Ant-Man

Dustin: 4 of 5 stars Nick: 3.5 of 5 stars Average: 3.75 of 5 stars (Live canary)

Dustin: Ant-Man is the latest of many Marvel superhero movies. This time a plucky Paul Rudd, fresh out of prison for burglary and trying to go straight, is unwittingly recruited to don the iconic Ant-Man suit and save the world.

Nick: Ant-Man is the silliest of all the Marvel Universe films. I don’t mean in its ridiculous nature, but more in that every scene ends with a joke. The movie is very funny and seamlessly puts itself into the Marvel Universe. It doesn’t try too hard like some previous installments, which is a relief, but there are also less stakes and very dull exposition leading to a story that would land somewhere in the middle of my favorite Marvel film.

Dustin: I enjoyed the lighter tone of this movie. A lot of it was played for jokes, and it was effective both as a superhero movie and as a comedy. I liked the stakes were smaller (ant-sized!), which was also something of a running joke, when we’d get a distant shot of the action, and we see how small it is. The stakes were only large when you considered the large-scale implications of the villain’s scheme, which was to steal the Ant-Man technology (this seems lifted from Iron Man). But there was also some very wonderful scenes in the movie, such as when Ant-Man shrinks to sub-atomic size, and we see a more abstract world. Hometown boy Paul Rudd was perfectly cast, as he has both the comedic chops and the physicality to pull off the character. I’m glad to see him finally make it!

Nick: I considered Rudd to have made it in 1995’s Clueless! I enjoyed the tone, but each scene being played for a joke hurt it in the end. The little girl being kidnapped and other people being “in danger” never felt truly in danger, and that is what I mean by stakes. When even one person’s life doesn’t seem like a stake what’s the point? I might be the only one to have felt this way and I say it with even having enjoyed the film quite a bit, but the movie had quite a few parts that made me roll my eyes. Why did Michael Douglas finally feel like now was the time to inform his daughter how her mother died? It seemed so forced at the moment so it could have some emotion and even though it was some pointless drivel it was then interrupted by Rudd ending the scene with a joke. There was nothing forcing Douglas to finally tell Hope, but I guess they needed some emotion. I don’t understand what would have been wrong with telling her the truth earlier, but I guess he didn’t think his 40-year-old daughter was stable enough till now?

Dustin: I also didn’t care that every scene needed to end on a comedic note. That scene in particular definitely missed the mark, but I’d say 95 percent of the jokes landed.

I liked the angle of him doing this all so he could be with his daughter. There was also a strained father/daughter relationship between Michael Douglas and his daughter. I thought it added a realistic dimension to the characters and made them more relatable in a movie about a man who shrinks to ant-size to fight crime.

Nick: I like the idea of a strained father/daughter relationship, but the thing that made it strained and the way it was played off was the bothersome part.

I love the supporting players in the film. While it’s nice to have Michael Douglas back, it’s great that Michael Pena plays Ant-Man’s best friend. His pointlessly long stories and the way they were shot were pieces of brilliance. Made me think of Edgar Wright who was set to direct the movie but dropped out and was only given a writer’s credit.

Dustin: Michael Pena definitely delivered the laughs. I thought they did a good job too with Michael Douglas’s CGI age-reversal at the beginning. I suspected what they had done, but I wouldn’t have thought anything of it if I weren’t looking closely. I only got a little bit of the uncanny valley around the mouth when he was talking. Very convincing effect, though.

I also liked the villain, who kind of looked like Kojak. He has a ray gun that when pointed at someone who is not wearing the protective shrinking suit, turns them into a tiny glob of pulsating goop. It was definitely a creepy and evil idea.

Nick: Corey Stoll definitely has the intense face of a villain with his bulging eyes and all around physique that reminds me of Lex Luthor.

While the film may have one too many jokes, its overall purpose is to entertain and in the Marvel Universe that is what’s most important, and that Ant-Man does splendidly. Whether a fan looking for action or comedy, you’ll get a healthy dose of both here!

X-Men: Days of Future Past

Dustin: 4 of 5 stars Nick: 3.5 of 5 stars Average: 3.75 of 5 stars (Live canary)

Dustin: The latest X-Man film has the Wolverine’s consciousness sent back to his 1973 self to prevent a catastrophic war in which mutant robots destroy the world while wiping out mutant humans. The Wolverine must rally the forces of two enemies, Professor Xavier (James McAvoy/Patrick Stewart) and Magneto (Michael Fassbender/Ian McKellen), so their future selves can become BFFs (see Image 1).

Image 1. Actual screenshot from X-Men: Days of Future Past.
Source: twitter.com/SirPatStew

Dustin: So Nick, what did you think of X-Men 7: Days from the Future in the Past?

Nick: A little disappointed, but overall satisfied. Since there are so many characters in the past and future, little is seen of each. While Wolverine (Hugh Jackman) appears the most, it wouldn't be surprising to find out he has the least amount of dialogue of any character. The same could be said of Mystique. We see her a lot, but not too much comes out of her mouth. Or maybe it just feels that way since she is always in a different face.

Dustin: That somewhat sums up my criticism of the entire X-Men universe. There are so many characters, some with multiple powers that sometimes feel made up on the spot, none of them can be more than a plot device, and newbies might feel lost. The reason I never got into the cartoon as a kid was because I gave it a couple attempts and just couldn’t understand the characters or what was going on.

This film, however, does a decent job balancing the characters with the plot. Some characters will probably confuse those who’ve never seen an X-Men film (like the Asian X-(Wo)Man who can apparently open portals in thin air). But most of the screen time is devoted to X-Men who don’t require an explanation, like Wolverine or the Beast.

Nick: While your argument is mostly correct, I would prop up X2 as a shining example of a film that has a plethora a characters, but all follow the same path and it’s ultimately the first Wolverine film. That film follows Wolverine trying to find his “creator.” The rest of the cast is trying to stop the same guy because he threatens all mutants. This is actually brought up in this film quite a lot and makes the secondary bad guy Bolivar Trask (Peter Dinklage). Every X-Men film should be about one of the many character’s stories with the others going in and out.

Did you notice the actors’ names? The Asian X-Woman you speak of is Blink. Her real name is Bingbing Fan, and Warpath is played by Booboo Stewart. Love the latter’s name!

Dustin: I noticed that when I looked at the cast on IMDb to get the spelling of their names right. I liked that Bingbing and Booboo were an effective pair in the film.

I think this film was emotionally satisfying in the arcs of the main characters, especially Professor X and Mystique (America’s Sweetheart, Jennifer Lawrence). I thought they also did interesting things with young Magneto (Fassbender, 12 Years a Slave). You never know whether he will commit to the good side.

Nick: Really?! I think you can always know he will do the bad thing. Though, I read the comics, watched many different cartoons, seen all the movies, and even had a Where’s Waldo version of X-Men (which I need to find). The only reason it may seem as if Magneto will do the good thing is because of how much belief (albeit false) Xavier has in him. He obviously only realizes the errors of his ways too late. This film sometimes felt like the James Bond story arc I talked about during World War Z. They kept traveling from one exotic location to fuck some shit up. I’ve read many interviews where directors admit to doing this because they like to travel and go places they have never been. Sometimes during Days of Future Past it seems like that.

Dustin: That’s one of the things I actually liked about this film: the variety of shots. You have the bleak future shots, the 1970s New York locations, ‘Nam, Paris, Washington, D.C. I can imagine the director likes to travel, but somehow I doubt they actually visited all those places. The Chinese future sets could have been CGI, you didn’t see enough of ‘Nam to believe it wasn’t filmed on a California backlot.

Nick: I’m not talking about the bleak future setting or the ‘Nam setting, but when Magneto tried to kill Mystique in Paris and Trask is there and the scene cuts through televised images that go to the White House where Nixon (Mark Camacho) is watching. All of sudden Trask is in that room! So Nixon waited like a week to be like what are we going to do about this? Trask was also in Paris to try to give his weapons to the Russians and the Vietnamese, so why did it need to take place in France? The crew actually didn’t fly to many places. From my research I could only find information that most of, if not all, the film was shot in Canada. I was commenting on the feeling of the pointlessness of saying you are in France selling weapons to Russians and the Vietnamese and then segue shot to the same character selling the same weapons to Nixon. How many scenes were of Trask selling his Sentinels (mutant robots)?

Dustin: I think this film did a good job balancing the light and dark elements, especially after the recent Marvel comic book movie, The Amazing Spider-Man 2. The comedy scenes were very well done (Quicksilver breaking into the Pentagon was easily my favorite sequence, Evan Peters stole the show for the few scenes he was in, which is saying a lot). The humorous scenes added variety to the experience of the film, rather than clashing horribly in tone like the new Spider-Man 2.

Nick: Certainly the funniest film I have had the pleasure of seeing in 2014. Quicksilver did steal the show, and when he asked about their flight plans, I almost thought he was going to go with them, but sadly he didn’t. DOFP did balance humor with darkness wonderfully. So many scenes were funny, but then some major characters (while in CGI mode) were torn in half, burned alive or beheaded. The film never lost momentum nor felt disjointed. Bryan Singer is a welcome relief in the director’s chair. Singer directed the first two X-men films, and now he returns for DOFP. One of my favorite sequences was Magneto calmly walking down a corridor in stylish ‘70s garb while playing with two magnetized floating balls. The scene was shot with humor and mystery. The camera was low, which made him seem like such a large presence. The outfits were immense, especially whenever young Xavier looked like a pornographer with his ‘70s threads, long hair, drugged-out face and dirty facial hair.

Dustin: I think young Xavier might have actually been Lt. Dan.

Nick: The drug-addled Xavier was a bit much for a film already spending so much time on other “important” quests. While I liked the idea, the fact that he is supposed to be addicted, but quits because Wolverine emphatically for the fifth time tells Xavier he needs his powers (which he loses if he’s using). They could have had more fun with it like after he says he is going to quit and he uses his powers some, but later when needing his powers he says he is not able again. It felt forced into the film for what addiction is and how it's portrayed.

Dustin: My main criticism of the film is perhaps the epilogue. The only other X-Men films I’ve seen are the first one and The Wolverine (which I made a point of seeing because it stars my sister-in-law--look for her in the background during the scene in Ueno Station). I wanted to go back and watch the rest of the films, but this one, without getting too deep into spoiler territory, seemingly undid the outcomes of previous films during the epilogue. This will definitely take away my suspense if I go back to watch them.

Nick: You should definitely watch X2 (it is still my favorite) and X-Men: First Class. If anything they will give you more appreciation for the subtle comedy and shock throughout this movie.

Dustin: I’d recommend this film to general audiences. It was funny, exciting and pleasing; and you don’t have to be a fanboy to enjoy this film.

Kick-Ass 2

Dustin: 2 of 5 stars Nick: 2 of 5 stars Average: 2 of 5 stars (Canary on life support)

Nick: In Kick-Ass 2, Aaron Taylor-Johnson shares top billing with Chloë Grace Moretz as Hit Girl. Hit Girl is trying to assimilate to normal teen life, while Kick-Ass is trying to become as “kick ass” as Hit Girl. What did you think, Dustin?

Dustin: I didn't dislike it as much as some other critics, who are basically suggesting if you like this movie you’re a bad person. While, I understand why people are put off by these movies, I found the first one appealing. However, this one felt like a thin bookend to the first.

What about you?

Nick: The focus was narrower in this film, which is something the first film should have done.  Kick-Ass’s girlfriend was one of the most pointless characters in film history, and thankfully she was cast aside quickly (though from something moronic). In a way, Kick-Ass 2 is as enjoyable as its predecessor, maybe because there wasn't a 12-year-old girl maliciously murdering “innocent” hookers with a spear through the abdomen.

Dustin: I’m not sure they should have been so quick to get rid of Kick-Ass’s girlfriend knowing now they were setting up something of a romance angle between Kick-Ass and Hit Girl. She is creepily young for him. Too young to be set up as a romantic interest in a movie. Which also raises the question of these movies’ timelines. In the first movie, she looks 11 or so, and Kick-Ass was 17. In this movie, she seems to have aged by three or four years, but Kick-Ass has apparently only aged by one year. (Edit: In Kick-Ass, Taylor-Johnson was 19, and Moretz was 13. In Kick-Ass 2, Taylor-Johnson is 23, and Moretz is 16. Both were probably younger when filming began.)

Nick: Fun Fact: Aaron Taylor-Johnson is married to a woman twice his age and he has two kids with her. So he goes for cougars in real life but likes kittens in films.

True, his girlfriend had only one line and after all the pointless screen time she received in the first one, I would have figured they'd give her more lines and a better reason to get off screen.

Dustin: Another problem I had with this film is the superheroes are supposed to be real, and they try to establish this is set in the real world by saying things like, “This isn't a comic, it’s real life.” But the action is so over the top, and Hit Girl’s stunts are especially unrealistic, so it becomes hard to suspend disbelief. The same could reasonably be said about the first film, but I didn't have this problem when I watched that one, because I thought the first movie established its tone and style better.

Nick: Hit Girl and Big Daddy’s chemistry in the first one is surely missing here. The way the characters played off each other and the creepiness of both are what convinced me that this might be set in the real world. Though Kick-Ass, on the other hand, is what really gets to me at times. Smart, good looking, funny, caring and genuine, but he gets played off as a loser who only has two friends in a gigantic high school. This archetype has and will always drive me a little insane.  How about we don't play him off as a loser, just a shut-in that everyone ignores because he is shy and doesn't care to talk to anyone? But no, he gets bullied by jocks and the hot girl thinks he’s gay.

Dustin: I thought the comic bits where she thinks he’s gay were fine. I thought he was more relatable in the first movie. I liked that he was the lovable awkward boy. Here, he is more of a cardboard cutout of a character. I also preferred Hit Girl more when we didn't know as much about her personal life and feelings. Her inner thoughts only came out in revealing bits of dialogue in the first film, and I would have preferred it stay that way.

Nick: Hit Girl is way more of an interesting character, but I agree that they failed to do much with it, and the vomit/diarrhea scene was pointless.

Dustin: That scene might be appealing if you like fart jokes. I liked her idea of humiliating those girls, and the scene could have done better with the material. But the sound effects were more like something out of a dumb kids’ movie than a superhero movie set in the real world. The scene could have been effective if it had been scaled back.

Nick: Kick-Ass was better from a technical standpoint, but I actually enjoyed this story more. It might be because Zombieland came out right before Kick-Ass, and the main characters of both are annoying archetypes where they make the main character a loser and make all the characters around that cardboard character way more interesting ala Tennessee (Woody Harrelson). While in this film Kick Ass was transforming from his “loser” character into something that doesn't even have an archetype, which I love because simply defining people by names will never work for me. Just calling someone a "loser" doesn't make them a loser, just like putting the word “Amazing” in the title of The Amazing Spider-Man doesn't make it amazing. It’s a way to put the idea that it is what they want you to think it is without ever really developing the character.

Dustin: I thought the first one was better, not just stylistically. I liked the origin story. And I thought Kick-Ass was more relatable. For example, in the scene where he and Red Mist are driving around and dancing like goofy dweebs to Gnarls Barkley’s “Crazy” they both come off as more human, and you understand the dynamic between the two characters without one word of dialogue.

Dustin: Both these movies got some very passionate negative reviews. What do you think of the reactions?

Nick: Before I saw the first Kick-Ass (while very excitedly waiting for it), I did something that was uncommon for me and read a review because of how negative it was. It was Roger Ebert’s review. While I disagreed with him about half the time (maybe more) on whether a film was good, he tore into the film for the uber-violence stemming from a 12-year-old, and I rolled my eyes because he had the same reaction towards Leon: The Professional, where a young Natalie Portman trained to be an assassin, and the film is actually quite brilliant. So I went into the theater, and while I laughed a ton and was annoyed by its complete lack of focus, the thing that disturbed me was the killings being enjoyed by a 12-YEAR-OLD FUCKING GIRL. She and her father might be heroes, but they are also nuts. I might have been more comfortable if the film agreed they were nuts. The song playing in the scene where she is ruthlessly murdering everyone in the pimp’s apartment is a children’s song sped up, and we see too many close ups of her face gleefully enjoying what she is doing. I found it all very disturbing, but at the same time, a film that is well made with intentions of entertaining and makes you feel to the point where you have to tell someone is what I believe art should always be. So I don’t think it is wrong to like this film. Maybe Transformers 2 or Pearl Harbor, but this film isn't pointless, just disturbing.

Dustin: One reviewer, Ali Arikan, criticised the movie for its so-called subtext about a white male protecting a blond “Aryan” girl. He seemed to think there was some sexist and racial purity themes at work. I was thinking, “Please limit your hatred to things that were actually in the film.”

Nick: People really like to create their own subtext to match their own subconscious. That little Aryan girl attacked a couple white girls and a black girl and made them all vomit and shit everywhere. If that doesn't define equality, then I’m not sure what does.

This film wasn't as funny or as violent in terms of number of deaths and CGI blood, which is less fun compared to fake blood on an actual set. Jim Carrey was brilliant as Colonel Stars and Stripes, and I’m really happy they didn't give him the same fate he had in the comic books. Pretty fucked up!