has become.
The Flashbacks
These are done very well. Only snippets are given but so far you find that it wasn’t a picnic on the island. Somehow he acquired many scars, broken bones, and a fluency in Russian.
The Bad
The Lair. Within 24 hours of being back in Starling City he establishes a lair, including generator and computer network. While automotive technology hasn’t changed a whole lot over 20 years, computers and the internet change quite a bit every year. He has established, all by himself, a computer network that can monitor police reports and government agencies? Unless there was an internet bar on the island and he just never happened to email anyone where exactly did he get the skill and know-how to set all this up? Where does he get his internet connection?
His arrows. In the first episode he takes out the villains bodyguards and does not seem to pick them up. He also has a special “hacking” arrow. I am reasonably certain that you can’t pick up those kinds of arrows at your local sporting goods store. Which means they have to be specially fabricated. Computer equipment like the ones to hack a secure network you don’t just pick up at Fry’s Electronics. Unless he has a self-destruct mechanism someone will be able to crack them open and trace who made what.
His box. The sealed one that has his costume and bow. You can’t tell me that no one opened it to examine it and confirm he wasn’t carrying his dead fathers head or some other weird item after being trapped on an island for five years? What if he was carrying a toxic plant or animal, something that customs generally frown on? Sure he’s the son of a wealthy billionaire but come on.
Despite these things I am enjoying the show. If you can overlook these small (and not so small) holes then I think you will enjoy the show.
4 stars out of 5.
I called the box his "Magic Murder Box" because everytime he opened it, at least 4 more body guards were gonna die.
ReplyDeleteSpeaking of, he should be more careful with the native population of guards in the city. He keeps killing them at that pace, and he'll deplete the breeding population and they'll go extinct!