Ant Man and the Wasp
One of the Marvel movies I didn't get to see was Ant
Man and the Wasp. And a superhero movie is usually the first thing I watch on a
plane - I don't want to have to engage my brain but I want to be entertained.
And this movie fit the bill, while still being one of my least favourite Marvel
movies of recent years. I definitely wanted to see Black Panther more,
though.
Recent Marvel movies have really refined the balancing
act between goofy humour and seriousness. It started with Guardians of the
Galaxy, became most pronounced in Thor: Ragnarok and now even pervades the
Avengers movies. And I really like it. They've taken that smug Wheadonesque
humour I used to despise and found a way to make it less smug, less jarring,
less self-aware - basically by making it dumber so that it feels like what
people in the situation might actually do.
Ant Man and the Wasp attempts to do this too, but
doesn't quite get there. It's extremely hit-and-miss. Some moments that
undercut the seriousness work really well, like a phone call in the middle of a
hostage situation. Some, like Scott being possessed by someone else and doing
awkward things, are just stilted and awful. And it's not the performers. Most
of the time Scott himself, the FBI agent and the dodgy former criminals do this
well, but all sometimes just seem to miss the rhythm of the jokes. Most of the time
Michael Keaton and the Wasp do it really badly, but sometimes it clicks for
nice amusing moments. But it needs to work all the time, or very nearly all the
time, for things to hang together. The movie was just nowhere near as funny or
character-driven as it needed to be. Especially after Thor: Ragnarok did that
so well.
I don't get too hung up on the nonsensical science
here, but this is also the most confusing of the Marvel properties - at least
Doctor Strange is just meant to be magic being magic. In the first movie we
were told the technology just squashes down atoms by reducing the empty space,
and Scott's punches still carry the mass of his full size, but then we get
people picking up cars and buildings. Why are they so light? How is being
sub-atomic possible if the atoms are not altered? How are the CGI ants
controlled with such precision? Are they psychic? And now we get this extra
layer of mumbo-jumbo with quantum entanglement meaning instructions and
'antennae' can be planted in others' brains by contact in dreams...it's just a
bit too much for advanced-technology-is-synonymous-with-magic. All strung
around a dodgy plot where 90% of the action hangs purely on the antagonist's
attitude being "I won't wait a few hours, I must do everything NOW."
Still, though, with brain off and detailed blurred
over, it was still a fun way to pass time and Scott has a good place in the
Avengers line-up as a particularly minor character. He's shown up in the
trailers for Endgame so I'm interested to see what role he'll play in the next
biggie.
Solo: A Star Wars Story
This movie got a lot of flack for being the first big
failure for the Star Wars franchise. Everyone could tell from Disney's
reactions and adding certain missing figures - like marketing budgets - to the
reported profit/loss numbers that this was not a winner at the box office. As a
result of which, several potential spin-offs may never see the light of the
day. It was eviscerated by online fan voices like Ethan Van Sciver and widely
mocked. But reading between the lines, the impression I always got was that
this was actually a decent film that basically got punished for how much
everyone hated The Last Jedi.
And I think that's true. If this had come out before
Last Jedi, it would absolutely have done much better. It's not bad at all. Not
as fun or interesting as Rogue One but certainly better than The Last Jedi or
any of the prequel trilogy. It hit a lot of notes well, told a moderately
interesting story that I grant you nobody really needed, but it was by no means
a chore to get through. I wouldn't rewatch it, I'm glad I saw it on the plane
instead of paying to see it in a theatre, but I don't regret seeing it.
Here, we discover that Han Solo grew up as a kind of
Artful Dodger to some huge gaudy space-eel-Fagin, escaped with his wily ways,
and got tangled up in a heist that made him the loveable but grizzly rogue we
see in the main series. There's romance, comedy, some interesting interactions
with Lando and a lot of nods to lines from the originals that are much less
forced than they were in The Force Awakens. Though it IS kind of awkward that
Han just never comes across any force users and somehow manages to go through
life thinking it's a myth. And showing him to be inadvertantly instrumental to
getting the rebellion started was a bit awkward, too.
I liked Woody Harrelson's mentor figure a lot, and his
crew at the beginning was pretty interesting. I also liked Donald Glover as
Lando, letting insecurities peek through the facade. The main actor felt a bit
wooden to me, not really resembling Harrison Ford at all and mostly looking
more like a young Jack Black when he tried to pull faces reminiscent of the
older version of the character. And Emilia Clarke was pretty as always but
didn't bring anything very unique to the character, whose final scene, though
fun with the unexpected cameo, was either a reference I don't get or likely to
be a cliffhanger than never gets resolved. And I really disliked L3 (L337 also
being among the worst possible choices for a name). I get that she was meant to
be fierce and empowered, but the way that was written she was basically just
snide and unpleasant to everyone, less a revolutionary and more like the
middle-aged entitled women with the asymmetric haircuts who retail workers
dread because they're going to be demanding and sarcastic and make them go and
get the manager. And if she was meant to be an inspiring revolutionary
agitator, what happened as soon as she actually got involved in an uprising
seemed more like a lesson to learn than a celebration.
Overall, this wasn't too bad. For every moment I wasn't
sure about - the character's name is an English pun? The final plan really
works in that way despite how incredibly unlikely the set-up is? - there was a
fun action sequence or effects-heavy shootout. Nothing special or original, but
certainly a long way from the disaster its detractors make it out to be.
Ready Player One
Something about this film didn't sit well with me. And
not the various flaws the film had, like being way too long, not world-building
very well, being super clumsy with how people respond to death of people close
to them, or generally very stilted dialogue. It was something more fundamental
and conceptual. Even though I'm squarely in the demographic this was aimed at,
it just didn't sit well with me.
Firstly, the gimmick isn't much of a stand-out any
more. Seeing characters from a bunch of franchises together was a thrill back
when Kingdom Hearts came out, or when the first Wreck-It Ralph filled the
screen with surprise cameos. It's not that new any more, even if it still makes
for some great moments, be it bizarre momentary team-ups like Chun-Li and
Tracer, or battles between various robots I never knew I wanted to see interact
until it was right there on the screen. Undeniably there's a geeky thrill to
that, and the Shining portion allowed Spielberg to pay tribute to his great
friend and influence in a way that was part homage and part hokey
cg-fest.
But it's not just that this isn't very new. It doesn't
tell a story I thought was engaging. The idea of people inhabiting virtual
worlds and that having a significant influence on their real lives is very old
- Red Dwarf did it, .hack did it multiple times, Sword Art Online did it, 1/2
Prince did it, and perhaps the closest iteration of it to this movie is the
vastly more heartfelt and compelling Summer Wars. So the key part is to tell a
really interesting story. All Ready Player One can muster is a boring
by-the-numbers misfit-teen beats dastardly-corporate-guy set up.
Corporate-guy--who-wants-everyone-to-have-to-watch-ads-and-becomes-a-homicidal-maniac-over-it-and-could-never-have-won-anyway.
Then there's a romance with all the simmering tension of the produce in a fish
market with that old groaner of revealing a tiny facial blemish that the lover
interest believes is horribly disfiguring.
The rules of the world are also bewildering. We get a
set-up where people are on treadmills but then they can experience flying
around in the air upside-down and they use this gear in the streets and you can
fall backwards off a chair and that somehow gets translated. How this machine
works is bewildering. Then the idea of one particular avatar, the curator,
becomes ridiculous when you think about what he must have been doing outside
the main character's interactions with him. The rules of the game at the centre
of the story are kind of absurd, requiring extensive research into the life of the
creator and some really random logic in the Shining part - which may not have
been in the original book, I know, since there was a different world for that.
And the avatars used are so inconsistent. Our main characters each use super
unique ones but other people like to be famous game characters, and a lot of
them hang out exclusively with other people following the same theme, like the
Sanrio mascots. We know from Second Life people are seldom random original
avatars and usually just follow the latest memes, like Ugandan Knuckles.
The ending was strung out way too much. We didn't need
yet another car chase sequence, or gun-waving showdown. None of that really
affected the story. I was very bored by the end, despite the endless kabooms
and hi-yas. And I have to say, if you bring in the Holy Hand Grenade, at least
give a bit more of a reference. 1, 2, 5!
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