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Move over Clark Kent! The CW has a new king! Or should we say ‘Queen’? Read our review of Arrow’s Pilot Episode!
MIKE-EL’s REVIEW:
Only one episode in and I’m already loving Stephen Amell as Green Arrow. In fact, I find him more subtle and appealing than Chris Evans, Chris Hemsworth, Mark Ruffalo, Eric Bana, Jeremy Renner, Ben Affleck or (needless to say) Nicholas Cage.
The good: The action scenes are fast paced and violent, recalling Doug Liman’s Bourne Identity. Green Arrow’s origin story remains faithful to the spirit of the comic book and there are some other nods to his DC Comics history (Speedy).
The bad: There are some odd changes made to his DC Comics history (Speedy again). The plot feels like refried WB leftovers and while there were a few surprising twists, they were handled with a melodramatic heavy hand.
The final word: Stephen Amell’s stoic portrayal and physical appearance remind us that DC superheroes are closer to Greek gods than their Marvel counterparts. They would stand out in a crowd in spite of their powers. This show is no masterpiece but it does retain enough of the spirit of the comics to make me want to pick up an Green Arrow comic book.
By the way: why couldn’t they just call it GREEN Arrow? Let’s hope this show doesn’t go the way of John Carter…
GI JOLIE’S REVIEW:
Green Arrow? IRON Man is more like it. I don’t know what the natives were feeding him when he was found off the coast of Manila, but it sure built a strong, healthy, chiseled, growing *ehem* man. I’m not the only one that’s noticed either! Thank you ladies (and gents?) of the Tumblr-verse for these PEC-tacular animated GIFs:
Aesthethics aside, I absolutely ADORE Stephen Amell as Oliver Queen though I’ll admit that, I didn’t know much about the Green Arrow before sitting down to watch tonight’s episode. Upon further Wikipedia-ing I was pleased to find out that they stuck relatively close to his Castaway-like origins!
The show itself is pure CW schmaltz at it’s finest, and earlier on fans (albeit mostly male) of the character were quick to dismiss this as a trite adaptation after only seeing the extended previews provided by the Network via Youtube. If you want to see what I’m talking about you can have a look for yourself here:
What do I think of all this? I love it!! I got a great warm Twilight feeling in bottom of my heart and in the depths of my soul -FINALLY an adaptation I can get behind; I wasn’t a fan of Smallville’s later years and stopped watching. The final verdict? I’ll TAKE IT! …and I’ll be tuning in next week, you can be sure of that!
I agree. Great premiere. When Ollie said “Dinah” Laurel Lance towards the end of the ep I knew I was hooked. 8 out of 10.
I agree! It was like Dark Knight when they said Robin’s name in the airport at the end when he was buying tickets 🙂