Reviews

One is an interesting, yet slow drama of an amateur archeologist meeting a woman who's willing to take a chance on him all based on real life events. The other is an appropriate period piece about a young woman finding herself in a loveless marriage with a gay husband in the 1930's, a less forgiving age of such thing. On their own, they both have merit. Together, they make a confused story, weaving around the two distinct plots so often that it seems like it's forgetting what it's about.

It's an unfortunate result as both these plots are filled with charismatic writing and carried by phenomenal acting, Carey Mulligan and Ralph Fiennes in the former plot, and Lily James and Johnny Flynn in the latter.

Depending on which story drew you in, watching The Dig is like treading water, shifting between above water and below. Those shifts can sometimes bring jarringly violent as well, giving its audience the wrong kind of realization of just how much of this film is at war with itself. Is it about the glaring classism in the field of science or about love and loss? Is this a character study of people of that era or a story of how learning and honoring the past can bind people in the present?

The movie attempts to bridge these gaps by including moments where the two distinct plots and themes intersect, but those moments of fleeting and stop short of making the point come across to its full effect.

Perhaps the creators of The Dig did not think the nonfictional aspect of the plot centered around the Sutton Hoo excavation were enough to fill an entire film, a point to which I agree. Then the question becomes one that a movie-goer should never ask: why make this film at all?

Season 1 of Legends of Tomorrow was a mixture of tones and themes that ended with somewhat of a bad taste in the viewer's mouth. It wasn't sure where it wanted to go, it wasn't sure of what it wanted to do. It's ironic that the issues of the first season became a sort of metaphor for the show's characters: evolving beyond where they started to become something better.

Made up of the secondary heroes of the Arrowverse, the show painted its characters as outcasts of that world, not good enough to headline their own show like The Flash or Supergirl. The first season labels this mentality as a bad thing. After recognizing that the tone of the show wasn't working, the writers decided to embrace that theme, but with comedy being the end result rather than melodrama.

Thus was born a different show basically. Superpowers took a backseat to wacky situational comedy. Fistfights were turned into corny motivational speaks. And their characters evolved to fit this new paradigm. The strangest thing about all of it: it totally works.

Legends of Tomorrow is not for everyone, as most superhero properties are. However, this show from season 2 on is definitely worth a try simply due to the fact there's nothing else like it on air right now. They're may be no other show like it period. The incredible mix of corny action, the wacky situations the Legends find themselves in, and the genuinely good development of basically every character all come together in a truly remarkable story about people changing for the better.

I do believe what they say is true: heroes are in the limelight, they are the ones seen and their actions are praised. But the people you don't see are just as important. Heroes are the ones we remember, but Legends never die.