Ant-Man

Anty-Man, Anty-Man,

Does whatever an Anty can.

Looks real small, then looks big,

Catches bad guys then does a jig. 

Look out!

Here comes the Anty-Man. 

Hello dear reader and welcome to what is my twelfth blog of 2015. It marks the end of Marvel films Phase Two and brings to the big screen a film, which at times, looked like it would never make it. Or should that be small screen, given the film in question. 

Ant-Man lost its original director, Edgar Wright, six weeks before principle photography was due to start. This came as a major surprise to most fans of the MCU. Partly because this had been a labour of love for Mr Wright for some considerable time. He’d often gone on record, as far back as 2003, saying he wanted to make this film. He’d co-written a screenplay with Joe Cornish and even shot test footage in 2013, just to see if his particular vision could be brought to the silver screen. However the main reason Mr Wright’s decision to bail caused seismic tremors throughout the superhero world was that Marvel had never really had even the slightest whiff of having a ‘problem film’. From the start of Phase One with Iron Man back in 2008, Marvel had always had the Midas touch when it came to spin and publicity. They could do no wrong. A carefully orchestrated media battle plan that always oozed geek and nerdom in substantial quantities. My superheroes bring all boys (and girls) to the Yard, as Kevin Feige would probably say. 

But then out of the blue came ‘trouble at mill’. Edgar Wright walked away citing creative differences and in walked Peyton Reed, with the rest of the world collectively shouting ‘who?’ in unison. If you’re willing to believe what the internet tells you the disagreement was largely down to screenplay rewrites but there are also reports that Team Edgar and Team Kevin simply did not get on. So not only had the rug been pulled from under everyone’s feet but it was as if the world had been shown a glimpse of the wizard behind the curtain. Fans didn’t like it and even Joss Whedon took to twitter post a simple picture of a cornetto raised aloft in support. 

It became apparent that Marvel were going to have to use a lot of smoke and mirrors and misdirection to pull this off and come up with the goods. Thankfully they could accomplish most of this with the upcoming release of Age of Ultron. ‘Hey everyone, look over here! We have trailers and pictures of shiny things’. Of course also hiring the likes of Michael Douglas, Paul Rudd and Evangeline Lilly also helped allay fears too. The Ant-Man ship wasn’t sinking just yet but there were icebergs on the horizon. Fast forward the better part of ten months and that brings us to Ant-Man's release. And I’m pleased to report that it’s actually rather good…

As with most Marvel films these days, you walk into the cinema with a certain level of expectation. You know what you’re going to get and most of the time they do exactly what they say on the tin. You’re bang for your buck is pretty much guaranteed and the accompanying visual and cerebral download tends to tick a lot of boxes. There will of course be grand action set pieces, a sprinkling of witty one-liners, more costumes and colours than you would expect to find in the performance of the complete works of Shakespeare and more danger and peril than Miss Marple could get her hands on with the help of CSI, Starsky & Hutch and Columbo combined. Highbrow it isn’t but by the same token, you never usually leave your seat felling underwhelmed.  

So Ant-Man starts with our ‘hero to be’ Scott Lang behind bars. Sent to prison by a military court for a crime he didn't commit. This man promptly escapes from a maximum security stockade to the Los Angeles underground. Today, still wanted by the government, He survives as a soldier of fortune. If you have a problem, if no one else can help, and if you can find him, maybe you can hire the Ant-Man. Oh, hang on. I may have got myself a little confused there. Normal service will now resume.

Ant-Man is a film about redemption. A man given a second chance in life and the opportunity to be a better father to his young daughter. A daughter that still worships him despite his missing her grow up, due to his time behind bars. What Ant-Man is also, is funny. It’s probably the funniest film to come along in either Phase One or Phase Two by some considerable distance. Michael Pena, who is basically part of Scott Lang’s back up crew, isn’t given much screen time to strut his comedic talents but he pretty much steals every scene he’s in. 

It’s always going to be impossible to tell how much of Edgar and Joe’s screenplay made it into the final film. Rewrites and polishing, including a writing credit for Paul Rudd himself have permanently blurred the lines between the start and finish post but if you do ever bump into Simon Pegg ask him to show you a copy of the original, because he’s got one apparently. 

There are moments of brilliance in Ant-Man and little touches that may go unnoticed by some. Security guards whistling ‘It’s a small world after all’, a passing reference to Spiderman, who can now come and play in the MCU and will have a cameo in Marvels next film ‘Captain American: Civil War’. There also can’t be many action films that would have even thought about using Thomas the Tank Engine in their grand finale. A lot of Marvel films have been fairly formulaic recently, and have had more than just a passing Déjà vu feel when it comes to their endings. Big aerial battles that always have lots of destruction, mayhem and chaos. And yes Avengers, Thor 2 and Guardians of The Galaxy, I’m aiming that last sentence squarely at your clapper boards. It’s very refreshing to find a small scale battle that not only isn’t set against the back drop of a sprawling metropolis but happens within the confines of a family home.  

The other fairly formulaic problem that keeps repeating itself is the distinct lack of Estrogen on screen. There are only three female characters of note in Ant-Man. A mother and daughter who are given about as much to do as the Popes Menorah cleaner. They have virtually no important dialogue and are given character development which is comparable to a new brick being used on ‘Grand Designs’. Evangeline Lilly is the other female actor in question and without giving too much away or heading into spoiler territory, she will be returning to a Marvel cinema at some point in the not too distant future. There’s a blink and you miss it appearance from Hayley Atwell as Peggy Carter at the start of the film but that’s basically it when it comes to women. It’s a real shame and I hope this trend starts to change soon or we could end up with a Marvel Cinematic Universe that has as many women in it as the Star Wars Universe currently does. Bad George Lucas, Boo, Boo...

I finish off by saying this. Ant-Man is a good film, despite its flaws. Paul Rudd looks like he enjoyed making it and it has one of the better Stan Lee cameos around. It also has a villain in it called Yellow Jacket, which in case you were wondering, has nothing to do with Hi-di-Hi or Sue Pollard. At 117 minutes long it’s also the shortest film to date that Marvel have released. As always you should stick around for the credits. There are two stings here, one in the middle and another at the end. Both are interesting and give the start of Phase 3 some fresh fuel. A solid four out of five but the report card should also contain a 'Could and should do better'.    

Twitter Review:

Go see Ant-man, No magnifying glass required! It’s good, It’s funny and it has Phoebe's husband from Friends in it. 

#SmallPackageBigPunch

Useful Links:

http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0478970/?ref_=nv_sr_1

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=f5TtFK9C62E&feature=iv&src_vid=1HpZevFifuo&annotation_id=annotation_1112302829

http://www.empireonline.com/reviews/review.asp?FID=134035

John Wick

Hello dear reader, well it’s that time again. It’s time to regale you with a story of retribution, death, violence and cute little puppies. The film in question, as you probably all too aware from the bloody great poster above, is John Wick. It’s a film that takes its aggression and carnage and turns them all the way up to eleven. But before I amuse you with stories of hitmen, hotels and baddy Russians I feel I need to go back a few years and start at the beginning.

Over the last five or six years there has been a growing trend in Hollywood to make revenge movies. Someone in tinsel town obviously realised that that particular cash cow hadn’t been flogged to death yet and after what must have been a very long and in depth meeting (yes, that is the sarcasm claxon you can hear in the background) they’ve been pumping them out ever since. We’ve had Liam Neeson playing Bryan Mills in Taken. A trilogy that should have been stopped after the first movie in my humble opinion. Robert De Niro tried the genre in 2011’s Killer Elite. Sean Penn, or captain grumpy as I like to call him, got his best hand cannon out and went to work in The Gunman. The list goes on and on. Clint Eastwood in Gran Torino, Michael Caine in Harry Brown, Quentin Tarantino’s Django Unchained.  Hell, even the last Fast and Furious movie falls into the revenge melting pot. The point I’m trying to make is that in the same way that Sequels and reboots seem to be in fashion at the moment, I think the revenge franchise is well and truly grabbing onto the bronze medal position with both hands and is very unlikely to let go anytime soon.

So that brings us back to Keanu Reeves in John Wick. Now even by his own admission Mr Reeves isn’t the greatest actor in the world. It’s unlikely that there will be an Oscar statuette adorning his mantelpiece anytime soon but the one thing he is good at is action films. He can phone these kinds of performances in, and some would argue that he does, without breaking too much of a sweat. Where’s the proof I hear you ask after such a malicious accusation? Well your honour I would like the following to be entered into evidence for the prosecution. Point Break, The Matrix Trilogy, Speed and Constantine. Now before any or indeed all of you Bill and Ted fans rise up against me and send the ’69 Dude’ army to wipe me off the face of the planet I would also like to enter the following for defence. My own private Idaho is by far and away the best performance I have ever seen Mr Reeves commit to the silver screen.  It is head and shoulders above anything else he’s ever done. It’s moving and very poignant. I’d also like to say that I personally have nothing against the man and the aforementioned Point Break does, depending on what sort of mood I’m in, make it into my top ten films of all time.

John Wick is the story of a man who falls in love with a woman who he thinks is too good for him given his past actions. A woman who makes him realise that there is more to life than being a professional hitman and then promptly retires from the killing business and settles down for the quiet married life and to live happily ever after. The preverbal spanner in the works comes along in the form of a terminal illness and before you can say ‘don’t die within the first ten minutes of the film’ the wife goes and dies within the first ten minutes of the film. This understandably leaves John Wick very upset and heartbroken. However the wife in question has organised a little gift to be delivered after the funeral so that John is not left alone. The gift turns out to be a puppy and with the cuteness button firmly depressed the film continues to plod along. Now the second and much bigger spanner that then turns up are the nasty Russians I mentioned earlier.  Now these pesky East European rapscallions come across John in an out of town petrol station and with the swagger that comes with thinking you’re untouchable enquire how much John’s beautiful 69 Shelby Mustang would cost to buy. Now Mr Wick tries to inform them to the best of his charming abilities that the car is not for sale, firstly politely and then fairly bluntly. John drives away and believes that he’s never likely to ever see these three annoyances again. Unfortunately for John they find out where he lives and then promptly break into his house after sunset and then set about beating him black and blue, killing the puppy and then stealing his car. This understandably leaves John the wrong side of irked and he then sets about hunting these guys down, who indecently have Lilly Allen’s brother Alfie Allen fresh from Playing ‘Man without penis’ in Game of Thrones, or if you want his real character name ‘Iosef TaraSov’ amongst their ranks and without wishing to go too far into spoiler territory let’s just say that Mr Wick is very good at his job.

John Wicks Reputation as a man that gets the job done has almost attained legendary status. When he was active as a Hitman he was a man that hit hard. A man that didn’t take any unnecessary risks and a gentleman that was so good at his chosen trade that he could well have attained a gold medal if killing had ever made it into the Olympics. This reputation is further fortified by the fact that when the Russian trio that stole John Wicks car take it to the local ‘fence’ garage to get rid of it the gentleman in charge of the garage, once he realises who the car belonged to, punches Mr ‘no willy’ Allen in the face.
John Wick is a film that doesn’t take itself too seriously but that said it does do what it needs to very well. It has a tight and sharp script that almost but not quite dips its toes into the black comedy genre. Its directors Chad Stahelski and David Leitch are both established stunt men and regarded by Hollywood as being the best at what they do. They both have worked with Keanu before, most noticeably on the Matrix trilogy. They know how action scenes should work and more importantly they know how to shoot them. Some on the set pieces in this film are breath taking. There’s a shootout in a night club that is as good, if not better than, the nightclub fire fight that Michael Mann brought us in Collateral. Its action is choreographed properly and almost stylised to perfection. It has martial arts, attitude and a plethora of on screen weapons that are used to dispatch victims in a quick and timely manner including guns, vehicles and even household items.
What John Wick also has is a very good supporting cast. John Leguizamo, Willem Defoe and even Ian ‘Lovejoy’ McShane rocks up as a hotel owner that has a very strict set of house rules. Without taking up too much screen time they underpin the story and help move the narrative on when required.

John Wick is a breath of fresh air when you consider what has come before it. My only niggle is that we here in good old blighty have had to wait the better part of six months for it to arrive on our shores. I’m pretty sure there will be a sequel and I’m pretty sure that as long as Keanu, its directors and screenwriter Derek Kolstad return it will be a film worth watching.
So if you like to plant your flag in the action revenge category and you think that Taken is a good film. Please go and watch John Wick and see how these films should be done properly.

Twitter Review:
‘It’s not what you did son. It’s who you did it to…’
#WreakMyRewengey

Useful Links:
http://www.imdb.com/title/tt2911666/?ref_=nv_sr_5
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=C0BMx-qxsP4
http://www.empireonline.com/reviews/review.asp?FID=139014

Gone Girl

So it’s that time again movie fans. It’s the 27th time I’ve offered an opinion on my cinema habit and it’s been over two and a half years since I first commented on a poorly received and badly made film that included a God with a big Hammer, a scientist with anger management issues and a Billionaire Playboy philanthropist who’s personal wealth is only surpassed by the size of his ego. There have been highs. There have been lows. For every ‘Gravity’ and ’12 Years a Slave’ there have been clangers like ‘A Good Day to Die Hard’ and ‘Prometheus’.  So that said it’s time to let my fingers run amuck across my keyboard to bring you my thoughts about David Fincher’s ‘Gone Girl’.

Firstly I should say that IMDb thinks that ‘Gone Girl’ is a drama, mystery and a thriller. But that doesn’t really even begin to cover it. It could also be argued that it falls under the black comedy banner and I’d even go so far to say that this will probably be the closet that David Fincher ever gets to making a romantic comedy. That isn’t to say this is a light and fluffy film or even warm and fuzzy to extend the analogy. It doesn’t come close on either of those fronts. Mr Fincher doesn’t do leave your brain at the door, switch off and enjoy cinema and I suspect he never will. Some of the issues raised in this film need to be taken very seriously and in the same way that ’12 Years a Slave’ was uncomfortable to watch at times ‘Gone Girl’ covers some subjects that leave you with thinking I wish I hadn’t seen that. Domestic violence and sexual assault being just two of the topics that this film needs you to digest.

Now given the nature of the film and its structure it’s almost impossible to discuss it without going into spoiler territory. So if you plan to go and see it please do so before reading any further. Its ok, I can wait……………………..

Seen it yet?

Ok I’ll carry on. ‘Gone Girl’ is the tenth Studio film that David Fincher has directed, the first being Alien3 back in 1992. Since then he’s covered a wide range of stories that have included serial killers, corporate birthday presents, home invasions and even social media. With the exception of serial killers (Seven and Zodiac) he’s never repeated or returned to the same themes and even that is an unfair comparison as ‘Seven’ is a work of fiction, whereas ‘Zodiac’ is based on real events that occurred in San Francisco.
‘Gone Girl’ is a film adapted from the bestselling novel written by Gillian Flynn. It tells the story of Nick Dunne and Amy Dunne, played by Ben Afleck and Rosamund Pike respectively. A married couple who have had to move back to Nick’s home town to look after his ailing father. On the morning of their fifth wedding anniversary Amy disappears and over the course of the ensuing investigation the evidence keeps leading back to Nick and incriminating him as the prime suspect.
What follows is the story of a nation that seems to feed itself on the media frenzy that’s generated around Amy’s disappearance. A disappearance that will be tried, convicted and executed in the court of public opinion.
Now back to those troublesome spoilers. The story, for the most part, is told via flash black. It’s done so mostly from Amy’s point of view and paints Nick out to be anything but the perfect Husband. Now I should say for the record that for the first act most people will be ‘Team Amy’. It turns out that Nick is having an affair with a twenty year old student that he’s teaching, he has money problems and that he’s not very motivated and a bit of an under achiever. The Money matter is further compounded by the fact that Amy and her parents are Rich. Amy has a trust fund that’s come from her parents writing a very popular and successful series of children’s books called ‘Amazing Amy’, based loosely around Amy’s life growing up.  A diary, written by Amy, is discovered that also paints Nick as a controlling and sometimes violent Husband and has and entry in which Amy states that she worries that her husband may kill her. This diary also contradicts some of the previous statements that Nick has made to the police and makes it look like he’s not being completely honest with them. It’s very much a ‘He said, she said’ situation but prompts the two investigating officers to dig a lot deeper into what’s going on.
Just as things look like they can’t get any worse for Nick the second act of the film starts with the revelation that not only Amy alive but she planned her disappearance meticulously. Planting evidence at every available opportunity and generally trying to punish him for not being the man she thought she’d married. Now from here on in the film starts leading you towards rooting for ‘Team Nick’. So much so that by the end of the film it’s almost impossible not to be a fully paid up member of the Nick Dunne club.
By the third act Amy’s plan has gone somewhat awry. The trailer park that she’s chosen to hide out at has resulted in her being mugged and losing all of her money. This forces Amy into having to come up with a plan b and in doing so she resorts to involving a rich ex-boyfriend, played by Neil Patrick Harris that still has feeling for her. This doesn’t end up going too well for the boyfriend and after he’s been dispatched Amy then turns up back at her own house covered in blood.
Amy’s explanation for what has occurred and how she went missing has so many plots holes in it its almost laughable. It’s the only real flaw as the screenplay is well written and the characters make you want to emotionally invest in them. Like a sore tooth you keep prodding with your tongue, they can’t be ignored. It’s safe to say that Amy is a card carrying and fully paid up member of the ‘Sociopath’ club. She manipulates and plays everyone as she sees fit. The only problem I have with her character is that at times she almost borders cartoon evil. You’re expected to feel sorry for her and that doesn’t always work.
So to summarise, Act 1: Amy disappears, Nick looks more and more likely that he’s the culprit. Act 2: Turns out Amy isn’t dead and on top of that she’s orchestrated the whole thing from the beginning and Act 3: Thinking on the go or if you prefer ‘Are you f#@king kidding me!’
In closing I’ll say this. At one hundred and forty nine minutes it’s about half an hour too long. It has a very good musical score co-wrote by Atticus Ross and Trent Razor and although it’s not up in the same league as say ‘Seven’ or ‘The Social Network’ I would recommend you watch it at some point. That said it needs to be pointed out that this is NOT, repeat NOT a date movie.

Twitter Review:
If blood, affairs, double cross and wacky wives is your bag, this is your film. Possible Oscars nods too
#DoogieHowserDies

Useful Links:
http://www.imdb.com/title/tt2267998/?ref_=nm_knf_i4
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=esGn-xKFZdU
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iXaBGuoSrSc

The Bourne Legacy

“One pill makes you larger, one pill makes you small and the ones that mother gives you don’t do anything at all”. That, ladies and gentlemen, pretty much encapsulates the entire plot of the Bourne Legacy. However dear reader, as usual, I suspect that you may want more from your film blogs and analysis so I’ll “flesh it out” a bit.
Can’t have you going elsewhere for your film reviews now can I?

After the first three Bourne Films, “Identity, Supremacy and Ultimatum” Universal must have had quite a few meetings that went along the lines of “wow, didn’t we do well” and “I wonder what other dead authors books we can bring to the big screen”. The reason for this glad handing and self-congratulatory patting of backs basically came down to the fact that through either dumb luck or intelligent design they’d come up with an intelligent story arc that not only held up for three films but reinvented the entire genre as well. The other piece of fate that seemed to be smiling on them was that they’d taken an actor in Matt Damon who’d won an Oscar for his screenwriting talents and turned him into not only an action star but a totally believable action star.
The spanner in the works turned up when both Damon and the director of Supremacy and Ultimatum, Paul Greengrass, said they were happy with their lot and didn’t want to make any more. Cue mildly concerned faces at Universal HQ.

The answer to the question of whether to leave well enough alone and move on was answered when Tony Gilroy asked if he could have a crack at the director’s chair if they made another film. Gilroy had earned his stripes with the Bourne franchise whilst writing the screenplays for the three previous films but had never had a Hollywood studio let him loose with the megaphone before. So, when the film was given the green light with Gilroy at the helm in the summer of 2011, it did raise a few eyebrows.

First things first, how best to describe The Bourne Legacy? Is it a sequel, a prequel or a candlestick maker? Well after much deliberation I think the tag that best fits this film would be a “Sidequel” (and if that word catches on remember where you heard it first!) The plot centres around a new hero, Aaron Cross played by Jeremy Renner who through no fault of his own, has just been put on the endangered species list due in no small part to the events that have transpired over the previous trilogy.
The Bourne Identity starts and The Bourne Ultimatum finishes with the hero of the piece in the water and that’s where we also start with Legacy. Having been sent to Alaska for what basically turns out to be a slap across the knuckles, Aaron Cross is on what could only be described as an extreme orienteering jaunt with some survival skills practice thrown in for good measure. Having reached his destination at the back end of beyond, Cross finds himself sharing a cabin with another who’s had “could do better” written on his super secret agent report card.
We are then given a rather complicated back story which goes into some detail about how these characters have become the best of the best. Training will only get you so far it seems and every asset out in the field is required to take blue and green pills to keep them at the top of their game. These pills and their taking them become the plot device for the rest of the film, which I think is a shame. In much the same way that George Lucas decided to make the “Force” a quantifiable and measurable item the last three Star Wars films I think having the main character reliant on pills and chemicals somehow removes some of the wow factor from it. You always want to know how the magician does the trick and pulls off the impossible but once you’ve been shown how it’s done it’s never quite the same.

Back at the cabin things then take a turn for the worse when those pesky CIA types, led by Edward Norton’s Eric Byer send an unmanned drone to blow it up. Realising that something is “amiss” Cross then heads off to find more pills and some answers from his employers. Whilst this is happening we, the viewer, are shown other secret agent getting their comeuppance. It seems that Jason Bourne really knows how to spoil a party!
The other main protagonist of the films is played by another Oscar winner Rachel Weisz (the current Mrs James Bond) but her acting talents are largely wasted here. She spends most of the movie playing a generic “Damsel in distress” and even though she’s given brains and intelligence she’s very rarely allowed to let them out of the box. The other issue here is that Renner and Wise don’t share any screen time together until we’re about an hour into the film. I also got the feeling that it was only going to be a matter of time before Cross uttered the immortal Schwarzenegger line “come with me if you want to live”.

Weisz character is Dr Marta Shearing, who just happens to be responsible for creating the blue and green pills but as luck would have it the closest available source for these “Happy Haribo’s” just happens to be a short plane ride away in the Philippines.  Cue some very dodgy disguises and home made passports that wouldn’t look out of place in an amateur dramatics production of Cluedo.
Once they’ve arrived on the other side of the Pacific there are a couple of good action set pieces but they do really leave you wanting more.

I think the main problem with this film is that in order for it to work it needs to be treated on its own merits and values but given the three films that came before it that is never going to happen. The bar was raised to a very high level by its predecessors and no amount of new cast and new direction is ever going to change that. We spend the first fifty minutes of The Bourne Legacy being reminded of Jason Bourne and his films and even though you’ve seen those already you find yourself wanting to watch those instead and not wanting to spend the emotional investment on Legacy. Rachel Weisz’s character has the last line of the film where she says “I was hoping we were lost”. Well I can safely say that I think the viewing audience may well be missing in action.

Twitter Review:
Legacy doesn't raise the bar or offer anything we haven't seen before. Characters come don't develop or snap into focus.
#BourneYourTimeIsUp

Useful Links:

http://www.imdb.com/title/tt1194173/
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jSzy9qQ3mDE
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cdtUdEoE-Q4&feature=relmfu