Ant Man - 2015
*** 1/2
Starring: Kirk Douglas's photo of Burt Douglas, Thomas the Tank Engine, Alice in Wonderland's Drink Me bottle.
Yes. I missed every one of them. Except the first Iron Man. My daughter was born in 2008. The first Iron Man was 2008. That was all I saw of the Marvel Universe.
I did manage to see Captain America, if only for Mr. Smith as the Red Skull. It was one of those last online streaming sites for movies near the end of that decade. Missed the Avengers, missed the other Iron Men, missed Thor, missed the Hulk.
Obviously by the time you're getting to Ant Man and the Wasp and the Vision and Power Man & Iron Fist, you're nearing the age of Alpha Flight and Power Pack. Kind of like when I started reading comics in the mid-80s, when it seemed like every big story was already long ago covered, and you're stuck with the scraps of scraps with scrapheap villians who will be fodder for Teen Titans Go! - or the Marvel version of that - in a few decades.
But Ant Man ended up covering so much more territory than so many other films, ended up being so much richer and vibrant and fun - much as ants cover so much of our earth and end up in so many places where they are least expected. Like crawling from the gearbox in my stickshift every morning.
While there's the typical corporate intellectual property debates and earpiece-wearing machine-gun-carrying Armani-suit wearing security, this was a movie about size. All about size. From the infinite to the infinitesimal. It's Alice's Drink Me bottle as drunk by Jackie Chan. It's fight scenes I've never seen, and have only been fantasized about until I said there was no way to ever see that happening in a movie, so there's no reason to keep imagining about it.
We're reaching a very neat point in CGI where B movies and tv shows are able to create many wonderful storytelling elements that are not comets destroying planets. Last year's Doctor Who, the one with the 2-dimensional baddies who shrunk the Tardis, was a big part of this. It's not the flying that CGI was invented and can be at its best, but flying through an air conditioning air vent past the 1,000 foot television set.
Add in a decent good guy, Michael Douglas in his FTW sarcastic best, a few colorful wisecracking people of color, Avon Barksdale, and one of the best final thirds in any action movie ever made, and that's a bonafide fun-ass summer B movie. And lawd, there ain't nothing like a bonafide fun-ass summer B movie.
*** 1/2
Starring: Kirk Douglas's photo of Burt Douglas, Thomas the Tank Engine, Alice in Wonderland's Drink Me bottle.
Yes. I missed every one of them. Except the first Iron Man. My daughter was born in 2008. The first Iron Man was 2008. That was all I saw of the Marvel Universe.
I did manage to see Captain America, if only for Mr. Smith as the Red Skull. It was one of those last online streaming sites for movies near the end of that decade. Missed the Avengers, missed the other Iron Men, missed Thor, missed the Hulk.
Obviously by the time you're getting to Ant Man and the Wasp and the Vision and Power Man & Iron Fist, you're nearing the age of Alpha Flight and Power Pack. Kind of like when I started reading comics in the mid-80s, when it seemed like every big story was already long ago covered, and you're stuck with the scraps of scraps with scrapheap villians who will be fodder for Teen Titans Go! - or the Marvel version of that - in a few decades.
But Ant Man ended up covering so much more territory than so many other films, ended up being so much richer and vibrant and fun - much as ants cover so much of our earth and end up in so many places where they are least expected. Like crawling from the gearbox in my stickshift every morning.
While there's the typical corporate intellectual property debates and earpiece-wearing machine-gun-carrying Armani-suit wearing security, this was a movie about size. All about size. From the infinite to the infinitesimal. It's Alice's Drink Me bottle as drunk by Jackie Chan. It's fight scenes I've never seen, and have only been fantasized about until I said there was no way to ever see that happening in a movie, so there's no reason to keep imagining about it.
We're reaching a very neat point in CGI where B movies and tv shows are able to create many wonderful storytelling elements that are not comets destroying planets. Last year's Doctor Who, the one with the 2-dimensional baddies who shrunk the Tardis, was a big part of this. It's not the flying that CGI was invented and can be at its best, but flying through an air conditioning air vent past the 1,000 foot television set.
Add in a decent good guy, Michael Douglas in his FTW sarcastic best, a few colorful wisecracking people of color, Avon Barksdale, and one of the best final thirds in any action movie ever made, and that's a bonafide fun-ass summer B movie. And lawd, there ain't nothing like a bonafide fun-ass summer B movie.
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