Ant Man and the Wasp: Quantumania — Diminishing returns

Ant Man and the Wasp: Quantumania (2023) • View trailer

2.5 stars (out of five). Rated PG-13, for mild profanity and relentless action violence

Available via: Movie theaters

By Derrick Bang • Published in The Davis Enterprise, 2.17.23 

Yeesh. What a mess.

 

This newest Marvel Cinematic Universe entry is a classic “kitchen sink” movie: Scripter Jeff Loveness has thrown everything on the wall, in the feverish, desperate hope that something will stick.

 

Kang (Jonathan Majors, right) makes it clear that if Scott (Paul Rudd) refuses to cooperate,
something very bad will happen to his daughter ... which he then will be forced to
re-live for eternity.

Paul Rudd’s Ant Man always has been a bad joke in his own series: a smug, defensive, self-deprecating bumbler cast adrift in adventures that suffer from a clumsy blend of smash-’em-up special effects and forced humor. They’re silly children’s films, completely at odds with the more traditionally heroic stance he displayed as a supporting character in Captain America: Civil War and Avengers: End Game.

(I still wince at the memory of the ill-advised tabletop toy train battle that climaxed 2015’s Ant Man. Ouch.)

 

Director Peyton Reed, determined to maintain the style of Ant Man’s two previous starring outings, has made this third adventure another silly children’s film.

 

Events begin with this family unit happily reunited, in the wake of Avengers End Game: Scott Lang (Rudd), his sweetie-pie Hope (Evangeline Lilly), their now-teenage daughter Cassie (Kathryn Newton), Hope’s mother Janet (Michelle Pfeiffer) and father Hank (Michael Douglas).

 

Cassie has matured into an 18-year-old social activist: a timely nod to current events in this San Francisco setting. She also possesses her grandfather’s passion for science and technology, and — unbeknownst to Scott, Hope and particularly Janet — has been working with Hank to establish a connection to the molecular level of the microscopic Quantum Realm.

 

When Janet does find out, she’s horrified … because, well, y’see, she never explained what happened during the 30 years she was stuck in the Quantum Realm, or why it’s so dangerous.

 

(Yes, this is one of those contrived calamities that wouldn’t exist if characters actually talked to each other.)

 

Ah, but too late! Just as Janet frantically demands that Hank and Cassie cease their efforts, all five — along with the contents of Hank’s lab — are sucked into the weird landscapes and even weirder creatures of the Quantum Realm.

 

Which, sad to say, looks an awful lot like last November’s Strange World. Given that both films emerged under the Disney banner, one suspects a serious case of Looking Over Each Other’s Shoulders.

 

Ant-Man and the Wasp: Diminutive delight

Ant-Man and the Wasp (2018) • View trailer 
3.5 stars. Rated PG-13, for sci-fi action violence
By Derrick Bang • Originally published in The Davis Enterprise, 7.6.18

OK, this character is growing on me.

If only a bit.

With FBI agents and criminal mercenaries determined to snatch her father's technology,
Hope (Evangeline Lilly) prepares for battle as the Wasp, while Scott (Paul Rudd)
reluctantly suits up as Ant-Man.

2015’s Ant-Man was a train wreck, due to its insufferably smug tone and an over-reliance on Three Stooges-style farce: a rare miscalculation in the carefully plotted Marvel Universe franchise.

This sequel, having nowhere to go but up, wisely executed a course correction. Star Paul Rudd is less haughty, and therefore more sympathetic; co-star Evangeline Lilly’s considerably expanded role is a welcome change; the characters’ size-shifting abilities are put to much better use; returning director Peyton Reed toned down the gratuitous slapstick; and — definitely a relief — the core plot is grounded in a manner wholly removed from the universe-shattering consequences of recent Marvel entries.

The villains here have sensible real-world motives: greed and self-preservation.

Best of all, the script — fine-tuned by no fewer than five credited writers, along with (no doubt) more behind the scenes — blends the obligatory action with plenty of larkish banter, all well delivered at a slow-burn tempo.

Points, as well, to whoever thought to reference 1954’s Them!

All this said, there’s still a sense that The Powers That Be don’t quite know what to do with this character: that he’s a second-string joke not granted the respect that his abilities should demand. Again, this may be down to Rudd — a credited co-scripter — who rarely looks like he’s taking any of this seriously.

The same could be said of Chris Pratt’s handling of Peter Quill, in the adjacent Guardians of the Galaxy series … but Pratt has a better acting range, and is a helluva lot more charming.

Anyway…

The “busted” Scott Lang (Rudd) remains under house arrest, thanks to his illegal alliance with Captain America, in 2016’s Civil War. Scott is a mere three days away from being freed from the ankle monitor that prevents outer-world quality time with beloved daughter Cassie (cute-as-a-button Abby Ryder Fortson). Happily, relations with ex-wife Maggie (Judy Greer) and her new companion Paxton (Bobby Cannavale) have improved; they’re now sympathetic to Scott’s plight.

Ant-Man: A huge disappointment

Ant-Man (2015) • View trailer 
2.5 stars. Rated PG-13, for action violence and some rather nasty peril
By Derrick Bang

Well, it was inevitable: Mighty Marvel finally stumbled.

This film’s problems are numerous, but the largest issue is one of tone; director Peyton Reed, apparently adopting 1989’s Honey, I Shrunk the Kids as his template, has emphasized slapstick sight gags and comic relief supporting characters to a point that pretty well destroys any of this story’s potential drama.

Scott Lang (Paul Rudd, center) listens attentively as Hank Pym (Michael Douglas) explains
the many hazards likely to be encountered during a clandestine assault on his own
company's research labs. For these reasons and many others, Hank's daughter, Hope
(Evangeline Lilly), believes Scott wholly wrong for the task.

The nadir is a climactic duel to the death between miniscule characters, which takes place within a child’s tabletop train set: a sequence that absolutely, positively doesn’t work on any level. And then, just to make a bad idea even worse, Reed punctuates this clash with an unexpectedly gigantic Thomas the Tank Engine, its enormous plastic eyes bouncing back and forth in dismay.

Just as mine were doing.

Reed’s sledge-hammer efforts at comedy are bothersome, but — in fairness — he can’t be blamed for trying to make the best of a bad situation. Ant-Man has been a troubled production for years, during a lengthy gestation in the hands of British writer/director Edgar Wright (Shaun of the Dead and The World’s End, among others), whose sly, subversive brand of humor certainly would have been better than what we wound up with here.

But the project was ripped from his hands at the last moment, the script subsequently re-written by Adam McKay and star Paul Rudd. McKay is responsible for numerous Will Ferrell projects, notably Anchorman: The Legend of Ron Burgundy and its sequel, Talladega Nights: The Ballad of Ricky Bobby and this year’s Get Hard. I submit that Ferrell’s favorite scripter can’t, by definition, be right for anything taking place in Marvel’s ambitious film universe.

So: What were Marvel and Disney thinking?

Rudd’s meddlesome hand is equally evident. The star clearly shaped the script to fit the insufferable smugness that has become his go-to screen persona, rather than — as always should be the case — modulating his performance to suit the character’s needs. But the latter undoubtedly would require a level of acting beyond Rudd’s capabilities, and thus we’re stuck with his usual lackadaisical swanning from one scene to the next.

Rudd simply doesn’t seem to care about this character, or indeed the entire film. Ergo, why should we?

The core story follows the broad strokes established during several decades in the Marvel comic book universe, with genius scientist Hank Pym (Michael Douglas) having perfected a process that allows him to shrink to ant-size, while maintaining his molecular density in order to (among other things) deliver full-strength punches. Along the way, he also developed the means to communicate with ants, and thus can command massive insect armies to help take out nefarious villains in his guise as Ant-Man.

But all that was years ago. Wary of the military applications contemplated by Howard Stark (John Slattery) and his weasel corporate associate Mitchell Carson (Martin Donovan, suitably smarmy), Pym retreats into seclusion. And since Ant-Man’s brief “career” remained under the public radar, the very notion of such a superhero has become little more than an urban myth.

And So It Goes: And so it went

And So It Goes (2014) • View trailer 
Two stars. Rated PG-13, for sexual candor and drug content
By Derrick Bang

This feels like a Reader’s Digest Condensed Movie. And not a very good one.

Although blessed with occasional charm and a fair number of well-delivered verbal zingers, And So It Goes is destined for instant oblivion. The premise is strictly TV sitcom lite, the delivery by the numbers, the outcome completely predictable.

When Oren (Michael Douglas) gets saddled with a granddaughter he didn't even know
existed, he asks next-door neighbor Leah (Diane Keaton) to watch the girl. For an
unspecified period of time. Which Leah improbably agrees to do, despite having very little
use for Oren. Which makes about as much sense as anything else in this dim-bulb flick.

In one respect, this gentle rom-com is a breath of fresh air: a (mostly) family-friendly affair designed for older viewers who will appreciate seeing pros such as Michael Douglas, Diane Keaton and Frances Sternhagen do what they do best. By simple virtue of offering an alternative to summer’s noisy, vacuous popcorn flicks, this film should enjoy a reasonable opening weekend.

After that, sadly, word of mouth will bury it completely.

I simply cannot believe that this clumsy mess comes from director Rob Reiner and scripter Mark Andrus. The former has a string of hits going back to Stand By Me, The Princess Bride and When Harry Met Sally; the latter earned a well-deserved Academy Award nomination for co-scripting 1997’s As Good As It Gets, and then went on to write 2001’s marvelous Life As a House.

Point being, both Reiner and Andrus excel at whimsical, multi-character dramedies with a bit of bite; it’s their bread and butter. So what they heck went wrong this time?

And So It Goes is suspiciously short, at 94 minutes, which suggests the sort of eleventh-hour tampering that might explain some sub-plots that pop up and then just sorta vanish. But that doesn’t excuse a few of Andrus’ hammer-handed narrative hiccups, most particularly a sidebar so glaringly unpleasant that it feels yanked in from some other movie: a true what-the-heck-were-they-thinking moment.

Our central character is Oren Little (Douglas), an irascible crank who nonetheless is the most successful Realtor in a bucolic Connecticut lakefront community: the sort of place where the rich have more money than God. Oren probably belongs in their company, but — following his wife’s recent death, from cancer — he has chosen to reside in a cramped multi-apartment unit dubbed Little Shangri-La. He shares this building with adjacent first-floor neighbor Leah (Keaton) and two upstairs tenants.

All of whom regard him as a grouch and a pain in the keister, an image Oren does nothing to discourage.

Once upon a time, Oren might have been a nice guy, but spending two years watching his wife die drained all of his finer qualities. Now he’s just one big commission away from being able to retire, and he can’t wait to leave. Which seems odd on the surface, because he’d also be abandoning his wife’s grave site, which he visits frequently.

Last Vegas: A reasonable bet

Last Vegas (2013) • View trailer 
3.5 stars. Rating: PG-13, for sexual candor and occasional profanity
By Derrick Bang

Old pros are a Hollywood treasure.

They make everything look effortless, bringing warmth and depth even to ordinary material, transforming simple scenes into memorable dramatic moments.

Safely deposited in a trendy Las Vegas hotel/casino, our heroes — from left, Sam (Kevin
Kline), Archie (Morgan Freeman), Paddy (Robert De Niro) and Billy (Michael Douglas) —
wonder how to begin their "fabulous weekend." As it turns out, a poolside bikini contest
will become the perfect ice-breaker.

The bonus, in the case of Last Vegas, is that Dan Fogelman’s script isn’t merely The Hangover for the geezer set; his little story is alternately funny and poignant, with mildly earthy touches that draw laughs while never straying into vulgarity.

As the cherry on top, we even get a solid moral: Life ain’t over unless we lay down and give up. Every new day, no matter what our age, brings the potential for fresh magic and unexpected delights ... as long as we’re willing to risk the unexpected.

Back in the day, the “Flatbush Four” were inseparable best friends: scrappy kids convinced that anything was possible, as long as they looked out for each other. Director Jon Turteltaub conveys this dynamic with a charming photo booth montage that plays behind the opening credits: a giddy burst of youthful energy that defines relationships and, yes, reveals that two of these boys are sweet on the same girl.

Flash-forward to the present day, and — ennui being inevitable — that enthusiastic youthful fire has dimmed to a flickering spark. Pulsating embers, if any still exist, are buried beneath graying ash. These former friends stay in touch, but only fitfully.

Archie (Morgan Freeman), following an “episode” that sent his adult son into a panic, has been put under well-meaning but soul-draining lockdown, constantly cautioned against doing anything more strenuous than picking up a book. Sam (Kevin Kline), although boasting a long and happy marriage with Miriam (Joanna Gleason), spends his days surrounded by elderly friends who reaffirm his own vanishing vitality.

A senior center regimen of swimming pool exercises is both hilarious and tragic, the misery evident in Sam’s resigned expression. Resigned, but never quiet; Sam isn’t one to suffer silently ... which makes his despair that much more obvious to Miriam.

Paddy (Robert De Niro) has become a virtual recluse, refusing to budge from the apartment he shared for so long with his own adored wife, dead now for a year; the home has become a photograph-laden tribute to her memory. A well-meaning young neighbor regularly brings soup, probably as an excuse to verify that he’s still alive; Paddy grumpily insists she shouldn’t bother.

Billy (Michael Douglas), the most financially successful of the quartet, has remained single all this time, perhaps hoping that youth can be retained by surrounding himself with a lifetime’s supply of willing young women. Now, however, he has impulsively popped the question to his current girlfriend, Lisa (Bre Blair); she has accepted.

Their striking age difference — she’s in her early 30s — raises eyebrows. So do the circumstances under which the proposal emerges.

Haywire: Trust nobody

Haywire (2012) • View trailer
3.5 stars. Rating: R, and needlessly, for action violence
By Derrick Bang • Originally published in The Davis Enterprise, 1.20.12


Movies are all about make-believe: our willing suspension of skepticism in exchange for a good time. We tolerate the impossible — varying degrees of the impossible, depending on the genre — because it’s part of the fantasy.

Although her team's human target has been rescued and safely stowed away,
Mallory (Gina Carano) is a consummate professional who hates loose ends. She
therefore pursues the one antagonist who dashes off, even though his escape can't
compromise her efforts. Cue an energetic foot chase with lots of running.

Unfortunately, like a drug addiction that requires an ever-increasing dosage, filmmakers are forever seeking new ways to up the ante and further impress us: to once again deliver a fresh jolt of eyebrow-raising amazement.

Consider the action hero. Back in 1963, the climactic fist-fight between James Bond and Red Grant, in the close confines of a train compartment in From Russia with Love, set a new standard for brutal, claustrophobic mano a mano combat. For the next several decades, film fans and movie stuntmen alike cited that scene as one of the finest ever caught on camera. Indeed, director Terence Young’s work was potent enough to bother British film censors.

Flash-forward to 2007’s The Bourne Ultimatum, when director Paul Greengrass and editor Christopher Rouse staged an even more jaw-dropping skirmish in London’s Waterloo Station: a melee involving Jason Bourne and several antagonists that was so ferociously intense, viewers actually applauded as the scene concluded. It, too, felt real.

That’s the key: credibility.

Trouble is, many directors push the envelope too far, particularly in the action thriller genre. Escalate the violence too much — turn the obligatory fight scenes into cartoons, with heroes and villains somehow enduring bone-crushing punishment — and we simply scoff and roll our eyes over the sheer stupidity of the whole thing. (Exhibit A, with a bullet: last year’s laughably idiotic Sucker Punch.)

Director Steven Soderbergh understands this: recognizes how “inflated thrills” have ruined many otherwise decent pictures. Haywire is his captivating, energized response: a spy drama with action scenes — very much in the mold of From Russia with Love, which he cites in his film’s press notes — rather than a wall-to-wall action flick with minimal story and progressively sillier fight scenes.

Soderbergh wants us to believe that the action elements in this film are punishing but reasonable: not so acrobatic or dangerous that a human being couldn’t possibly handle them.

His secret weapon: mixed martial arts champion Gina Carano, whose fighting styles include Muay Thai, karate, jiu jitsu, judo, wrestling, boxing, sambo, kick-boxing and kung fu ... all in a taut and unexpectedly hot bod. At first glance, during deceptively calm moments, she’s precisely the sort of individual who’d be underestimated right up to the moment she’d flip across the room, slam you to the floor and crush the air out of you — permanently — with a vicious, leg-twisting headlock.

Wall Street 2: 'Money' Talks

Wall Street 2: Money Never Sleeps (2010) • View trailer for Wall Street 2
Four stars (out of five) • Rated PG-13 for brief profanity and dramatic intensity

By Derrick Bang • Originally published in The Davis Enterprise, 9.23.10

Asked by a scorpion to give it a ride across a lake, a frog wisely hesitated, reasonably concerned that the predator would sting it. 

"Why would I do that?" the scorpion replied. "I'll be on your back; if I sting you, I'd drown."

This sounded logical to the frog, which therefore allowed the scorpion onto its back. But sure enough, halfway across the lake, the scorpion stung the frog. 

"Why?" the frog gasped, as painful black waves of death closed in. "Now we'll both die!"

"It's my nature..." the scorpion answered. 

Jacob (Shia LaBeouf) fails to recognize that his
relationship with fiancee Winnie (Carey Mulligan) will
be severely threatened by his dealings with her
estranged father, particularly when he starts seeing
the man -- the infamous Gordon Gekko -- behind
her back.

I've always wondered, given writer/director Oliver Stone's left-leaning, populist politics, if he regretted having created the character of Gordon Gekko, so brilliantly played by Michael Douglas in 1987's Wall Street. 

Because while Gekko was designed as the villain we were intended to loathe, Douglas did his job too well; the fictitious financial shark made his malignant behavior charming, and became the admired role model for white-collar hooligans who went on a two-decade binge of Wall Street shenanigans that led, inevitably, to the economic crisis that afflicts us to this day. 

Given the opportunity to redress the catastrophe that he helped create — in his cinematic world — would Gekko mend his ways? 

Or would he remain true to his nature? 

Ghosts of Girlfriends Past: A Dickens of a time

Ghosts of Girlfriends Past (2009) • View trailer for Ghosts of Girlfriends Past
3.5 stars (out of five). Rating: PG-13, for sexual candor, profanity and drug references
By Derrick Bang • Originally published in The Davis Enterprise, 5.7.09
Buy DVD: Ghosts of Girlfriends Past • Buy Blu-Ray: Ghosts of Girlfriends Past [Blu-ray]

Roughly halfway into Ghosts of Girlfriends Past, Matthew McConaughey's wincingly self-absorbed Connor Mead, having unwisely chosen to attend his younger brother's weekend wedding celebration, flees into the family estate's kitchen in serve of alcoholic solace.

One popped champagne cork later, Connor is desperately trying to save the elaborate wedding cake, because the flying cork dislodged one of the all-important little plastic columns that supports the various layers.

Having taken an express-train trip into his own past, Connor (Matthew
McConaughey, rear right) is forced by the Ghost of Girlfriends Past (Emma
Stone, rear left) to re-experience the life-changing moment when his teenage
self (Logan Miller, foreground left) decides to "study women" by following
the advice of his hedonistic Uncle Wayne (Michael Douglas). Nothing good
will come of that: One must take great care when selecting a role model...

McConaughey stands, frozen, one hand balancing the cake, as he s-t-r-e-t-c-h-e-s a leg in an effort to snag something — anything — with which to replace the missing column.

The tableau holds: We wait, breathlessly, as Connor's panic mounts.

And then director Mark Waters does an amazing thing.

Rather than let the scene reach its inevitable conclusion before our eyes — a moment of gloppy slapstick that would have been typical of the lowest-common-denominator comedy with which Hollywood is plagued these days — Waters cuts to the story's other characters, chatting in an adjacent room. We hear a crash and Connor's strangled moan of frustration ... but the details are left to our imagination.

Which is as it should be.

This example of savvy restraint is typical of Ghosts of Girlfriends Past, which is a great deal wittier, and much more clever, than one would expect from McConaughey's other recent, similar (and disappointing) romantic comedies. Credit also goes to writers Jon Lucas and Scott Moore, who have riffed Charles Dickens' A Christmas Carol with a skill that bespeaks considerable awareness of their source material.

Although one is reflexively inclined to dismiss this gimmick as little more than a one-sentence high concept — "Unrepentant babe-hound gets his just desserts while being confronted by his egotistical past and likely future" — Lucas and Moore honor Dickens throughout their screenplay, while updating the central premise in a manner that makes it just as relevant today.

I was impressed, and pleasantly so. Ghosts of Girlfriends Past is shrewd and entertaining.