Ant-Man

Over the past decade, Marvel have taken characters formally thought of as B-list superheroes like Iron Man, Thor and Captain America and turned them into household names and guaranteed money at the box office. Can they do it again with Ant-Man? Yes. Yes they can.

The movie’s success hinges largely on its main actor, and fortunately Paul Rudd nails it. In a potentially very silly film, Rudd needs to succeed and thankfully he is very funny, sympathetic and sincere. Unlike the standard trope of an orphan with murdered parents who becomes an unlikely hero through some life altering event; Scott Lang is a talented but misguided man who is actually selected for the job by the man who designed the Ant Man suit, Hank Pym (played really well by Michael Douglas). In the film’s opening quarter, he is a down on his luck ex con that is trying to turn his life around for his daughter, but struggling to make ends meet.

He’s given a shot at redemption by Dr Pym, an amazing scientist, who wants to stop his revolutionary technology being militarized. Marvel has stated before that each film they do is in a different genre. Captain America was like an old war movie, The Winter Soldier was an espionage/spy thriller, and Guardians was a space opera. Ant-Man is very much a heist movie, and the heist scenes themselves are brilliantly done and very fun to watch. The uniqueness of Ant-Man’s abilities make for some very interesting opportunities for action sequences and thankfully the whole team behind the movie from the director to the special effects guys have seized every chance to make this a fantastic spectacle, with some of the most intricately designed and well thought-out action scenes in any superhero film that feature a creativity that put most generic action movie car chases and gun fights to shame.

Every time we go into the micro world of the Ant-Man suit, it’s a really memorable and special scene, with sequences just as good if not better than the best of Toy Story, The Borrowers, A Bugs Life, Mousetrap, Small Soldiers, Honey, I shrunk the Kids and other micro-world/toy type films. The sets are excellently crafted and there are a lot of physical props too which goes a long way towards making things appear believable. The Ant-Man suit itself is a really well made and sturdy looking costume. When Paul Rudd holds it in his hands it feels like a very real and genuine part of the world that they could have just done in CGI, but instead it’s actually right there and has a nice tactile quality that helps the other scenes seem real. Not all the CGI is convincing, such as the ants themselves, but that doesn’t really take away from the imaginative action scenes.

The movie is very self-aware and knows how ridiculous its premise must seem, even compared to other superhero films and director Peyton Reed has to be given credit for taking this seriously. “Is it too late to change the name?” Asks Scott Lang. This film has many really amusing, cheeky moments but fortunately the humour is content enough to be amusing, and doesn’t go too far trying to be hilarious, or veer into straight up comedy. Again, a lot of this comes from the great set designs and props.

This film also benefits from good supporting characters, something Marvel’s breakout success Iron Man mostly lacked. Michael Douglas as Hank Pym and his badass daughter played by Evangeline Lilly are great, and feel very realistic, never going over the top. A lot of the humour comes from Scott’s former heist team, especially Michael Pena, who gets most of the laughs. By far the most unexpected highlight is Scott’s daughter, who is really cute and funny, but never annoying as a lot of child characters tend to be. The film really strides when it is showcasing its own kooky humour, a lot like Guardians.

Corey Stoll has a difficult job to pull off as the villain Darren Cross, but the writing and performance are strong enough to pull through. Unfortunately this is a relatively unmemorable villain who just sort of has to be there in order to give Ant-Man a reason to exist in the first place; but he is skilfully written – just enough of a psychopath to be a threat, but just restrained enough to not seem ridiculous, and that goes for the movie as a whole as well as it manages to be action packed and really entertaining without ever getting too stupid or carried away with itself. This movie knows how to keep it small, in more ways than one, and doesn’t feel the need to go out of its way to prove its importance. Scott Lang suggests they call the Avengers, but Hank Pym convinces him that things need to be kept quiet, and whilst there is a satisfying climax and final heist scene, the movie doesn’t end with massive city-wide carnage (“dropping cities out of the sky”) and doesn’t go for the world-changing events that the Avengers have to deal with. This is a great little origin story for Ant-Man and packed full of imagination and creativity. Marvel have done it again and taken an underdog story and made Ant-Man a force to be reckoned with that will no doubt gain huge success. I can’t wait to see Paul Rudd’s Scott Lang crossover into other Marvel titles. One of the best films this summer.

Terminator Genysis.

The 2000s were all about the gritty reboot. So we got quite a few of our favourite franchises granted new entries that were darker and grittier than before. Terminator 3: Rise of the Machines featured a John Connor who was a drug addict on the run and oh by the way, you can’t stop Judgement Day and the future is already set in stone. It was an all right action movie but was basically the same thing but with a female terminator. Terminator Salvation took things even further, with a gruff looking Christian Bale fighting a desperate battle in a grimdark post-apocalyptic wasteland with lots of humans captured and enslaved by Skynet. It was a decent action film and it was good to finally get a film set after Judgement Day so we could see the war against the machines, but there weren’t any purple lasers so I was left a little disappointed. Jurassic Park 3 was less about the park and more of a survival horror that was rated PG. The Dark Knight trilogy made us all take Batman as seriously as any sombre crime drama and the Bourne movies made spy thrillers realistic. Predators was a decent and thankfully violent addition to the Predator series. Even Harry Potter got darker as it went along.

Recently however, this trend has reversed. Seeing the incredible success that Marvel have achieved with their formula of fun and tongue in cheek action movies, many other studios are following suit. Jurassic World came back to big success, with a fun movie that recaptures much of the spirit of the original. Star Wars is set to return at the end of the year, and from all the hype around the film’s production, it looks to return to classic space opera and practical special effects. Star Trek has also been rebooted with mostly fun, goofy adventures in space. Apparently Alien is coming back too, and is ignoring everything but the first two films, just like the film in question: Terminator Genysis. Because it’s running alongside these trends, Genysis feels like a lowest common denominator film callously crafted to fit this new blockbuster formula.

Ignoring the dark tone of the previous two sequels, and in fact ignoring their continuity in the canon completely; this film sets out to be another fun, nostalgic action movie. The trailers seemed to scream “Hey! Remember that scene you enjoyed from the first or second movie? Here it is again! Only the actors are different and lol Arnold’s old now.” And if you did see the trailers, you should know that this is pretty much exactly what you get: a nostalgic rehash of the first two films (the only ones most would consider classics), but with more CGI, worse performances, and way too much time travel jargon to try and justify the whole thing. It’s all very retro with the pew pew purple lasers and scenes recreated sometimes wholesale from the first two films.

This time around, Sarah Connor knows Kyle Reese is coming and has been preparing for years. The set-up is the exact same as the first film, only this time Kyle Reese is the fish out of water, and finds himself a little unnecessary to Sarah, the woman he’s supposed to be trying to protect. The movie actually recreates some of his scenes from the first film, with Reese arriving naked in that cool lightning ball thingy from the originals and being hunted down by the liquid metal Terminator cop from Terminator 2.

In this film, it’s Sarah Connor who saves him, and Reese discovers that there’s been a Terminator protecting her all this time. I kid you not; she refers to this Terminator as “pops”. Not once, but many times throughout the movie. For real. The Terminator is played by old Arnold, whose organic skin has aged around him even as his metal skeleton is still deadly as ever. Fair enough, this is an easy sci-fi hand wave I can get behind, and way simpler and easier than the rest of the time travel stuff that comes later. “Old but not obsolete.” He says. They could explore what being raised by a machine has done to her over the years, but they actually don’t delve that deeply into it.

The dynamic between the three of them is what keeps the action train rolling, as they try to once again stop Skynet from nuking everyone in judgement day. Unfortunately, the two main stars in this film: Emlia Clarke and Jai Courtney are just kind of weak, they aren’t terrible and do a decent enough job, but they lack the believability of their predecessors in the same roles. Jai Courtney is a serviceable actor but doesn’t have the kind of desperation that made Michael Biehn’s Kyle Reese so great in The Terminator. I also had trouble believing Emilia Clarke as the tough as nails Sarah Connor. I like Emilia Clarke as the Khaleesi, but I feel that she is just too pretty and effeminate (almost baby-faced) to play such a strong and jaded character. I hope it doesn’t make me a misogynist who can’t accept a character who’s both feminine and strong, but it’s hard to pretend I wasn’t trying to suspend disbelief throughout the performance, especially considering that I know she’s actually British and putting on an American accent. If you want a real throwback to tough female characters like Sarah Connor, Charlize Theron’s Furiosa from Mad Max: Fury Road is a much better bet.

What hurts these two the most is that they are clearly good actors struggling through a very poor script. A lot of scenes feature way too much sci-fi exposition to try and justify the time travel shenanigans going on, and some of the dialogue is just fucking crap. I found myself rolling my eyes throughout many of the scenes, and trying not to cringe in others. As mentioned earlier, this film is going for a much lighter and funnier tone than its predecessors, but a lot of the jokes fall flat and some of the forced humour is just awful. The fact that a lot of the film is a re-tread of scenes we’ve already seen before, makes it all the worse, because it feels like Terminator is almost becoming a parody of itself. Whilst the first film was a genuinely brutal, relentless action film and the second one of the best popcorn blockbusters ever, the sequels seemed to go with what whatever was popular at the time. Terminator 3 was a generic action movie trying to be a bit more modern and cool than its precursors, whilst Salvation was a dreary post-apocalyptic mess; and Genysis is a goofy, post-modern resequelboot that unfortunately fails to be as funny or original as the Avengers or the new Star Trek films.

On a positive note, Arnold is still just Arnold. Unfortunately he’s sort of relegated to comic relief here, and the jokes mostly suck. If you loved Terminator 2, and think Arnold talking in a monotone voice and not understanding human emotions is hilarious, then you might like this. But the mostly silent, relentless assassin from the first film is my favourite version, and seeing Arnold crack an awkward grin after being taught to smile by Sarah Connor to help him fit in more just felt like a big step down for this once mighty series.

As far as the action goes, it’s all fairly standard stuff and features tons of gunfire and explosions, and plenty of up close and personal encounters with the liquid terminator and his cool blades he makes out of his arms. Unfortunately there’s a ton of clichés as the protagonists are always given just enough time to escape, and the super strong metal Terminators just tossing people into walls instead of say, instantly crushing their windpipe (to be fair though, this has always been a problem with the series). It’s one chase scene after another, but the escapes always seem inevitable and the danger rarely seems as real as it could be – and do we really need yet another scene featuring the Golden Gate Bridge getting wrecked? Towards the end, it seemed obvious that the Terminators would never get the heroes, no matter how hard they tried.

The film tries to do new stuff with Skynet. Stupidly, they blew their load prematurely in the trailers, which give away the majority of what’s going on. Jason Clarke gives the most enjoyable performance of the film as John Connor, and makes for a slimy, dastardly villain. However, he’s kind of creepy and unnerving from the very beginning, so it seems kind of telegraphed (or it would be if the trailers didn’t give it away anyway.) The rest of the film and it’s crappy dialogue and funny tone make this feel like a YA version of Terminator, especially the kind of forced, inevitable romance between the two lead actors that we can all see coming. This film felt totally unnecessary and completely predictable; with some honestly pretty embarrassingly bad scenes. I went into the theatre wanting to like this, but perhaps it was best to leave this venerable series alone for good. Probably the worst Terminator sequel yet; I won’t be buying the DVD for my collection any time soon.

Jurassic World.

Chris Pratt and Bryce Dallas Howard star in this sort of remake/reboot of Jurassic Park. This time around the park – named “Jurassic World” – is an established fully functioning attraction like Disney World, and like the first film, we get to see the mayhem that ensues when it all falls apart.

In the running for biggest blockbuster of the year alongside other crowd pleasers like the Avengers, this re-tread of your childhood wonder features blue and orange, questionable CGI, and some hammy performances. It also features some wicked dinosaur fights, Chris Pratt on top form and some creative and unique designs. It’s a mixed bag really.

For the first third of the film, the park itself is the star of the show, and really shines as a fairly believable real life theme park with fancy future tech keeping the whole gig running and keeping the dinosaurs in check so that the tourists can have a good time. The setting itself is probably the best thing about the film and showcases some excellent and well thought out world building that honestly is even better than the first film. Unlike the Spielberg original, the park isn’t a proto type but is up and running and has been for years. I sort of wish that things ran smoothly for a bit longer, as I would have loved to have seen even more of the island. Apparently people are getting bored of the attractions, because dinosaurs are like so 1993, and in an aim to keep the profit margins up, Jurassic World have their scientists create a new hybrid dinosaur, which no surprise breaks free and causes carnage. This is how the majority of the action gets started and also provides much of the moral lessons of the film – the standard Frankenstein/don’t mess with nature type stuff that you would expect from a Jurassic movie.

The film follows two kids visiting their estranged aunt Claire (Bryce Dallas Howard). The younger of the two is played by Ty Simpkins who once again is cast as an annoyingly intelligent kid who uses words most adults don’t understand like he spends his time reading his parent’s thesaurus. He’s a stand in for the kids in the audience and I suppose his childish wonder at the dinosaurs is necessary, but this Hollywood cliché of a really smart kid who talks with the equanimity and vocabulary of the world’s top scientists is really tiring and bugs me. It’s a shame because this kid is definitely one of the most talented child actors around, but he seems to get put in this role a lot. His older brother (Nick Robinson) is a stand in for the slightly older kids in the audience, going into their teen years. Like a lot of the people at the park, he’s jaded and more interested in girls and social networking than in boring old dinosaurs. I’m not sure why the movie seems to think that we, the audience are also slightly disinterested in dinosaurs and need something new, because why else would we have turned up to a Jurassic movie if not for the dinos? The kids meet their workaholic aunt who quickly dumps them on her assistant (to be fair, major shit is about to go down and she doesn’t really have time to look after kids when lives are at stake).

What must have been a good twenty minutes or so in, we are introduced to our dashing hero of the day, and you could almost hear a sigh of relief from the audience when Chris Pratt is introduced as Owen. He’s a lot like the Sam Neil of this movie, only way cooler. They want him to check out this new hybrid dinosaur that they haven’t unveiled yet. Of course, it’s wicked scary and smart and knows stuff it shouldn’t know; and it doesn’t take long until it escapes and starts murdering everything it comes across. The action scenes are amongst some of the best in the series and Owen is a cool character who’s courageous and knows exactly what to do when everyone else is running around like typical horror movie style idiots and getting themselves killed. Eventually the kids are in danger and it’s up to Claire to enlist the help of Owen to save them and prove to her sister that she’s a good aunt. So there’s at least some attempt at forging interesting character relationships and development but thankfully it mostly takes a back seat to the dinosaur’s rampage. It’s a very similar thread to Sam Neil’s arch in the original, with them both learning to love and protect kids (something something life finds a way…). This speaks a lot about the film in general, which is very much Jurassic Park but biggerer and betterer.

A number of secondary and tertiary characters are quite entertaining, with standouts Irrfan Khan as the park founder, and Vincent D’Onofrio hamming it up as a military guy who wants to weaponize the dinosaurs. Some people may be bothered by some of the silliness, but I quite enjoyed it. This is easily the most satisfying and crowd pleasing entry in the series since The Lost World and may be the best sequel so far. Cheesy elements like Chris Pratt’s raptor squad from the trailers and the hybrid dinosaur aren’t terrible and don’t really detract from the film, but add lot of fun and show that at least something new is being tried.

What is worrying is that the inevitable sequels are going to be difficult to get right, because we’ve seen the park built and torn apart once more it seems unlikely that the next film in the series will feature the same thing happening again, so perhaps we will finally get to see the series broadened out and get a full scale dinosaur infestation of the mainland and something like Planet of the Apes (hence the name Jurassic World – which seems designed for a larger and more open series). We had a sneak peek of this in The Lost World with the T-Rex in San Diego but I’d like to see more. And can they really just keep building this park over and over again? Who would want to visit it now? Or will the next sequel be another attempt at reclaiming the island, just as The Lost World already did? If this film set out to redo the first film then it mostly succeeded, with a fun cast of characters and plenty of good action scenes, and the park itself perhaps being the best highlight. Some of the CGI is surprisingly weak, and CinemaSins will likely have a field day with the inconsistencies and typical horror movie bad decisions made by the characters, but there is enough here to make this a perfectly enjoyable summer blockbuster. It doesn’t recapture the wonder of the original, but it never really could in an age of CGI transformers and explosions. Chris Pratt is great and the film is basically what you would expect from the trailers: a fun dinosaur movie.

Ash vs Evil Dead.

Looks goofy as hell. Bonus points for using Deep Purple “Space Truckin'” in the trailer. Can’t wait for all the gore and one liners.