Ant-Man Review

In light of massive hype around The Avengers: Age of Ultron I had completely forgotten we had another Marvel movie hitting theaters this year. Hard to believe, since the trailers for Ant-Man (2015) were pretty funny and caused much excitement among me and my friends. The movie might be Marvel's funniest superhero origin story, even if the scale is smaller for this size-shifting character.

Scott Lang (Paul Rudd), an engineer who committed a crime he felt that was justified, is sent to prison. When he gets out he wants to be on the straight and narrow, but having a record doesn't help. Eventually his friend tells him of a job and he decides to take it. Scott has to break into a vault and when he does all he finds is a strange suit. After he takes it, he puts it on and discovers it shrinks him, grants him superhuman strength, and the ability to communicate with an army of ants. Scott tries to return it and when he does he's arrested. A man claiming to be his attorney goes to see him and tells him that the suit was an opportunity which he should have taken. Later some ants bring him the suit and he puts it on and gets out of jail. Scott then goes to the man who says he's Hank Pym, a former S.H.I.E.L.D. Agent and  the man who created the suit. Pym used it before and called himself Ant-Man. He gave it up when he found out that S.H.I.E.L.D. was planning to use his technology for things Pym didn't agree with, so he made sure no one could replicate it and put it away. But he now needs Scott to be Ant-Man because it seems like his protégé, Darren Cross (Corey Stoll) is close to replicating it. So he wants Scott to get into the lab and take it. Scott is uncertain if he can do it and Pym's daughter, Hope van Dyne (Evangeline Lilly), agrees and thinks she should be the one to go. But Pym insists that Scott is the one. So Pym and Lilly train him while trying to make sure Cross doesn't suspect anything.

Ant-Man isn't a widely known character in the Marvel Universe, but that's what I love about these Marvel Cinematic Universe movies; they showcase some of the more obscure superheroes and give them opportunities to shine. This being a Marvel movie, you should keep a sharp eye out for references to other Marvel characters and cross-movie references.

So many of the previous Marvel superhero movies have had grand-scale and over-the-top action scenes. It almost seems funny that a movie about a character whose ability is to shrink would have a smaller scale. Scott isn't the stuff of legends, nor does he aspire to be. Scott isn't even interested in fighting. His primary objective is to get a stable job and earn partial custody of his daughter. He gets tied up in some superhero action that he has little interest in initially, but ultimately goes along with it as a means of achieving his goals. This isn't an globe-trotting adventure; it all takes place in a couple of locations in San Francisco. The scale is smaller, but the story isn't any less interesting. It seems that rarely heeded Hollywood wisdom that “less” really can be “more” was implemented here.

One of the things I liked about the characters is that no one was ethically pure; everyone has some slightly dubious backgrounds and motives. The good guys aren't completely good the way Captain America is, nor are the bad guys in the vein of Thanos or Loki who are villains and they know it. Scott is basically a good guy who is not above law breaking if he feels it's justified. Cross is not diabolical, in fact, he's trying make the world a better place, though his experiments are having some adverse side effects. This fits into theme of people transcending who they are and what they are capable of and the idea that even the smallest person can change the world.

As a hero whose power is to shrink, Ant-Man is a little hard to take seriously at first. Fortunately the movie acknowledges this and has fun with the idea and laces it with a generous amount of humor. Similar to Guardians of the Galaxy, Ant-Man plays with the superhero genre while fully embracing the emotions that make the genre fun. This might be the funniest Marvel superhero movie to date; it's got several quotable lines such as, "Baskin Robins always finds out."  I laughed a whole lot.

One of the things that really bothered me about Ant-Man was Hope van Dyne's character. She's established as being more competent, knowledgeable, and capable than Scott about the Ant-Man suit. When we learn why Hank Pym insists on it being Scott, rather than Hope, who acts as the hero, I was left thinking, "Really? THAT'S the reason?" Marvel has been receiving criticism for not utilizing its vast array of female superheroes and even downplaying the character of Black Widow, the only female hero used in the Marvel Cinematic Universe. Here, the movie is practically acknowledging this gender inequality and laughing about it, giving the hero role to a man at the expense of a much more competent woman character. I know there is a Captain Marvel movie in the works which will feature Marvel's first female superhero as the star, but that's still several years away. You'd think they'd at least start warming up to female superhero.

Shrinking is great and all that, but you wouldn't think that kind of power would be conducive to interesting fights. On the contrary, the action is kept fresh and Ant-Man's powers are used in remarkably creative ways that really keep you guessing how the story is going to progress. There are many times when we're getting caught up in the shrunken action, that when the camera switches to an angle a few feet away, it makes us realize how completely absurd an epic fight scene on a toy train is while still remaining exciting and fun, even humorous. The visuals are amazing. I saw Ant-Man in 2-D, but there are several scenes that are probably fantastic in 3-D.

For all its humor and exciting action, Ant-Man isn't without a few bugs, so to speak. The smaller scale is a major plus, the characters are pretty good, the theme is satisfying, the action and visual effects are fantastic and highly creative, and it's playful in unexpected ways. However the gender dynamics here are annoying and unfounded, the opening scene doesn't establish enough and seems to be included for the sake of cameos, and the story dips into clichés a bit too often. Overall, it's a good movie and I enjoyed it. It's not the best the Marvel Cinematic Universe has to offer, but it's worth seeing in theaters and getting a copy of once it hits home video.

If you were to pick a female superhero from Marvel's arsenal of characters to star in her own movie, who would it be? Comment below and let me know!

The Hobbit: The Battle of the Five Armies Review

The Hobbit: An Unexpected Journey was excellent and The Hobbit: The Desolation of Smaug left us dangling with an exciting cliffhanger. We had to wait until The Hobbit: The Battle of the Five Armies (2014) to see how this all ended and hopefully see how it tied in with The Lord of the Rings. Overall, The Five Armies was good, and gave us a satisfying end to the trilogy.

Bilbo Baggins (Martin Freeman), Thorin Oakenshield (Richard Armitage), and the rest of the dwarf company watch helplessly from the Lonely Mountain as the dragon Smaug (Benedict Cumberbatch) destroys Laketown in revenge for helping the dwarves. In Laketown, Bard (Luke Evans) manages to exploit Smaug's only tiny weakness and brings the dragon down. The dwarves tell Bilbo that Thorin has fallen into madness due to Smaug's "Dragon Sickness" as Thorin seaches for the Arkenstone, the symbol of Thorin's authority to rule the dwarves. Meanwhile, Galadriel (Cate Blanchett), Elrond (Hugo Weaving), Saruman (Christopher Lee), and Radagast (The Doctor Sylvester McCoy) rescue Gandalf (Ian McKellen) from the Necromancer's fortress. Gandalf learned of an Orc army from the east approaching the Lonely Mountain and hurries to warn the Dwarves. Elves Legolas (Orlando Bloom) and Tauriel (Evangeline Lilly) discover a goblin army making their way toward the Lonely Mountain, seeking the now unguarded gold. The Laketown survivors implore of Thorin only enough of the dragon's gold to rebuild their decimated lives. They are aided by the elf king Thranduil (Lee Pace) and his soldiers who himself seeks elven crown jewels from the dragon's keep. With these five armies closing in on the Lonely Mountain and Thorin struggling with madness and paranoia, an all out war will inevitably breakout. But Bilbo still has a few tricks up his sleeve and may turn the tides of war.

It did take me a while to figure out who the five armies were; I'd only counted four. The goblin and orc armies look very similar, after all. So, we've got men, dwarves, elves, the orcs and goblins who have been chasing our heroes throughout the trilogy, and an "orc army from the east." There are untold masses of riches and treasure in the Lonely Mountain, but not all the armies are after that. Some are after it for its strategic location to bolster their strength in upcoming war campaigns, others are after specific tokens that found their way into the hoard, and others naturally want more money than they can possibly know what to do with. Everyone has a stake in this battle.

The Desolation of Smaug had some pacing issues in the interest of telling a story, The Five Armies almost had the opposite problem. There is a whole lot of action in this installment to the point that we don't get much story development. To be fair, though, you should have seen all of these many characters developed and have understood enough of the set up in the previous two movies to not need much of that here. There is tons of action and fight scenes and the epic, big scale battles that Peter Jackson did so beautifully in The Lord of the Rings. The only fight I was disappointed in was battling Smaug; he's depicted as immensely powerful and an unstoppable force of destruction yet defeating him seemed a bit too easy and anticlimactic. That fight could have been lengthened or made more significant, but everything else was amazing. You will absolutely not leave this movie wishing there had been more action. In fact, I dare say it was on the brink of being too much action and not enough of anything else.

At the end of the movie we see a couple of characters going off in their own direction which we are sure will lead them to their respective roles in The Lord of the Rings. That was expected, but the one scene which really bridges this trilogy together with The Lord of the Rings is when Gandalf was rescued. Here we see some of the bearers of rings of power and some wizards duke it out with the Necromancer and the nine souls of men who succumbed to Sauron's power and attained near-immortality as wraiths. You watch this and understand how events in The Hobbit significantly affected things in The Lord of the Rings. While we do get a satisfying conclusion, by the end of The Five Armies you'll be ready to catch the next installment which is, of course, the first Lord of the Rings movie.

As a trilogy, The Hobbit has pacing issues and included a lot of extra stuff that wasn't in the book. I reiterate that these movies were based on the book by the same title, the appendices to The Return of the King, and Tolkin's personal notes. There is extra stuff that was not in the book, but is still technically cannon. Peter Jackson did add a few things here and there such as Tauriel's character and her rather annoying love interest with Kíli. The Lord of the Rings was a trilogy of books so it made sense to make them a trilogy of movies. The Hobbit was one book originally intended for kids. Now that I've seen the entirety of the trilogy, I think that about half of the extra material included in the movies could have been left out. It did feel like it was random filler to extend the length of the story and justify three movies instead of two, as was originally planned. I still think Jackson could have done The Hobbit an exceptional service transitioning it from book to movie if it had been left at two movies instead of a whole trilogy with extra padding to lengthen the story. This is not at all to say that I don't like The Hobbit; I do! I simply think a more concise pair of movies would have made them stronger. The Lord of the Rings is much better, but that is a very high standard to hold any movie up to.

The Hobbit: The Battle of the Five Armies was a lot of fun. It championed the beautiful visuals and special effects we have come to love from Middle-Earth movies, we saw our heroes in action one last time and saw their particular strengths shine in the hands of some great actors, we saw how the events in The Hobbit significantly affected events in The Lord of the Rings, and we saw a satisfying conclusion to this trilogy. If you remember that satisfied yet sad feeling you got as the end credits rolled at the end of Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows part 2 when you realize that that is it and there will be no more Harry Potter movies, you'll likely feel that at the end of The Five Armies as you realize that there will be no more Middle-Earth movies. I recommend catching this in theaters, it's likely the last chance you'll get to see the beautiful fantasy world of Middle-Earth on the big screen. Though you should wait for the extended edition of the movie to hit blu-ray before buying a copy for your home collection.

What were your thoughts on the additional content put into The Hobbit trilogy. Comment below and tell me about it, but please avoid spoilers for anyone who hasn't seen everything yet.

The Hobbit: The Desolation of Smaug Movie Review

Ever since the end credits started rolling at the end of The Hobbit: An Unexpected Journey (2012), I've been chomping at the bit to see the sequel; The Hobbit: The Desolation of Smaug (2013), and I was not disappointed. Even with a few flaws, there is more exciting action, more beautiful visuals, and easily the best dragon in cinema history!

After successfully crossing over and under the Misty Mountains, Thorin (Richard Armitage) and company continue their quest and must seek aid from a powerful stranger named Beorn (Mikael Persbrandt) before taking on the dangers of Mirkwood Forest. Upon reaching the forest, the wizard Gandalf (Ian McKellen) discovers "Black Speech" graffiti on an old ruin and abruptly leaves without explanation. If the dwarves reach the human settlement of Lake-town, it will be time for the hobbit, Bilbo Baggins (Martin Freeman) to fulfill his contract with the dwarves and use stealth to retrieve the Arkenstone which will reunite all the dwarves. The party must complete the journey to the Lonely Mountains and burglar Baggins must seek out the Secret Door that will give them access to the hoard of the dragon Smaug (Benedict Cumberbatch). Meanwhile, Gandalf rejoins a fellow wizard of his order, Radagast the Brown (The Doctor Sylvester McCoy), to investigate a potentially greater foe that the Black Speech foretold.

As was the case with The Lord of the Rings Trilogy, The Hobbit movies are being filmed back to back and filming sometimes overlapped. It's all the same cast and crew. So to save space here, just go read my review of An Unexpected Journey; what I discussed there can easily be said about The Desolation of Smaug.  An Unexpected Journey was good, though it had some pacing issues. But holy cow! The Desolation of Smaug is amazing! I think this is more of the tone viewers were expecting with the first movie. This one really takes things up to the next level.

This movie assumes that you have seen the previous one. Seriously, you must not see these out of order. The movies starts off with some exciting action and doesn't really slow down enough to develop the characters that have previously been established. Sure, we get some new characters; Orlando Bloom reprises his role as Legolas the elf, Tauriel (Evangeline Lilly) the Chief of the Guards for the Elfking, and Bard the Bowman (Luke Evans), and the Master of Lake-town (Stephen Fry). They all get developed to varying degrees, but the movie assumes you already know who Bilbo, Gandalf, Thorin, and the other dwarves are. That's often a downside to sequels; but since this is part two of a three part story, I can let it slide.

The Hobbit Trilogy is based on the book, the appendices to The Return of the King, and Tolkin's personal notes. There are extra scenes and characters I just didn't recognize at all. It turns out that there were scenes and characters included that were unique to the movies; Tauriel for example. I was suspicious that Legolas showed up in The Hobbit at all. He was not in the book, and I was expecting him to just make a simple cameo, nod to the fans, and be gone. Not so. He's actually a major character and that makes sense because his father plays an important role in the movie and the book. If you're going to shoehorn extra characters or scenes into an established story, it's important to make them meaningful, memorable, and amazing. That is exactly what Legolas and Tauriel were, and I loved it!

Smaug is easily the best dragon ever put on the big screen. I was a bit upset that we got to see him in one of the trailers. But no, the trailer did not do Smaug justice. If you saw the trailer, you have not seen anything yet. He is absolutely colossal. He's cunning, articulate, evil, ridiculously powerful, menacing, and dominating. I mean, you know when Bilbo enters the hoarded treasure chamber that you're going to see Smaug, but nothing can prepare you for it! You really feel the dread Bilbo feels upon first seeing this monster. Smaug would probably corner you without any kind of effort, kick your butt at a game of chess, and then incinerate you. I simply cannot describe how excellent Smaug is in this movie! This dragon is truly epic, and is going to be a memorable movie villain for ages to come; right up there with Lord Voldemort, Darth Vader, The Wicked Witch of the West, and The Joker.

The Desolation of Smaug isn't without its flaws. The music is good, but not nearly as memorable as the music in An Unexpected Journey. This isn't a movie score you're as likely to listen to repeatedly. The story is weakened a bit simply from being the "middle chapter" in the bigger story; there isn't much of a beginning point nor is there much of a conclusion. It just ended so abruptly. This is very much a special effects intensive film, but a couple of times the CGI looked rather overt. I felt like some scenes could have been polished up a bit more.

The Hobbit: The Desolation of Smaug was fantastic! It's got some flaws, but I don't think they are deal breakers by any means. The director, Peter Jackson, seems to be slipping into the realm of fan fiction at times, but he manages to make his additions acceptable and lots of fun for the most part. Smaug is incredible; best movie dragon ever! We're left with a considerable cliffhanger, but it's made me all the more excited for the final installment. You must see The Desolation of Smaug on the big screen. Smaug will look much less incredible on a TV screen. Catch this in theaters, and then wait to buy the extended edition on Blu-Ray. It's worth owning.

All other movie dragons have now been dethroned, but before Smaug came along, what was your favorite movie dragon? I thought Draco the dragon in Dragonheart was pretty good. Comment below and tell me about your favorite!

Real Steel Movie Review

When I reviewed Battleship I mentioned a few other toy products that would make fairly ridiculous movies. I didn’t really think of the “Rock’em Sock’em Robot” toys which features two plastic robot boxers mechanically manipulated by the players as movie material. However, boxing robots trying to knock each other’s heads off is pretty much the whole idea behind Real Steel (2011).

In the near future people became uninterested in boxing and similar sports, so a new sport was created; Robot Boxing features robots battling each other while being controlled by someone. Charlie Kenton (Hugh Jackman), a former boxer who’s trying to make it in the new sport, not only doesn’t do well, he’s deeply in the red from all his losses. When he learns that his ex-wife, mother of his son Max (Dakota Goyo), has died, Charlie goes to figure out what to do with his estranged son. Max's wealthy aunt Debra (Hope Davis) and uncle Marvin (James Rebhorn) want full custody, so Charlie asks Marvin for money so he can buy a new robot in exchange for turning Max over to them. Charlie reluctantly takes Max for the summer and together they build and train a champion contending robot with the help of Charlie’s child hood mechanic friend, Bailey Tallet (Evangeline Lilly). As the stakes in the brutal, no-holds-barred arena are raised, Charlie and Max against all odds, get one last shot at a comeback.

Real Steel was a corny amalgamation of cliché storytelling tropes. You’ve got the underdog sports player seeking self respect, who miraculously gets a shot at the championship title as seen in Rocky; powerful mechanical robots that fight with each other, very similar to those in Transformers; a weird sport in which the whole world is unanimously invested, like you would see in Pokémon or even The Hunger Games, and all the cheesiness you’ll find in every father-son bonding story. Technically, each of these aren’t bad, but they can be presented in such a way that makes your eyes roll when they exceed credibility or try to emphasize more drama than can be milked from such a concept. Real Steel didn’t manage to make any of it credible and it just comes across as cheesy. You’ll probably laugh at the movie more because it’s hard to take seriously rather than at the sparse moments of the comic relief.

More often than not kid characters are put in a movie to appeal to younger audiences, and they serve no other purpose than that. Truly illogical kid characters will be able to outwit adults who have years more experience and knowledge, have skills that even a child prodigy couldn’t realistically have without a couple of years of post-secondary schooling, and have keen insight to things far beyond their limited experience. For all that these characters can do, why not just have them be a young adult who has that kind of knowledge base and experience? Do movie producers genuinely think that kids will only enjoy movies that feature other kids in it?

That has to be the reasoning behind Max’s character being a kid. At age eleven he can speak fluent Japanese, understands complex fighting techniques, and how to program and construct advanced mechanical automatons. Max also gives useful advice to Charlie, who has been in robot boxing circles for years before Max was born. And get this; he knows how to do all this because he plays video games. Seriously!? I’ve been playing video games for well over 20 years and I can’t do any of that stuff! That really makes the script writer sound like an old fogey who believes that all these crazy newfangled video game and technology things somehow unlock hidden powers and knowledge in young people. This isn’t just a vague excuse to justify a child character who should more reasonably be an adult; it’s just bad writing.

The fighting robots were unabashedly fun, fortunately. The handful of robot boxing matches that the movie actually featured were engaging and exciting. The combination of real robots and CGI animation was seamless. The robots were well designed so no two looked the same, and they moved in such a way that felt like they actually had weight and mass to them. The fights were well choreographed so that it was evident who was winning, who had the upper hand, and why. The robot boxing matches were probably the only really good part of Real Steel; the characters certainly didn’t carry the story well.

Reel Steel is by no means an original film in terms of its base story. It’s so full of clichés, there is no way you haven’t seen this story before. At best it’s all the brainless fun of Rock’em Sock’em Robots while also flailing around to achieve the heart and drama of Rocky. Although the cast usually did a good job in their roles, they had some pretty lame material to work with. I hate seeing Hugh Jackman in such a corny role as this. It reminded me more of the “BattleBots” TV show from about 12 years ago. Personally, I don’t think Real Steel is worth watching but I could see it appealing to teen and preteen boys, Max’s irrationally implausible character aside. Even if you really want to see robots fighting, I’d try to borrow this from someone; I don’t think it is even worth the cost of a movie rental.

What’s your favorite fictional sports movie? The Hunger Games? Quidditch from Harry Potter? Podracing from Star Wars? Can you think of others? Comment below and tell me why you like these fictional sports!