REVIEW: Ant-Man

5/10 - Honey I Shrunk the Franchise

The Marvel Cinematic Universe has really become this behemoth of films. Among the cannon, I somewhat forgot about Ant-Man and when I sat down to watch it, I was hoping it would be more of a stand alone comedy type film, something to stand apart from the usual Marvel fare. While Guardians was funny, it was also establishing a massive sci-fi universe, and Iron Man is an action franchise. Paul Rudd is more romantic comedy hero, then Avengers hero. There was this potential to poke fun at the Marvel hero franchise and make a really great movie. 

Instead, Ant-Man shrinks among the superhero competition. Ant-Man stars Paul Rudd as Scott Lang, the criminal with a heart of gold. He's conned into wearing the Ant-Man suit by the original Ant-Man, Hank Pym (Michael Douglas). They collaborate with Pym's daughter Hope (Evangeline Lilly) to battle the bad guy who wants to do bad things for bad reasons, Darren Cross (Corey Stoll) aka Yellowjacket. 

Ant-Man reminds me quite a lot of the 2011 Seth Rogen vehicle, The Green Hornet. Both films were action movies that should have been funny, but weren't. I couldn't help but feel like Ant-Man was a different movie being crammed into the Marvel formula. There is no reason to cast Paul Rudd other than to make that character funny and charming. I can't say Scott Lang was either. Rudd is pretty established in the types of roles he plays, which is why this film felt like there was so much untapped potential. 

Michael Douglas is a respectable mentor for Ant-Man. He makes a good straight man for jokes, because on paper Hank has the personality of oatmeal. Douglas has that enough on-screen charisma to make it work, and he seems like a guy you want in your corner. Evangeline Lilly is sports a shockingly unflattering haircut that seems to steal every scene she's in. Corey Stoll is a great

character actor, but this role is pretty silly. He's somehow the head of what can only be a massively expensive military defense experiment and yet is clearly deranged. It's always disappointing to me when movie bad guys don't have a good back story. 

I think the right path for Ant-Man was to keep the scope of the Ant-Man universe small. By referencing the Avengers, and taking the story into Spider-man territory, Ant-Man forces itself to compete with those films. It just doesn't hold up. At it's heart, Ant-Man is a heist movie, using Rudd's charisma as a cat burglar, and the size advantage of an ant to pull the heist of the century. What happens is Ant-Man ends up in a fist punching battle with a literal army of Ants riding into war. Ant-Man lost the battle with a training montage. At no point should Paul Rudd's super power be throwing a fist. I love the guy, but I just don't buy it. 

IMDb - Ant-Man (7.5)
Wikipedia - Ant-Man
Rotten Tomatoes - Ant-Man (79%)
Amazon.ca - Ant-Man

REVIEW: Jurassic Park

10/10 - Hold on to your butts!

Jurassic Park is probably my all time favorite movie. 

It's got dinosaurs and it's awesome. That's it. I love it. 

It's also a tight, intelligent story, that totally holds up over 20 years later, with impressive special effects, wonderful characters, and a concept that permeated pop culture for decades. This is Spielberg at his best. One of the iconic adventure film. inauthentic raptors and all. 

To celebrate my favorite movie, I just want to share some of the great moments that make me love this film. 

That Alan Grant introductory monologue, telling a kid why a velociraptor is scary and not a six-foot turkey. This was a great moment to legitimize Alan as a knowledgeable scientist, with a healthy respect for dinosaurs, and foreshadow what was to come. But why is this kid on a archaeological dig? Where did he come from? Why is the kid there if he doesn’t know anything about dinosaurs? My biggest question, why do all the other adults let Alan tell this innocent kid about what it will feel like to get eaten alive? That’s kind of messed up. What a great scene.

"If The Pirates of the Caribbean breaks down, the pirates don't eat the tourists."

How freaking great is Jeff Goldbulm. In the making-of special features, Spielberg said Goldblum was a naturalistic actor who always sounded like he was coming up with the lines in the moment. It's so true, that's definitely the appeal of Dr. Ian Malcolm. Thank you Michael Crichton for this phenomenal character.

"I’m always on the lookout for the next ex-Mrs. Malcolm." 

I love the way the way the raptors are the mystery element. The very first scene shows an animal cage, and then something goes wrong and a guy gets eaten. Back to that Alan Grant monologue that happens to me more real than he knows. Then at Jurassic Park the pen for the raptors doesn't show anything, they're all hidden under big leafy trees and bushes, but get to destroy an airlifted cow. Even Muldoon, the Kenyan game hunter, says "they should all be destroyed." The T-Rex might have been the "star" but these guys were the unseen danger. J.J. Abrams has become famous in recent years for using the mystery element in his movies, and this is the sort of thing that inspired him. Raptors are all we heard about in the first half of the movie, so you knew when you saw one in the second half, you were in big trouble. 

"The park will open with the basic tour you’re about to take."

The combination of Samuel L. Jackson as the chain smoking Ray Arnold and Wayne Knight as the nefarious Dennis Nedry is just so delightful. Sometimes character actors make a movie, and in this case, the almost cartoony relationship between these two adds so much depth and texture to the world.

“Find Nedry, check the vending machines!” 

The inexplicable appearance of a cliff that didn’t exist 15 minutes earlier. If you ever noticed that,
congratulations you continuity expert! It's my favorite goof. The T-Rex paddock is a major set piece, as the jeeps break down next to it, and we spend a lot of time looking beyond the fences to see if our movie monster will appear. The little goat sits waiting just beyond the fence, we can see the ground inside the T-Rex pen, it's all flat. Then! A few scenes later! The Jeep the kids are in gets pushed like a kickball inside the T-Rex pen where it... falls off a big cliff. Where did this cliff come from? It's the exact same location the goat was in earlier, and now it's a 30-foot drop. What happened here? It's made even better when later, Ellie goes to look for their missing Jeep and somehow sprints down to the bottom of this cliff and back up to their search car in about a 3 minute round trip. Pretty impressive, Ellie!

"...He'll lose you if you don't move. But no, not Velociraptor. 

You stare at him, and he just stares right back"

It’s almost cheesy to look back on the set design now, but the creation of these elaborate set pieces are what made Jurassic Park so great. It wasn't just a location, it was a theme park. It was Disneyland for dinos. Everything from the animal cages to the door handles had such distinct branding, unique to this world. Now, those images are quite iconic, with the Jeeps going down in movie history as one of the more memorable vehicles.

"T-Rex doesn't want to be fed. He wants to hunt. 

Can't just suppress 65 million years of gut instinct."

Finally, maybe my favorite thing about Jurassic Park, the score. John Williams is just a genius. I think every movie score that gets stuck in my head has been composed by John Williams. It's hard not to love those themes. There's not situation where singing the Jurassic Park theme doesn't immediately make everything a thousand times better.

"Hammond, after some consideration, I've decided, not to endorse your park."

Even though Jurassic Park is so high on my list of movies, I haven't watched the new Jurassic World yet, as I'm re-watching the whole series before getting to it. I'm sure it's a great addition to the Jurassic franchise, but lets be honest. Chris Pratt is no Jeff Goldblum.

IMDb - Jurassic Park (8.1)

Wikipedia - Jurassic Park

Rotten Tomatoes - Jurassic Park (93%)

Amazon.ca - Jurassic Park

Review: The Gambler

4/10 - When did Marky Mark turn into Kevin Bacon?

I'm not sure why I was supposed to watch The Gambler. Did people think it was a good movie? Is it a comedy? Is it a drama? It's like a movie that just came into existence and disappeared just as quickly. Which makes sense because even after seeing it, because I still have no idea why this movie was made.

From what I gather, this was a remake. That's important because in the context of 2015, this is an irrelevant movie. I can't see this movie getting made on spec right now and getting any attention. It's a movie with an irrelevant story about irrelevant characters for today.

The plot rundown is something about Marky Mark being a rich baby who has a wicked job as a professor but gambles away everything he earns, and screws around with one of his students.

I think the biggest take away from The Gambler was how much I am becoming skeeved out by Hollywood. The very talented Brie Larson plays the young innocent love interest. And while their relationship was somewhat inappropriate within the story, because he is a teacher and she is a student, all I could think about was the idea that she was probably birthed with "Good Vibrations" playing in the delivery room. This age gap is becoming so common, and the more I see it the more awkward I find it. It's easy to look at the context of each relationship in each movie individually and justify the age gap as being part of the story, but it's something that happens so often it's really a gross trend that I'm not a fan of.

Back to the movie itself, I can't decide if I think Marky Mark gives a good acting performance. With a lot of unintentional condescension, I found myself impressed that he could spout out long poetic lines while his literature professor character lectured his class. There were no scenes of him running with a gun while explosions were going off in the background. which is pretty much the only reason he does movies anymore. I totally loathed his character though, and I largely attribute that to his utter lack of charisma and charm.

Jessica Lange, on the other hand, is a gift to the world. Although she is not a major character, all of her scenes come into sharp focus with her presence. Frankly, this movie is worth watching for the pleasure of watching Lange slap the Froot Loops out of Marky Marks mouth.

Overall The Gambler about reckless people making poor decisions, without any consideration for the consequences of their actions. There's nothing sympathetic about a character with an endless supply of cash who's problems come from gambling that money away, especially considering the state of the American economy today. I actually found that the higher the stakes were, the less I cared about the outcome of story. As interesting as some of the set pieces and scenarios were, they were so underutilized with a plot that cannot possibly resonate with the audience.


IMDb - The Gambler (6.1)
Wikipedia - The Gambler
Rotten Tomatoes - The Gambler (46%)
Amazon.ca - The Gambler

REVIEW: Interstellar

10/10 - Epic is a really good word for this movie

Christopher Nolan is a director that built his name on action adventure movies that brought audiences to new worlds with imaginative concepts. Coming off films like The Dark Knight and Inception, the expectations for his sci fi space opera were quite high.

Interstellar is a journey that takes the audience from a dystopian future to the limits of outer space. It's the ultimate cowboy movie, throwing a good ol' farmer into a new territory, looking to claim land for the US of A. This whole film has the feel of being bigger than this movie, bigger than it's story. Perhaps even bigger than Nolan could wrangle. It is a fantastic cinematic experience though, perhaps the best of the year. It hands the ability to infinitely discover the universe to the audience. Interstellar truly feels like a masterpiece, worthy of a grand scale.

The story itself is about Cooper (Matthew McConaughey) a NASA engineer turned farmer who struggles to raise a family during an environmental crisis. Coop gets recruited to join a mission to explore a nearby wormhole, as they believe nearby planets could help save the dying Earth. It's a mission to provide a future for the son and daughter he leaves behind.

What sets Interstellar apart is that it doesn't just tell a story, it shares an experience. We tend to break films down into categories, in order to decide whether they were worthwhile. Story, acting, special effects, audio, what was good and what was bad? In any film, Interstellar included, those specific areas can be picked apart and examined as a contributing part to the film as a whole. In this film, I was so enraptured with the rabbit hole we had been thrown into, that it seemed rather irrelevant to pick apart the individual areas of technical design. The overall effect was so powerful and storytelling so innovative that I felt as though I was a part of the mission the astronauts were on.

For the sake of the review, I'm obligated to share those criticisms. The emotional story was a bit uneven, and I left with more questions about Coopers family then I had answers. At some points conversations felt long, and claustrophobic.

The biggest issue seemed to be the trouble in bridging the science fiction elements to an audience of people without physics degrees. Part of that comes from the desire to tell a story with an explanation grounded in reality but also, science fiction in film seems to arise a bizarre sense of entitlement for scientific accuracy. I get where this comes from, we want to trust and believe in the universe so that story lives on. I can only presume some journalists didn't get the "fiction" part of "science fiction" because I've read a thousand articles desperate to point out minute scientific inaccuracies.

Frankly, we need a better outlet to explore our fascination with great movies, than to credit or discredit the film with educational tidbits of astrophysics. "Debunking" the scientific accuracy only serves to undermine the outstanding achievements of this film.

From beginning to end, Interstellar is an outstanding movie. It utilized every aspect of film making to give the audience an experience never seen before. From the silent explosions in space, to the shocking affects of gravity on a new planet, Interstellar pushed the limits of what humans can experience by putting it on the big screen. If there is ever a film worthy of putting down your phone and offering it your fullest attention, this is it.

IMDb - Interstellar (8.7)
Wikipedia - Interstellar
Rotten Tomatoes - Interstellar (72%)
Amazon.ca - Interstellar

REVIEW: The Maze Runner (And a YA series rant)

5/10 - Da do run run, hey! Da do run run!

I hate movies like this. By that I mean movie-franchises like this, movies that are build to be part of a trilogy or whatever. There's something so infuriating about a film that intentionally is left incomplete. It offers no sufficient climax to the audience. Perhaps there is an action climax on some level, but certainly no emotional one.

I think the failings of The Maze Runner can be attributed in part to the failings of the novel in creating a series. Part of what works in the Harry Potter series of novels is the school story framing device. It provides a clear timeline for events to build up, and conclude. The Hunger Games features an annual event that play out over the year culminating with the Games themselves. These things are tremendously helpful in creating expectations, creating suspense, and allowing the audience to be included in the emotional journey. It ebbs and flows with the natural catharsis of life. For young adult series' like Divergent and The Maze Runner, that don't have that framing device, the narrative becomes a never-ending series of events that build, and build, and build and break. It's not as satisfying and it doesn't draw in the reader to the next adventure. Divergent had a somewhat okish climax and conclusion, but left the audience to fester in frustration at plot holes, and unfinished stories lines A poor 'hook' for the next film. At least it had full and complete story beats and a conclusion of the action. I've read the books, and they go downhill quickly. The Maze Runner isn't so fortunate. It's as if they took the first act of a film and dragged it out to create a two hour movie where almost nothing happens.

The essential problem with a movie that sets up for sequels is it's need to create questions without providing answers. What ends up happening is I cross my arms and look pissed off, knowing that when they say things like "I don't know who I am" that they will never get addressed in the course of the film. Let's be clear: That's fucking bullshit. A movie should be able to stand and walk on it's own two legs, sequel or not. This film cannot. If you take The Maze Runner for what it's worth, without considering it to be part of a series, this movie crumbles. It's got about as much story content as a 22 minute TV comedy. That's unacceptable.

I know I shouldn't keep comparing this franchise, but lets be honest if it wasn't for the success of the other YA novel adaptation film series's then this movie would have never been made. So lets compare it to The Hunger Games. In The Hunger Games, the world is introduced as part of what shaped the protagonist. When Katniss gets entered into the Hunger Games, that's the turning point and she experiences the Capital, the people there, the games, who runs them, and what meaning they have. Then she gets into the games, and a bunch of crazy shit goes down. In The Maze Runner, there is no setup or introduction. The protagonist is a blank person. We experience the glade and learn about the maze over a painstaking first half of the movie where no information is the only information. Then they go into the maze and ... that's it. All the questions of who these people are, what motivates them, why they are doing this, what their purpose is, nothing is answered. I don't even have a clear view of the characters by the end of the film because they literally don't know themselves. It's beyond frustrating to know that it's going to take 3 movies for this series to tell the story that should have been told in 1.

In conclusion, there are some special effects and some great kid actors (along side a bunch of really, really terrible ones) and you'll have to spend another $30 worth of movie tickets to find out what really happens.

IMDb - The Maze Runner (7.0)
Wikipedia - The Maze Runner
Rotten Tomatoes - The Maze Runner (63%)
Amazon.ca - The Maze Runner