28/10/2025

LYFE TUESDAY | OCT 28, 2025

25 Pointless return with plenty of padding F IVE years after surviving the deadly games in the Borderland and coming back to life, Arisu (Kento Yamazaki) and Usagi (Tao o Alice in Borderland ’s third season suffers from Squid Game-ification of series Ű BY MARK MATHEN VICTOR TV SHOW REVIEW

Tsuchiya) lead a relatively quiet and peaceful married life. However, she continues to hold on to the trauma of seeing her father commit suicide. At the same time, the memories from their time in the Borderland’s games begin to return to the couple. Obsessed with the afterlife and his theories involving the Borderland, a professor by the name of Ryuji Matsuyama (Kento Kaku) convinces Usagi to return to the games for answers by putting themselves into a coma. Chasing after Usagi, with the help of Ann, Arisu puts himself in a cardiac arrest and once again finds himself inside the Borderland. The second season of Alice in Borderland three years ago provided the perfect closure for Netflix’s adaptation of Haro Aso’s manga. In this third chapter, the series is revived with a new storyline, which by the end of its sixth episode, proves the season to be completely pointless. As much as it is great to see the return of Arisu and Usagi as more mature characters, the show bends itself over backwards in an attempt to justify the third season’s existence, beginning with the inciting event of Usagi returning to the Borderland instead of just going to therapy, which ironically is the field Arisu is training in. The logic of everything else then starts falling apart the further the episodes stretch, with the big offender being how often Arisu is offered a choice between staying in the Borderland or going back to the world of living with his wife, with him always picking the latter. Alice in Borderland , as a whole, has never shown any signs as to why he would ever choose to be a Borderland permanent resident. Yet this season wastes an inordinate amount of time on repeatedly creating scenes and situations that present this illusion of choice within each death game, which are also just rehashes or combinations of the games in previous seasons. These are symptoms of a bigger problem, where the season is largely padded with inane filler content, which includes the background, boring slice-of-life information dumps for all the new characters the season

Some of the new games are downright unfair, which goes against the lore.

introduces – a liberty that the characters of the original two seasons did not have until the second season. All these problems eventually come to a head in the sixth episode, which has a 20-minute or so sequence involving Arisu, Usagi and Ryuji in a flood, shouting their names at each other, in a sequence that could have been edited down to a fraction of its length. Once that pointlessly protracted sequence is over, the pieces of the puzzle, cobbled from this season’s laundry list of problems, fall neatly into place as the real reason behind Alice in Borderland’s revival is revealed: Netflix sets up the potential for a sequel set in America. The same was done with the finale of Squid Game ’s third season. As fun as it is seeing the old Alice in Borderland leads return, the “Squid Game-ification” of the series is a turn-off and heralds the inevitable drowning of Netflix with more lazy cash grabs.

The new season does little in developing the relationship between Usagi (left) and Arisu. – PICS FROM NETFLIX

George Clooney explores passage of time in Netflix film Jay Kelly

GEORGE Clooney plays an actor looking back at his past in Netflix’s Jay Kelly , but in real life, the US star has his eyes on the future. “I’m not really ready to look backwards and sort of rest on it,” the 64-year-old actor said at the film’s premiere at the American Film Institute festival in Los Angeles. Unlike his title character in Jay Kelly, which will hit the big screen next month, Clooney does not want to dwell on the past. “I sort of enjoy looking forward and seeing what’s coming next,” he said. Directed by Noah Baumbach, Jay

Sandler, 59, said the movie offers an interesting take on the passage of time, watching an actor like him “get older on camera”. But, he said, “I don’t look back at work I wish I would have done.” Instead, “I do say... time is ticking, let’s make sure we get it all in there, and make sure we get it all in there outside of movies, family and stuff like that.” “And if we’re doing movies, let’s do stuff that’s going to bring joy to people.” Jay Kelly will be available on Netflix from Dec 5. – AFP

Kelly explores the emotional crisis of an actor after a three-decade career. Obsessed with mending his relationship with his daughters, Clooney’s character drags his manager, played by Adam Sandler, and press agent, played by Laura Dern, on a trip to Europe. Along the journey, he reflects on his loneliness, past mistakes and the price of success. “I am lucky enough to not be as unhappy as he is and to have really good friends and people that I like. I don’t feel as isolated as he is,” said Clooney of his character.

Clooney attends the AFI opening night premiere of Jay Kelly at the TCL Chinese Theatre in Hollywood, California. – PIC FROM AFP