Waiting a week to see the new Marvel film, Doctor Strange made me a little more careful around my social media outlets, and hesitant to read/view any comments due to potential spoilers, but in the end, I'm glad I held off.
The film focuses on the magical side of the Marvel Cinematic Universe (MCU), and other than a few lines of dialouge, has virtually no crossover with any of the previous films in the MCU. As an origin story, it does well to stand on its own, letting us into Strange's world without feeling like we should have done our homework first (like I did for Avengers: Age of Ultron). As the lead, Benedict Cumberbatch has created a character that on the surface hearkens back to Robert Downy Jr.'s Tony Stark in Iron Man (2008) as both characters are top of their profession narcissists who receive epiphany after undergoing tragedy, but where Stark works to build his new life out of his old one, Strange effectively turns his back on his old life entirely and begins again.
The film has some pretty amazing visuals, and if you enjoy 3D, perhaps they are worth the higher ticket cost, but for me the effects worked fine and the story moved along quite nicely. Also, as a fellow Librarian, I was quite happy with the films character Wong (Benedict Wong), who had some of my favourite scenes in the film.
A really fun film and one I'll be hoping to watch again in the future.
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All right, before I begin my review of Ant-Man I have to begin by stating my bias.
I'm a fan of Superhero movies.
I'm a fan of Paul Rudd.
I'm a father of daughters.
As this Superhero film starring Paul Rudd focuses quite strongly on the internal relationships between fathers and daughters, I was pretty much sold.
The movie has a great sense of humour about itself, works more as a heist movie, and kicks up the comedy quite nicely as compared to all the Sturm und Drang that comprised Avengers: Age of Ultron, and although it does tie in strongly to the earlier film, (Cameos, name dropping, and many references to both Tony Stark and his Father), I found the film stood quite nicely on its own, and here (mild spoilers) where three of my favourite bits.
1) Michael Douglas as Hank Pym circa 1989 - although only occurring in a scene for about three minutes, I was pretty blown away by how they got this seventy-year-old actor looking like he had recently finished filming Wallstreet (1987) - I know this has been done recently with both Schwarzenegger in the Terminator Franchise and Jeff Bridges in Tron Legacy, but seriously, this looked really good, and added a nice touch of historical context to the story.
2) The lack of massive-level destruction - although there was a lot I liked about Man of Steel (2013), watching an entire city get leveled in wave after wave of mechanized destruction, I'm feeling a little worn out on on the whole massive-level of destruction used in a lot of these films, whereas Ant-Man nicely side-steps this by playing the destruction on a much smaller (pun intended) level.
3) The use of a technique wherein a narrator speaks for everyone in a flashback - although Comedy Central's Drunk History has been using this technique for years, I first came across it in Max Landis' The Death and Return of Superman, which was both a wonderful way to spend fifteen minutes (which you can do here) shows just how effective this technique can be.
The movie is a lot of fun, and if you've been sitting on the fence about it, honestly, go check it out, it's a lot of fun and a different flavour than you may be expecting. I for one, am hoping for a sequel.
For the last two months I've been working my way, slowly but steadily, through the films of the Marvel Cinematic Universe in preparation for Avengers: Age of Ultron - I watched two movies a week starting with Iron Man (2008) and The Incredible Hulk (2008), and finishing up yesterday with Guardians of the Galaxy (2014). All of these were second or third viewings, but many were the first viewing since the original film.
Here's what I learned.
1) Avengers: Age of Ultron better be pretty great, as I've spent a lot of time doing prep work to enjoy the film. I'm aware my personal efforts in watching the movies are not the same as those who made, studied, cos-played or otherwise enjoyed the films - but still - ten movies? I feel they better raise the bar a little.
2) 3D is pretty overrated. Of all the films, I saw the vast majority in 3D and re-watching them in old-fashioned 2D at home made the colours brighter (looking at you Winter Soldier) and the images much crisper - I think I'll be hunting for 2D showings from now on when possible (I do have to admit that Guardians of the Galaxy in 3D was a treat - but the colour palate of that film was very bright and largely in primary colours - so even dimmed-down a little it was still very effective).
3) How come we haven't had another Hulk movie yet? I found The Incredible Hulk to be a lot of fun, and with the massively positive response to the character in The Avengers (2012), I was honestly a little surprised that a Hulk sequel doesn't even show up on the proposed schedule to at least 2020.
In the end, the films were all well worth the watch and have me pretty excited for next week's follow up.
With friends and family we spent our Saturday afternoon checking out the most recent entry into the Marvel Cinematic Universe, Captain America: The Winter Soldier.
First and most important point – I found the 3D to be pretty useless. The picture was very dim and hard to see in some points, and although the muted colours may have been intentional, I see no reason anyone should pay the extra couple of bucks to see the film that way.
Secondly – I really liked this movie! Although I suppose I could have done some reading into the original comics before going in, I tried to shy away from spoilers and see the film clean – not something I can do with a lot of comic book-based films as I’m pretty familiar with a lot of the stories, but with the heavier workload in Grad school for the last couple of months I was able to stay away, for the most part.
(A Quick Side-note – I am more than a little annoyed at the Marvel special “Marvel: Assembling a Universe” which aired in the regular timeslot of the TV series Marvel’s Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D. last month – not only did it ruin the big spoil of the film, but it totally didn’t have to. Sometimes it’s nice to keep the mystery)
Trying to avoid spoilers, the film focuses on how S.H.I.E.L.D. has changed in a post-The Avengers world, a world where an alien invasion could literally come out of nowhere, and Captain America’s reaction to these changes. A huge part of what I love about the character is that his 1940’s era mindset doesn’t mean he’s naïve, it just means he looks at things a little differently.
The film didn’t quite measure up to the first one for me (Sorry, but the first film was my surprise favourite film of 2011), but I loved the 70s conspiracy movie feel and some of the fight scenes were pretty fantastic.
In the end, much of the movie rests on the character of Steve Rogers (Captain America, played by Chris Evans) and his ability to balance an incredibly jingoistic concept with a character you would really like as a friend, and in that way, as with the first film, the movie succeeds quite nicely.
Definitely worth seeing on the big screen, but again, stay away from the 3D unless you have no choice.
