Who are you and why do you know so much about car washes?

Ant-Man and the Wasp

(2018)

(SPOILERS) The belated arrival of the Ant-Man sequel on UK shores may have been legitimately down to World Cup programming, but it nevertheless adds to the sense that this is the inessential little sibling of the MCU, not really expected to challenge the grosses of a Doctor Strange, let alone the gargantuan takes of its two predecessors this year. Empire magazine ran with this diminution, expressing disappointment that it was "comparatively minor and light-hitting" and "lacks the scale and ambition of recent Marvel entries". Far from deficits, for my money these should be regard as accolades bestowed upon Ant-Man and the Wasp; it understands exactly the zone its operating in, yielding greater dividends than the three most recent prior Marvel entries the review cites in its efforts at point scoring.

My expectations weren't that high; I liked the original, but I was very aware that Peyton Reed was no Edgar Wright, and his lack of flair outside the prevized sequences lent the picture a rather lax feeling at times; "We arent a big Marvel movie, so we may as well strike the pose of a sitcom". As such, I was less than jubilant to learn he’d been retained for the sequel. The surprise is, I've few complaints regarding his work here. I suspect part of that's Ant-Man and the Wasp being much, much better paced, so there's little time to reflect on all the opportunities Reed misses that a more creative eye, with all the inherent possibilities of adjusting perspectives, would take advantage of. It's true that he doesn’t imbue anything approach white-knuckle pacing into the action, but neither does he edit the life out of it; it's easy to see what's going on, and more essentially, Reed's mostly attempting action-comedy rather than pure thrills, at which he succeeds admirably.

Certainly, while Thor: Ragnarok will doubtless continue to garner all the applause for going where James Gunn went first with Guardians of the Galaxy, only with significantly less quality control on Taika Waititi's part, I found Reed's effort (from a screenplay credited to – count 'em – Chris McKenna, Erik Sommers, Paul Rudd, Andrew Barrer and Gabriel Ferrari) more satisfying overall. As such, it's closer to the rarefied level of a worthy sequel to Innerspace the first Ant-man didn’t quite reach; there's even a half-sized sequence that succeeds where Joe Dante failed (admittedly, that’s Innerspace's solitary bum note).

Much of that is probably down to McKenna and Sommers, who made Spider-man: Homecoming such an agreeably breezy delight while not stinting on the heart and plot. There's a lot of potentially unwieldy exposition here, both covering the loss of Janet (Michelle Pfeiffer) and the plan by Hank (Michael Douglas) to retrieve her from the quantum realm ("Do you guys just put the word 'quantum' in front of everything?" asks a pained Scott at one point), and stitching in the post-Civil War continuity, but Reed rarely makes heavy weather of these onuses; indeed, with Scott's house arrest, this becomes a gag-fuelled boon, particularly in the case of FBI parole officer Jimmy Woo (Randall Park) – also a youth pastor – and his somewhat bromantic fixation on Scott.

Ant-Man and the Wasp's structure also carries an agreeable internal tension, such that we're immediately set up for Hank's quest to find Janet, only for it to be entirely derailed by the double-crossing of Walter Goggins' black marketeer and, separately, molecularly unstable Ava Starr/Ghost (Hannah John-Kamen). Once Hank is back on track and plunged into the quantum for his own ant-ics, Reed reliably juggles the competing elements of pursuing parties and the against-the-clock macro mission.

That aforementioned Empire review complained about repeated riffs, such as the irrepressible Michael Peña's Luis treating us to another all-parts-performed-vocally "flashback" sequence (this one where he's on "truth serum") and the unfortunate casualties among Scott's ant-buddies (this time at the beak of an opportunistic seagull), but you’ll get no complaints from me as they're both very funny (again). Peña can't help but steal the show whenever he's in frame, from relating how he'd love to have a limited special power and a suit ("Or even just a suit") and a baffling partiality to Morrissey (any partiality to Morrissey is baffling).

I'm a big fan of the way Reed et al have felt free to go broader and more cartoonish than the first movie, not least the pet giant ant playing the drums or having a bath (standing in for Scott with his ankle monitor). The re-sizing gimmick for comic effect has also been honed, best utilised in the chase sequences (the iconic San Francisco hills setting more than references the city's pursuit sequence heritage, not least The Dead Pool), but the emotional beats also land, mostly centring on retrieving Janet and the situation besetting Ava, the latter revealed as subjected to MKUltra/SHIELD super soldier training from infancy.

Ava's skillset is inventively rendered, easily besting the combined assaults of Scott and Hope. I'm not entirely persuaded by Jane's magic hands as a solution to her suffering (doubtless Ava will return, now able to turn her phasing off and on at will), but both John-Kamen and Pfeiffer are welcome additions to the ensemble (and this really does feel like an ensemble, rather than a logjam of stars struggling for a show-off moment of as can happen with Avengers; Bobby Carnavale seems to be back just to hug Scott, but he does it so well, you don’t doubt he simply enjoyed being on set).

De-aging effects have been applied fairly seamlessly to Douglas once again, and Pfeiffer too (although she still looks radiant anyway), but young Laurence Fishburne has been played by his son Langston. Fishburne's part’s rather thin, leading to earnest and rather rushed speeches establishing his moral compass in the third act, while Goggins' hairpiece makes more of an impression than his character (although, "I've committed numerous health code violations at my restaurant. Some of them will shock you" is one of the funniest lines in a movie packed to the rafters with them).

Hope meanwhile is way cooler than Scott when suited up, although it helps that she knows what she's doing while Scott is hampered by an amusingly on-the-fritz outfit causing him sudden fluctuations in size (I'm willing to be convinced otherwise, but I'm sure his "Come here, you little weasel" while pursuing Goggins is a reference to Martin Short's "Where are you, you little weasel?" In Innerspace). Evangeline Lilly's generally required to be the straight man to Rudd's mugging, but she clearly relishes any chance she gets to play for laughs.

I'm certain I’m in the minority then, but I found this easily the most satisfying MCU entry of the year. I can't escape the feeling that a more versatile director would have doubled-down on the chance to go really out there with some of the visuals, but Reed pulls off the comedy with aplomb and more than sustains the necessary tension. As for Rudd, he's appealingly self-effacing, having etched out a niche as Marvel's butt-of-all-jokes, not-so-superhero; it'll be interesting to see how this filters into a surely more grim-faced outlook on his part in the Avengers 4. On that score, the mid-credits sting is a marvellous piece of cliffhanger inventiveness, wiping out Hank, Janet and Hope and leaving Scott stranded in the quantum realm (we don’t learn whether the same fate befalls his daughter). After that, doubtless we'll want a return to Scott levity for Ant-Man 3/ Ant-Man and the Wasp 2.

Agree? Disagree? Mildly or vehemently? Let me know in the comments below.

Comments

Poor Easy Breezy.

Once Upon a Time… in Hollywood (2019)
(SPOILERS) My initial reaction to Once Upon a Time… in Hollywood was mild disbelief that Tarantino managed to hoodwink studios into coming begging to make it, so wilfully perverse is it in disregarding any standard expectations of narrative or plotting. Then I remembered that studios, or studios that aren’t Disney, are desperate for product, and more especially, product that might guarantee them a hit. Quentin’s latest appears to be that, but whether it’s a sufficient one to justify the expense of his absurd vanity project remains to be seen.

You're waterboarding me.

The Upside (2017)
(SPOILERS) The list of US remakes of foreign-language films really ought to be considered a hiding to nothing, given the ratio of flops to unqualified successes. There’s always that chance, though, of a proven property (elsewhere) hitting the jackpot, and every exec hopes, in the case of French originals, for another The Birdcage, Three Men and a Baby, True Lies or Down and Out in Beverly Hills. Even a Nine Months, Sommersby or Unfaithful will do. Rather than EdTV. Or Sorcerer. Or Eye of the Beholder. Or Brick Mansions. Or Chloe. Or Intersection (Richard Gere is clearly a Francophile). Or Just Visiting. Or The Man with One Red Shoe. Or Mixed Nuts. Or Original Sin. Or Oscar. Or Point of No Return. Or Quick Change. Or Return to Paradise. Or Under Suspicion. Or Wicker Park. Or Father’s Day.

What about the meaningless line of indifference?

The Lion King (2019)
(SPOILERS) And so the Disney “live-action” remake train thunders on regardless (I wonder how long the live-action claim would last if there was a slim hope of a Best Animated Feature Oscar nod?) I know I keep repeating myself, but the early ‘90s Disney animation renaissance didn’t mean very much to me; I found their pictures during that period fine, but none of them blew me away as they did critics and audiences generally. As such, I have scant nostalgia to bring to bear on the prospect of a remake, which I’m sure can work both ways. Aladdin proved to be a lot of fun. Beauty and the Beast entirely tepid. The Lion King, well, it isn’t a badfilm, but it’s wearying its slavish respectfulness towards the original and so diligent in doing it justice, you’d think it was some kind of religious artefact. As a result, it is, ironically, for the most part, dramatically dead in the water.

You know what I think? I think he just wants to see one cook up close.

The Green Mile (1999)
(SPOILERS) There’s something very satisfying about the unhurried confidence of the storytelling in Frank Darabont’s two prison-set Stephen King adaptations (I’m less beholden to supermarket sweep The Mist); it’s sure, measured and precise, certain that the journey you’re being take on justifies the (indulgent) time spent, without the need for flashy visuals or ornate twists (the twists there are feel entirely germane – with a notable exception – as if they could only be that way). But. The Green Mile has rightly come under scrutiny for its reliance on – or to be more precise, building its foundation on – the “Magical Negro” trope, served with a mild sprinkling of idiot savant (so in respect of the latter, a Best Supporting Actor nomination was virtually guaranteed). One might argue that Stephen King’s magical realist narrative flourishes well-worn narrative ploys and characterisations at every stage – such that John Coffey’s initials are announcement enough of his …

She writes Twilight fan fiction.

Vampire Academy (2014)
My willingness to give writer Daniel Waters some slack on the grounds of early glories sometimes pays off (Sex and Death 101) and sometimes, as with this messy and indistinct Young Adult adaptation, it doesn’t. If Vampire Academy plods along as a less than innovative smart-mouthed Buffy rip-off that might be because, if you added vampires to Heathers, you would probably get something not so far from the world of Joss Whedon. Unfortunately inspiration is a low ebb throughout, not helped any by tepid direction from Daniel’s sometimes-reliable brother Mark and a couple of hopelessly plankish leads who do their best to dampen down any wit that occasionally attempts to surface.

I can only presume there’s a never-ending pile of Young Adult fiction poised for big screen failure, all of it comprising multi-novel storylines just begging for a moment in the Sun. Every time an adaptation crashes and burns (and the odds are that they will) another one rises, hydra-like, hoping…

What you do is very baller. You're very anarchist.

Lady Bird (2017)
(SPOILERS) You can see the Noah Baumbach influence on Lady Bird, Greta Gerwig’s directorial debut, with whom she collaborated on Frances Ha; an intimate, lo-fi, post-Woody Allen (as in, post-feted, respected Woody Allen) dramedy canvas that has traditionally been the New Yorker’s milieu. But as an adopted, spiritual New Yorker, I suspect Gerwig honourably qualifies, even as Lady Bird is a love letter/ nostalgia trip to her home city of Sacramento.

My name is Dr. King Schultz, this is my valet, Django, and these are our horses, Fritz, and Tony.

Django Unchained (2012)
(MINOR SPOILERS) Since the painful misstep of Grindhouse/Death Proof, Quentin Tarantino has regained the higher ground like never before. Pulp Fiction, his previous commercial and critical peak, has been at very least equalled by the back-to-back hits of Inglourious Basterds and Django Unchained. Having been underwhelmed by his post Pulp Fiction efforts (albeit, I admired his technical advances as a director in Kill Bill), I was pleasantly surprised by Inglourious Basterds. It was no work of genius (so not Pulp Fiction) by any means, but there was a gleeful irreverence in its treatment of history and even to the nominal heroic status of its titular protagonists. Tonally, it was a good fit for the director’s “cool” aesthetic. As a purveyor of postmodern pastiche, where the surface level is the subtext, in some ways he was operating at his zenith. Django Unchained is a retreat from that position, the director caught in the tug between his all-important aesthetic pr…

Do you read Sutter Cane?

In the Mouth of Madness (1994)
(SPOILERS) The concluding chapter of John Carpenter’s unofficial Apocalypse Trilogy (preceded by The Thing and Prince of Darkness) is also, sadly, his last great movie. Indeed, it stands apart in the qualitative wilderness that beset him during the ‘90s (not for want of output). Michael De Luca’s screenplay had been doing the rounds since the ‘80s, even turned down by Carpenter at one point, and it proves ideal fodder for the director, bringing out the best in him. Even cinematographer Gary K Kibbe seems inspired enough to rise to the occasion. It could do without the chugging rawk soundtrack, perhaps, but then, that was increasingly where Carpenter’s interests resided (as opposed to making decent movies).

Kindly behove me no ill behoves!

The Bonfire of the Vanities (1990)
(SPOILERS) It’s often the case that industry-shaking flops aren’t nearly the travesties they appeared to be before the dust had settled, and so it is with The Bonfire of the Vanities. The adaptation of Tom Wolfe’s ultra-cynical bestseller is still the largely toothless, apologetically broad-brush comedy – I’d hesitate to call it a satire in its reconfigured form – it was when first savaged by critics nearly thirty years ago, but taken for what it is, that is, removed from the long shadow of Wolfe’s novel, it’s actually fairly serviceable star-stuffed affair that doesn’t seem so woefully different to any number of rather blunt-edged comedies of the era.

I don’t think you will see President Pierce again.

The Ballad of Buster Scruggs (2018)
(SPOILERS) The Ballad of Buster Scruggs and other tall tales of the American frontier is the title of "the book" from which the Coen brothers' latest derives, and so announces itself as fiction up front as heavily as Fargo purported to be based on a true story. In the world of the portmanteau western – has there even been one before? – theme and content aren't really all that distinct from the more familiar horror collection, and as such, these six tales rely on sudden twists or reveals, most of them revolving around death. And inevitably with the anthology, some tall tales are stronger than other tall tales, the former dutifully taking up the slack.

Now In Full Color, with a Happier Ending

Search This Blog