Ant-Man

The build up to Ant-Man has left many Marvel fans questioning how successfully the Hollywood Goliath will be able to pull off  a film on one of their lesser known characters, particularly without the guiding directorial hand of Edgar Wright. Well I'm not a Marvel fan so who knows, I might like it! 

Dr. Hank Pym (Michael Douglas) is an unparalleled technological scientist that discovered a group of particles with the ability to change the distance between atoms, effectively able to shrink and grow objects at will. After safeguarding the technology from those that wanted to weaponise it in the 1980s, Pym gave control of his company to Darren Cross (Corey Stoll), his protégé, who know has a sinister interest in re-developing the technology. Pym's daughter, Hope van Dyne (Evangeline Lilly) has a broken relationship with her father, but nonetheless turns to him when she becomes worried about Darren's actions.

Scott Lang (Paul Rudd) is a former burglar who can't throw punches, and has just been released from jail. Taking up residence with a former cellmate, Luis (Michael Peña), he hopes to foster a new relationship with his daughter, increasingly difficult thanks to his ex-wife and her new partner. Soon Scott is on the look out for another score to pay child support, and burglarises the home of a wealthy old man with meticulous precision. However all he finds is a dusty old suit. Scott is soon hired by Dr. Pym, planning a heist that will save the world. 

There's no doubt that Ant-Man follows the typical Marvel construction: out-there technology, a self-referential universe, CGI, CGI and also CGI. Where the film diverges is the heist sub-plot that dominates the second half of the film. You can detect the penmanship of co-author Wright, whose other work holds similar crime/heist-centric elements, particularly in Spaced and The Cornetto Trilogy. Ant-Man also scales down on the barraging action and takes some time-out for decent character development - not commonly found in Marvel films - however this also leads to relentless exposition and too many over-emotional scenes that try to get a rise out of the audience. Also tedious is the compulsory attempts to address the cross-franchise Marvel connections. "We'd better call the Avengers", we get it, they all exist within the same universe, enough already! Stop trying to set-up future cross-overs and self-advertise to us! 

Some held concerns that given the...uhh....somewhat trivial nature of Pym's technology, Ant-Man would try not to take itself too seriously and resort to an all-out joke fest similar to Iron Man 3 - which I happen to like, but is not that popular amongst the fans - Well you can rest easy, because it manages to strike a good balance between situational humour and plot development, and the comedy works well with Rudd's usual style. Whilst the action sequences rely heavily on computer generated visuals, the unique qualities of the Ant-man story allow for some equally unique sequences, including a run-in with a newly-enormous bathtub early in the film.

Unfortunately though, there's nothing new or interesting about most of the other visuals, which are stock Marvel and ultimately monotonous, especially when it could have been so much more. It's impossible to ignore the departure of Edgar Wright from the project, who reportedly left due to differences in vision between the Hot Fuzz director and the studio. His attempt at Ant-Man would have most likely been a standout film in the Marvel cinematic universe, where instead we get largely the same recycled formula that the studio knows can produce the revenue. It's a sad situation, but we can be thankful that his influence appears to have made it into the film in some ways, no matter how small they may be. 

Ant-Man is not a great film by any stretch of the imagination. However it does manage to pull away from the pack somewhat, which is crucial if we want to see Marvel develop any unique content in the ever-expanding Hollywood superhero bubble.

The World's End

The comedy team that began with the TV show Spaced, have finally finished their Blood and Ice Cream trilogy with The World's End. I hope that this will not be the last time that Simon Pegg, Nick Frost and Edgar Wright team up, because they make such good comedies.

In The World's End, perennial loser Gary King (Pegg), is wanting to reunite his old group of friends from high school to complete a pub crawl that they failed to complete in 1990. He rousts up his friends, including his former best friend, Andy (Frost), and drives them to their hometown of Newton Haven to commence a night of drunken debauchery. The only problem is that they are all in their 40s and have lost the drive to get belligerently drunk.

Once they get back to their hometown, they realise that not is all as it seems. They slowly find out that all the people in their hometown have been replaced by robots. They continue on their crawl and try to get to the bottom of the mystery.

This film is a really fitting end to the trilogy (the other two being Shaun of the Dead and Hot Fuzz). The film did give a feeling that it was slightly similar to the British indie comedy Frequently Asked Questions about Time Travel, but I suppose that only stems from the fact that they both take place in pubs. Pegg and Frost have a great chemistry that has been built up of over a decade of working together. King is character that you almost feel sorry for, even during his most cringeworthy moments. You also feel sorry for Andy being dragged along on his exploits.

The rest of the cast are also fantastic performers. Martin Freeman (The "British" Office), Eddie Marsan (Sherlock Holmes) and Paddy Considine (The Bourne Ultimatum) play the rest of the crew that are conned into coming along. My only gripe with the movie is that these characters are not fleshed out a bit more and given some more interesting backstories. Rosamund Pike (Jack Reacher) also makes an appearance and shows that she has great comedic timing.

For the fans of the other two movies, all the recurring jokes are there, including fence jumping, Bill Nighy and Cornettos. It would be interesting to see how this movie would work as a drinking game, drinking whenever they do in the movie. But I'm not advising it, I think any normal person would die from that amount of alcohol. Also I don't think they'd let you drink in a movie theatre. Unless you're in Amsterdam.

Verdict: A great comedy for all to see, but fans of the trio will feel vindicated. Pegg, Frost and Wright are hilarious.