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Ant-Man and the Wasp

Started by samadriel, May 02, 2018, 07:06:48 AM

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Paaaaul

I enjoyed it. It wasn't top-shelf Marvel, but it ironed out a lot of the problems with the stodgy family stuff in the first Ant-Man film nicely and flew past quite breezily.
It's definitely working on a smaller scale, and is more focused on family relationships than any other Marvel film which is a nice change of pace. Despite a lot of punching, it's quite gentle.

*mild spoilers follow*

The fact that the bad guy isn't really a bad guy is a nice twist that hasn't really been done before in a Marvel film. I like the fact that the Ant-Man films haven't followed the exact formula that some criticise these films for.

mothman

Conventional Hollywood wisdom would, I can well imagine, have it that it has been demonstrated that Scarlett Johansson cannot "carry" or "open" a film on her own. Producers will nod sagely and point to Lucy, and Ghost In the Shell, and so on and so forth. That male stars of equivalent age also often fail to do the same yet enjoy long careers headlining movies is of course completely different.

Z

Quote from: mothman on August 03, 2018, 01:34:24 PM
Conventional Hollywood wisdom would, I can well imagine, have it that it has been demonstrated that Scarlett Johansson cannot "carry" or "open" a film on her own. Producers will nod sagely and point to Lucy, and Ghost In the Shell, and so on and so forth. That male stars of equivalent age also often fail to do the same yet enjoy long careers headlining movies is of course completely different.
Lucy was a pre-Deadpool R-rated film* released on the same week as another similarly large PG-13 release** and made over ten times its budget, the success of which was probably instrumental in Luc Besson getting nearly 200 million to do Valerian.

Whatever the reasons for there not being a Scarlett Johansson led Marvel film are, I find it hard to imagine Disney ignoring that there's clear cut evidence she's capable of huge hits. My guess would be that she's holding out for a pretty huge payday for it (percentage of box office maybe?), and she'll probably get it. Alternatively, she may not be committing to as long of contracts as Disney want and there's a concern over creating another RDJ situation.


* i.e. before studios were willing to get behind an R-rated film in a big way as far as marketing goes
** Hercules, which wasn't a bomb although Lucy clearly dinted its box office

Mister Six

Yeah, Lucy made a fucking fortune ($463 million on a piddling $40 million budget) and is yet another reason why a Black Widow film should have been made by now.

Long-standing rumour is that ex-Marvel head Ike Perlmutter is a racist, sexist old cunt who didn't think non-white, male superheroes could carry a film. BP didn't get greenlit until he'd vacated his spot, and it looks like a BW film is finally on the way.

The Culture Bunker

I enjoyed it too, worth a couple of hours of my time, no question. As stated above, the ambiguity over the bad guy and the fact they weren't "defeated" as such was a nice change.

Mind, but harsh that Janet escapes the Quantum Realm and five minutes gets turned to fag ash. I wonder if Scott being there saved him, or whether he was just in the lucky half anyways.

Claude the Racecar Driving Rockstar Super Sleuth

I saw it this evening. Lots of fun and a step up from the first one.

Ghost made for a far more compelling antagonist than the first film's generic evil businessman (in his suit and tie). The film might possibly have benefited from focussing more on her side of the story and excising Walton Goggins character, although Goggins is always a welcome presence.

Spoilers: I'm no screenwriter, but Janet was a textbook deus ex machina there at the end wasn't she? Not only rescuing Hank from his quantum acid trip, but instantly resolving Ghost's problem too. It felt like her finding Hank should have been linked to him learning a lesson in humility - but if he did, I didn't notice.

Also, I know Scott mentioned sleight of hand when Ghost attacked near the end, but it seems to me that his skill with prestidigitation should have come into play more literally. Perhaps have a situation where the baddies disable his powers but he makes it look like he's shrunk something anyway. Having Goggins ask "How did you do that?" would have been both delightful and a classic rule of three/callback type of thing.


Other than that, I have no complaints. I certainly don't feel antsy about having seen it.

The Culture Bunker

Quote from: Claude the Racecar Driving Rockstar Super Sleuth on August 06, 2018, 11:34:41 PMSpoilers
Further spoilers:  Re Hank, the ending (prior to Thanos' naughty business) showed him working to find a permanent solution to Ghost's condition - I gather Janet had only provided some kind of temporary cure, hence Scott going into the quantum realm to pick up some, umm, stuff (can't remember the term they used). That relates back to Hank promising Bill that he would do all he could to help Ghost once he'd rescued Janet.

magval

Quote from: Claude the Racecar Driving Rockstar Super Sleuth on August 06, 2018, 11:34:41 PM
I saw it this evening. Lots of fun and a step up from the first one.

Ghost made for a far more compelling antagonist than the first film's generic evil businessman (in his suit and tie). The film might possibly have benefited from focussing more on her side of the story and excising Walton Goggins character, although Goggins is always a welcome presence.

Spoilers: I'm no screenwriter, but Janet was a textbook deus ex machina there at the end wasn't she? Not only rescuing Hank from his quantum acid trip, but instantly resolving Ghost's problem too. It felt like her finding Hank should have been linked to him learning a lesson in humility - but if he did, I didn't notice.

Also, I know Scott mentioned sleight of hand when Ghost attacked near the end, but it seems to me that his skill with prestidigitation should have come into play more literally. Perhaps have a situation where the baddies disable his powers but he makes it look like he's shrunk something anyway. Having Goggins ask "How did you do that?" would have been both delightful and a classic rule of three/callback type of thing.


Other than that, I have no complaints. I certainly don't feel antsy about having seen it.

Isn't that what the big false him at the wrong end of town was?

Claude the Racecar Driving Rockstar Super Sleuth

I guess so, but that was just setting up a diversion. You don't need to take an online course in close up magic in order to do that. It wouldn't have even required the setup. It just feels like it would be neater, scriptwise, if they'd relied on the actual physical skill that he demonstrated at the beginning of the film.

This is a total nitpick, of course.

magval

You're right to nitpick because these movies have trained us to expect writing like that. For a film to have anything that small that doesn't pay off in some way has become unheard of. Skyscraper has possibly the stupidest example of this I've ever seen.

Jerzy Bondov

I really liked it when Ghost said she was off to kidnap Ant-Man's daughter but Larry Fishburne successfully talked her out of it. It seemed obvious that he'd fail and realise she was too far gone, but they subverted that quite nicely. Also she got kidnapped in the first one and it would have been boring to go back to that.

Brundle-Fly

Just come back from the cinema and thought this was a blast. It's just so silly, I love it. It evoked mid-seventies Disney screwball caper movies and the car chases were proper old-fashioned thrills. Good to see Hugh from detectorists in a cool Hollywood part.

Glebe

Saw it last night, good fun. Stan Lee's one-liner made me laugh out loud.

Small Man Big Horse

Quote from: Brundle-Fly on August 21, 2018, 07:05:08 PM
Just come back from the cinema and thought this was a blast. It's just so silly, I love it. It evoked mid-seventies Disney screwball caper movies and the car chases were proper old-fashioned thrills. Good to see Hugh from detectorists in a cool Hollywood part.

I felt the same way, and just having Hugh in it notched it up from a 7 to an 8 for me. I thought the ending felt a little rushed, and I'm not sure about Michelle Pfeiffer's acting abilities these days, but otherwise I've no complaints.

As an aside, I did go to see this a month ago in 3D, but found the 3D to be truly horrible and distracting, and I fell asleep after 15 minutes as I was going through a bout of insomnia at the time. I'm glad I did though, as I don't think I'd have enjoyed it half as much considering how shitty the 3D effects were. Also, the cinema was all but empty which is always a good thing.