Even Without Edgar Wright, "Ant-Man" Turned Out Pretty Good

Ant-Man

Ant-Man, along with last year’s wildly successful Guardians of the Galaxy, definitely shows that Marvel is digging deep for new heroes to introduce. Audiences don’t seem to mind the B- and C-listers getting their own films because the movies wisely take a more comedic route. (By the way, I know Ant-Man is not consider

ed a B- or C-lister in the comic book world, but he definitely is in the movie world.) Guardians was easily the goofiest film Marvel has ever made, and Ant-Man often plays more like a comedy than a superhero action film, which is precisely the tone this movie needed to have to succeed.

This film has been a huge question mark for Marvel not only because of the lesser known main character, but also for some behind the scenes trouble. Edgar Wright (Shaun of the Dead) was well into the process of making this film when he dropped out. He realized he wasn’t going to be able to make the movie he wanted to make because Marvel has such a strict plan for the next few years. So Peyton Reed (Yes Man) was brought in. Nothing against Reed (especially since the movie turned out all right), but it doesn’t instill a lot of confidence to go from the director of Shaun of the Dead to the director of Yes Man. It would definitely be interesting to see what Wright would have ultimately done with the film, but it appears he left his stamp on enough of it so that what we see on the screen is a Wright-like film.

Most likely, the visual style of the film was sacrificed when Wright left (more on that in a bit), but the comedic tone of the film remained. Much like Shaun of the Dead, Ant-Man is about a very unlikely hero in Scott Lang (Paul Rudd), a convict who can’t seem to catch a break. Returning to a life of crime leads him to Dr. Hank Pym (Michael Douglas) and the shrinking suit Pym has made. Then more comic book stuff happens, and Scott has to try to save the world, and you’ll probably see him again in other Marvel movies, and you get the idea.

Ant-Man sets itself apart from other Marvel movies by having a stronger emotional core than other comic book films. The emotional theme focuses on parents, specifically fathers, and how complicated it can be to protect their children, or in this case, daughters. Scott’s main goal is to get his life back on track so he can see his daughter, who sees him as a hero already. For Scott, it’s all about living up to an image his daughter has for him. Hank Pym, on the other hand, has kept his daughter Hope (Evangeline Lilly) so far away that she now resents him. Each man needs to prove himself to his daughter to have peace. These subplots were a welcome distraction from the save the world plotline, which is getting a bit tiresome in the Marvel world.

The emotional scenes never get too heavy, though, and the film in general is quite funny. Paul Rudd has a lot to do with that. He’s a natural for the reluctant hero part. But the comedy comes more from the gang of idiots he pals around with. The standout is Michael Peña, whose rambling stories are the comedic highlight of the film. They are also the scenes that felt the most like an Edgar Wright film.

Comedy aside, this is still a Marvel superhero movie, so the action and visuals have a lot to live up to. In this case, the visuals actually lead to comedy at times. When we’re zoomed in on the action, for instance, a child’s trainset turns into a real train bearing down on someone. Pull back and it becomes a pretty goofy sequence. When the action is taken seriously, it’s par for the course for Marvel. There’s nothing that stands out, aside from the goofiness of pulling back during action scenes. Edgar Wright could have possibly created some action scenes that would have stood out from the rest of the Marvel pack, but we’ll never know. The miniature stuff looks great, though. Overall, Ant-Man boasts some great visuals with decent action.

 Ant-Man could have been Marvel’s first big misstep since it started this takeover of Hollywood. But like Guardians, the risk paid off. Sure, the save the world plotline is flat out boring at this point, but that comes with the territory in a comic book movie. Ant-Man simply had to distinguish itself from the rest of the pack with comedy, and it completely succeeded. 

Ant-Man receives a:

"Guardians" Is the Weirdest, Possibly Best* Marvel Movie Yet

Guardians of the Galaxy

*I say "possibly best" because I need to let the movie sink in for a while before I claim it to be the best among a lot of very entertaining movies.

And you thought Thor was the weirdest part of the Marvel movie franchise.  As the superhero movies have branched out beyond Earth in recent years with the Thor films and The Avengers, I wondered how far mainstream audiences would go with Marvel into deep sci-fi territory.  Very far, it turns out.  Guardians of the Galaxy (which I will refer to as GotG from here on out because I’m lazy) presents an entirely new group of superheroes who only comic book fans will recognize in an entirely alien setting.  That’s exactly the kind of stuff I like, but I assumed regular audiences wouldn’t be so thrilled since they wouldn’t have an iconic character to get behind.  It turns out audiences and critics alike will go with a movie as long as it’s one of the most fun films of the summer.  (Side note: This shouldn’t be all that surprising since Star Wars could be described the exact same way, and people seemed to like that.  I would point out, however, that “Star Wars” didn’t get the marketing blitz that GotG did.)

GotG works so well because the titular galaxy it takes place in is so large and diverse.  Like most deep sci-fi works, there are many worlds in GotG, so when one is threatened it’s not as big of a deal as it normally is in a film.  What this means is that the film can still be fun while the stakes are quite high.  Characters can joke around at the direst of moments, and it feels normal.  That wouldn’t work if someone was trying to stop a nuke from blowing up America or something.  But when the planet on the line is Xandar, then who cares if we’re laughing while it is potentially destroyed?  (No offense to the fictional Xandarians.)

A goofy sci-fi action film needs a goofy cast of characters to inhabit it and GotG definitely has that covered.  This might just be the high of recently watching and loving this movie, but I’m leaning towards the Guardians over the Avengers at this point.  The group is led by Peter Quill, AKA Star-Lord (Chris Pratt), a kind of Indiana Jones/Han Solo hybrid.  He is joined by Gamora (Zoe Saldana), a green-skinned step-daughter of evil titan Thanos (and she’s not the weirdest member of the group by a long shot…); Drax (Dave Bautista), a literally literal (meaning he takes everything people say literally) vengeance seeking hulk; Rocket (voiced by Bradley Cooper), a genetically-altered raccoon who can talk and is a weapons specialist; and Groot (voiced by Vin Diesel), a living tree that can talk, sort of (he only says, “I am Groot”).  With a group like this, the movie pretty much has to be goofy and fun.

Marvel has succeeded with all of these increasingly weird properties for multiple reasons.  The cast is usually spot-on, they spend plenty of money for each film, but, most importantly, they hand off the riskiest films to fellow geeks.  Joss Whedon was the perfect choice to helm The Avengers, and lesser-known geek-friendly writer-director (hey, that’s the first time I’ve used three hyphenates in a row!) James Gunn is equally perfect for GotG.  I am a huge fan of Gunn’s first feature, Slither, so I knew when he got this job that GotG would be something special.  Hats off to Marvel for handing off their properties to people who know what they’re doing.  By the way, if you haven’t seen Slither, check it out.

Gunn (and co-screenwriter Nicole Perlman) bring a great sense of humor and nostalgia to the film that makes it stand out even more from the “traditional” Marvel properties.  All of the films in the series have their comedic elements, but GotG is a bit different in that it’s a bit more self-aware.  An example of this would be the fact that Star Lord refers to the mysterious orb at the center of the movie (like the Tesseract or Aether from other films) as having an “Ark of the Covenant vibe” essentially saying the film is a bit like Indiana Jones and these movies always involve some mysterious powerful substance that is never clearly defined.  My least favorite part of all of these films are the Infinity Stones for the very reason that they’re mysterious, are simply called “powerful,” and bad guys want them for bad reasons.  It’s just too vague and uninteresting.  GotG at least calls itself out for it, which makes it easier to stomach.  Moving on, the nostalgia aspect sets the film apart even more.  Star Lord is taken from Earth in 1988 and happens to have an “Awesome Mix Tape” and a Walkman with him.  This allows the film to be scored to music from the late 70s and early 80s.  The contradictory nature of that music set to sci-fi action and locales is funny and kind of cool, really.  And since Star Lord is the only character from Earth (that we see, anyway), he gets to do some Marty McFly-esque referencing as he discusses Footloose in a mythical fashion and refers to John Stamos as a famous outlaw. 

Much of the humor is thanks to the delivery of the cast.  Pratt is a natural as Star Lord.  He has received the most attention for getting in such great shape for the role, and that is impressive, but what makes him stand out in a Marvel movie is his delivery of goofiness, which isn’t surprising given his work on Parks & Recreation.  Regardless of why he gets recognition, he definitely deserves it and carries the film easily.  Saldana is fine as Gamora though the tough sci-fi girl role she always plays is wearing kind of thin.  Dave Bautista surprised me the most with his matter of fact delivery.  The fact that he takes everything literally made for some of the funniest moments.  The voice work for Rocket and Groot is fine, but what’s more impressive about these characters is that they ended up being the most sympathetic members of the group, and they were created through motion capture. 

GotG is still an action film, though the action feels like an afterthought.  That’s not to say there aren’t plenty of impressive fights and whatnot, it’s just that, at this point, we’ve seen a world or galaxy or whatever saved from annihilation by some vague cosmic power so many times that it’s no big deal.  How many times can we see a giant ship of some kind crash into stuff before we get kind of bored with it?  That’s really not a knock against the movie; it’s just that this film handles everything else so much more interestingly that the action isn’t the focus. 

Guardians of the Galaxy (I’ll write it out one more time) is also unique in that almost everyone seems to love it.  That is truly refreshing because I am very used to loving a movie only to see the message boards filled with hate (to be fair, that’s still happening, but it seems much lighter than usual for a movie this big).  That said, I don’t think everyone will love this, and I certainly don’t recommend it to everyone.  The first fifteen minutes of the film involve so many different extremely sci-fi settings and situations that it starts to sound like gibberish.  That could possibly put people off of this movie.  If you can get past that kind of stuff, however, I think there is a movie here for everyone.  It looks pretty crazy, but it offers the kind of fun entertainment that almost anyone can enjoy.  Now let’s see if The Avengers: Age of Ultron can top this next year.  Honestly, I don’t see how it can.

Guardians receives a:

Who Needs the Avengers When You Have Thor, Loki, Elves, Spaceships, Lasers, a Sort of Hulk Monster, a Hammer, and All Kinds of Other Cool Crap?

Thor: The Dark World - Directed by Alan Taylor, written by Christopher Yost, Christopher Markus, and Stephen McFeely, story by Don Payne and Robert Rodat, starring Chris Hemsworth, Natalie Portman, Anthony Hopkins, Idris Elba, and Tom Hiddleston - Rated PG-13

This gets a Kurgan simply because if the Kurgan showed up in the middle of a scene, no one would bat an eye.

Thor is certainly the strangest character in the mainstream Marvel universe (or at least he is for someone like me, who is not well read when it comes to comic books).  He is equal parts Star Wars, Lord of the Rings, and, well, superhero. Because of this, Thor's standalone films can be quite different from the other Avengers' more Earth-related adventures.  This is a good thing because in a film like Iron Man 3, you wonder just what all the other Avengers are up to as the world comes to the brink of annihilation.  In Thor: The Dark World, Earth factors in very rarely, so it's conceivable that the other Avengers wouldn't even be aware anything was happening until it was too late.

The new Thor movie is entertaining for many more reasons than simply its setting.  The first film was surprisingly, and appropriately, comedic as it was essentially a fish out of water story.  This film retains that comedic spirit while not relying on the same gags from the first film.  To be fair, there are still some easy jokes made with Thor's scenes on Earth, but the majority of the humor is earned through character moments, especially those between Thor and his brother-turned-nemesis Loki.

Loki steals the show as one of those villains you love to hate.  During his first appearance in the first Thor movie, Loki didn't seem all that amusing or menacing.  Somehow that changed with his role as the main baddie in The Avengers.  He still seemed a little bland as far as super villains go, but credit Tom Hiddleston for breathing some real life into the character. His constant smirk and witty banter make him an honestly likable character, despite his goals of world domination and whatnot.  Apparently his role was initially smaller, and Hiddleston was brought in later for some additional scenes.  That turned out to the correct move as he is one of most enjoyable parts of the film.

The focus on Loki doesn't mean that the titular character is any less fun.  Chris Hemsworh picks up right where he left off as Thor.  He's a bit more somber in this film, since his love interest is stuck on Earth, so there are fewer fun scenes with him this time around.  The performance is fine; it's just that the character required a quieter performance, which is why Loki picked up the comedic slack.

As for the rest of the cast, all the returning players perform admirably.  It was nice to see Idris Elba, as Heimdall, get a few more scenes this time around, although he is still the most underutilized aspect of the franchise.  The new faces are few, but serve the film well.  Chris O'Dowd produced a few laughs in his few scenes.  And Christopher Eccleston is decent as the villain, though that was more of a prosthetic performance.

Of course all of these characters are involved in a plot, but that doesn't really matter in the Marvel universe, does it?  Some strange being is threatening to use some vaguely described powerful substance to destroy the world for even vaguer reasons.  That isn't meant as too much of a dig against the film (or entire Marvel universe for that matter), but let's face it, these plots are mediocre at best.  It's a good thing the characters are so great because the stories for these movies just keep getting more and more nonsensical and boring.  Not to mention the fact that shadow of the next Avengers looms over everything as if to say, "This is all well and good, but just wait until you see me!"  It dramatically lowers the stakes of all the standalone films  because you know the real threat and all the coolest stuff is being saved for the group effort.

Thor manages to rise above all of that, though.  The movie works on its own and is just as entertaining as the first.  As action movies go, Thor should keep you happy.  The beginning was a little on the weak side, with a lot of exposition and bland battles, but it picks up in the middle and has a thrilling climax.  Director Alan Taylor (of HBO's Game of Thrones fame) turned out to be the perfect fit for the franchise, providing a straightforward action movie devoid of all the random Dutch angles (which I actually liked, despite their randomness) of Kenneth Branagh's previous entry.  Although it would certainly be interesting to see what Taylor would have done if he had been allowed to be as graphic with this film as he is with Thrones.

Thor: The Dark World is yet another solid movie in the Marvel franchise.  It doesn't take any risks with the storytelling or anything, but it doesn't really need to.  Thor satisfies the craving for that specific character (and a few of his friends and enemies) that will keep you sated until Thor teams up with the rest of the gang again.  It is a bit troubling that the film feels less important now that the Avengers are around, but the movie is just fun and outlandish enough to make you forget about those other guys for a little while.