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.

New Spider-Man will be like a John Hughes movie

Marvel boss Kevin Feige has the premise of the upcoming Spider-Man movie that will take place in the Marvel Cinematic Universe. He describes it as being "a John Hughes movie". His motive for this comment is due to the fact that it takes place largely while Peter Parker is still in high school. Well, as you all know that we love our John Hughes movies here at the blog. So, we can only guess at which movie it will be like. Will it be The Breakfast Club with Peter sitting around in detention with Mary Jane, Flash Thompson and Harry Osborne? Or will he chase around Gwen Stacey in a reverse Sixteen Candles? We all know it won't be at all like Ferris Bueller's Day Off because Peter Parker is nowhere near as cool as Ferris.

And since we didn't talk about the casting when it happened, I suppose it's high time I raised my concerns with Tom Holland. It seems to me that with each iteration of Spider-Man, the studios are trying to make Peter Parker cooler and cooler while missing the point of what the character represents. If you were a "cool" kid growing up, you probably wanted to be Iron Man or Captain America or Wolverine, if you were slightly rebellious, smoked and wore leather jackets. The whole idea of Spider-Man is that as soon he put on the mask he transformed from a nerdy, shy teenager into a witty superhero, thus becoming a role model for anyone with social anxiety. Tom Holland has been in a handful of movies, including Locke and The Impossible and I doubt will ever be able to match Tobey Maguire's level of geekiness.

The next revelation from Feige is that he will come up against a villain who has yet to be seen in the movies. Now there are only a handful of major villains who haven't shown up in the movies that have been made up to now. They are Chameleon, Mysterio, Vulture, Scorpion and Kraven the Hunter. Anything further than those and you risk losing people who aren't all that familiar with the comics. Personally, I'd be happy with Mysterio, but that might be a boring movie.

Spider-Man Is An Official Part Of The Marvel Cinematic Universe

Unless you are completely up to date with the politics of Hollywood's studio system, you may not be fully aware of who owns the rights to particular characters. Marvel Studios is in control of most of it's own intellectual properties, Iron Man, Captain America, et al.

But what it doesn't own (cinematically speaking) are some of it's more popular characters, Spider-Man being the important one here (the web-head is currently owned by Sony). What this generally means is that he is unable to appear in other movies featuring Marvel characters, like his good friends The Avengers.

Today, however, a historic decision to share the character between studios has been made. This means that Kevin Feige, Marvel Studios' producer will get on board for the next Amazing Spider-Man movie due it 2017. It also means that Spidey will appear in a Marvel movie before then, with titles like Captain America: Civil War or Doctor Strange, being the film he will be in.

If only the X-Men could be brought in on it all.

Guardians of the Galaxy

Before I get into the film itself, I have to just say that I'm absolutely sick to death of Marvel's releases. I used to really like their characters but with film after film, franchise after franchise, I feel that they've really diluted in quality and have over-saturated the market to the extent that I now don't want to see any more superhero movies, even from DC or any of their other competitors. Not to mention all the good that their hyper-budgets could do with smaller productions and better script treatments. Anyway, rant over. It's time to see how their latest release Guardians of the Galaxy stacks up!

In 1988, Peter Quill (Chris Pratt) is abducted from Earth, with only a Walkman and a present from his mother as possessions. 26 years later he steals a sought-after orb that lands him in prison, before he teams up with a tree-like humanoid (Vin Diesel), a genetically engineered raccoon (Bradley Cooper), an orphaned alien (Zoe Saldana) and a pissed off guy with tattoos (Dave Bautista) to escape, sell the orb and hunt down Ronan the Accuser.

The plot wasn't quite as convoluted as I was expecting, but was still as ridiculous as in most Marvel films. Having said that, it's really nice to have some fresh characters in the mix, instead of the constant rinse and repeat that we've become accustomed to. It's also great to have more of a pure sci-fi film from Marvel.

There's plenty of decent humour to keep it rolling along, although some of it is a bit cringe-worthy and there were also several jokes (such as the fact that Groot can only say "'I am Groot") that were repeated to death, which got tiring very quickly. But other than a few cliches here and there, and an ending that seemed to go on and on, the plot's really not that bad and is enough to keep you entertained throughout.

There's also nothing particularly wrong with the casts' performances but at the same time, they're nothing special. The only two characters which I actually enjoyed were Rocket (Bradley Cooper) and Peter Serafinowicz's character, Denarian Saal (mainly because it's Peter Serafinowicz), and they were basically the two biggest arseholes in the whole film.

Of course, with a budget of $170 million, it's going to have plenty of eye-candy, and trust me, you won't be disappointed. It's absolutely jam packed with explosions, lasers, spaceships and a CGI racoon, whether that makes up for all it's issues depends on what sort of sci-fi films you enjoy. If you're a fan of Michael Bay, this film will blow your mind with it's strong presence of plot!

At the end of the day, it's a big-budget blockbuster with tonnes of special effects that look fantastic and jokes that will keep you watching. I quite enjoyed this but it still doesn't change my stance on Marvel.

New 'Guardians of the Galaxy' Stills

After the release of new trailers for Guardians of the Galaxy over the weekend, Marvel has provided Empire Magazine with exclusive stills from the set of the film. Guardians of the Galaxy is slated for release in the next couple of months, depending where you live. What do you think of the new stills? Do they tantalize your interest in the film? Head to the Empire article link below to see all of them.

Source: Empire Online

Captain America: The Winter Soldier

I've always been a huge fan of World War II movies, especially those that strive for an accurate portrayal of warfare in the 1940s, Spielberg's Saving Private Ryan being a stand out example. And then sometimes I want to see a what if scenario of the same period, Tarantino did a great job of that too. But then you might get a movie that walks a line between the two, a movie where history occurs as it did, but you supplant a fictional character, a superhero* no less, into the mix. That's why I appreciated the first Captain America movie so much.

The Winter Soldier poses an interesting question. What if you took that same soldier, with all his values and beliefs, and put him in the present day. After the events of The Avengers, Steve Rogers (Chris Evans) is trying to acclimatise to modern life in Washington DC. He is still an agent for SHIELD, a government espionage agency run by Nick Fury (Samuel L. Jackson).

Rogers' partner on these missions is Natasha Romanoff (Scarlett Johansson) also known as the Black Widow. After an attempt on Nick Fury's life, Rogers and Black Widow uncover a corruption plot that permeates throughout the SHIELD organisation.

There is a prevailing notion that is brought up throughout the film and that is that humanity would willingly give up its freedoms in exchange for security. This is an interesting nod to our own society, with things like surveillance of the population being conducted by most Western powers.

Chris Evans had a different challenge in this film. In the last movie, his character had to cope with a physical transformation and his performance was great. Now as a modern actor, he has to portray a man from the past dealing with things from the present for the first time. One of these things he has to deal with is dating, having not gotten over his "best girl" Peggy Carter (Hayley Atwell).

For an extremely physical movie, Johansson does an excellent job to keep up with the rest of the guys. In truth, I enjoyed her fighting scenes more than the guys because it is always great to see a girl kick a guys arse.

There was also the inclusion of a new hero from the comics who I have always liked. Anthony Mackie (The Hurt Locker) plays Sam Wilson AKA The Falcon. The Falcon is famous for being the world's first black superhero with his own comic series. Sam Wilson is a veteran who helps soldiers who suffer from PTSD and is only too glad to help Rogers when he asks.

Verdict: An enjoyable Marvel movie that will get superhero junkies through to the next Avengers film.

*Superhero is a trademark term owned by both Marvel and DC. I just wanted to cover myself, you know.