Weekend Watch: The Boys Season 3, The Phantom Of The Open, Floor Is Lava Season 2

Image Credit: Amazon Studios

Welcome to the latest edition of Weekend Watch, in which I recommend (or occasionally warn against) movies or TV shows I’ve been checking out. This week, more satirical superhero shockers, a golfing zero turned hero and the return of the “deadly” goop. Follow James on Twitter: @jamwhite

By now, no one starts watching The Boys expecting family-friendly superhero action. And in fact, anyone who knows the source comics (by Garth Ennis and Darick Robertson) knows that these stories have always been violent, filthy, satirical, dark and envelope-pushing.

For season three, it takes the envelope, pushes it onto a barbeque grill, pours lighter fuel over it, sets it on fire and then puts it out by peeing on it. A sequence in the first 10 minutes of this new season beats the outrageousness of pretty much everything that has come before. I’ll say only this: look out for the incredible shrinking guy.

The Boys is ostensibly the story of a world where powered people exist, primarily created by the Compound V formula developed by the Vought corporation and that most of them are awful, awful examples of boosted humanity. Prime among them is Homelander (Anthony Starr), best described as Superman by way of a rich kid with anxiety issues, who leads The Seven, a group of “Supes” with their own issues.

Against them are allied Billy Butcher (Karl Urban) and the boys, his vigilante team who want to take down these corrupt and secretly terrifying “heroes”. For two seasons we’ve followed Billy and the gang (not all of whom are shining examples of humanity themselves) as they crusade to take down Homelander a peg or 17.

As Season 3 opens, things are more desperate and disparate than ever. Billy, redoubling his crusade after his wife Becca was accidentally killed by son Ryan, (who he recently learned is Homelander’s child) is going to increasingly angry lengths to kill his nemesis. When he learns that there might be something that can do the job linked to the “original” Supe, Solider Boy (Jensen Ackles), he indulges in ever more dangerous behaviour to find it.

The other members of the group are all dealing with their own issues – Hughie (Jack Quaid) is working with congresswoman Victoria Neuman (Claudia Doumit) to crack down on Supe behaviour, while Starlight (Erin Moriarty) is trying to stop Homelander from within the Seven.

Around this is wrapped a variety of troubled/foul-mouthed superheroes or vigilantes with their own agendas, and the show is happy to indulge them all. Though the trick of being ever more outrageous wears a little thin at times (there are only so many times the creative time can have people explode in creative ways before it starts feeling like a toddler showing you their scribbly crayon drawing), the depth (and The Deep) of the series is still intact. It has more on its mind than shock value, and it takes its time to explore all its characters. Ackles, a veteran of Boys boss Eric Kripke’s long-running Supernatural, fits right in.

There might be more competition on the outrageous superhero front (Peacemaker particularly), but The Boys proves it is head(less) and shoulders above almost all the rest.

The first three episodes of Season 3 are on Prime Video now. The remaining five will arrive weekly on Fridays. I’ve seen the whole season.

Image Credit: Sony Pictures Classics

Though I normally stick to reviewing movies and TV shows that are arriving both in the States and the UK or with little time between the two, I’m breaking my rule this time because The Phantom Of The Open is such a charming treat that I wanted to make sure US readers were aware of it. UK folk will have seen it in cinemas back in March, but it has only now made its way across the pond.

Directed by Craig Roberts, an actor who has shown real flair and humanity directing movies such as Just Jim and Eternal Beauty, Open is the based-on-truth tale of Maurice Flitcroft, a dockworker who, in the 1970s, figured might be fun to enter the British Open golf tournament. There was just one small snag – he’d never been a member of a golf club. Or played before.

Despite some enthusiastic practice, his round at the Open was predictably shambolic, but he soon became a folk hero, frustrating the stuffy golfing gatekeepers who sought to keep their privileged sport a closed club. With the support of his family, he kept sneaking back into events, utilising a variety of silly disguises to get around being banned from courses.

Simon Farnaby, always a reliable, funny actor on screen and a superb writer behind it (you don’t have a co-writing credit on the second Paddington film without having the skills), adapts the book he wrote with Scott Murray on Flitcroft.

And with Mark Rylance taking the title role, you know that Flitcroft is in good hands. With Sally Hawkins, Rhys Ifans and Mark Lewis Jones also in the cast, this is an amiable take on the sort of film that Britain does so well – underdog stories with enough quirk that you never mind knowing how it works out. And with Flitcroft’s mostly obscure story, it’s not even one that most people would know anyway.

It's worth seeking this one out at the cinema, even if it doesn’t require the sort of giant screen favoured by your average blockbuster. There are flights of fantasy here that offer real fun, but the core of the film is a gentle, honest story of love, family and obsession pointed in the right direction.

The Phantom Of The Open lands in LA and NY cinemas today, ahead of a nationwide expansion.

Image Credit: Netflix

If The Boys is intense madness and The Phantom Of The Open is charming and sweet, the return of Floor Is Lava could best be described as “intense sweetness”. Though some of the obstacles have been upgraded and there is a new final round, this is essentially still the same show that I wrote about way back in 2020 when I covered cheerful shows to help us get through the various lockdowns.

Based on the kids’ game of jumping across furniture because the floor is now deadly, churning lava, this competitive obstacle course game show pits teams of three – family members, friends, work colleagues, whatever the associative link – against rooms that combine physical puzzles surrounded by goopy, bubbling “lava”. They must do their best to escape each chamber without falling into the lava. To add to the pressure this year, the time it takes them to accomplish that also plays a part, as only the two fastest teams who get the most members to the exit will make it to the new final round, where they face off on a volcano (no, not in a Star Wars: Revenge Of The Sith way, this is more a race).

Hosted by comedian Rutledge Wood, who is an engaging enough host (though could use a better writer for his in-game patter), the real appeal of this one is mostly waiting for the initially confident players to fall in and sink beneath the frothy death trap. It’s also entertaining to predict which players will end up hopelessly stuck in certain sections after making ridiculous decisions as to where to jump.

There’s also a refreshing camaraderie to be found among some of the teams, along with the standard batch of quirksome personalities who volunteer for this sort of game. We might not be in quite the same place as when the first season premiered, but the world is enough of a shambles that shows like Floor Is Lava can still act as a useful release in times of trouble.

All of Seasons One and Two of Floor Is Lava are on Netflix now.