Fun, Inventive "Ant-Man" Makes A Compelling Case for Ant-Man

Paul Rudd and Michael Douglas star as Ant-Man, past and present.

In the past, Marvel Studios has found a way to get modern audiences to embrace possibly laughable scenarios involving warring Norse gods or gun-toting raccoons with alien tree sidekicks, but with Ant-Man they’ve managed something even trickier. They’ve found a way to make a seemingly lame super hero incredibly awesome.

For those unfamiliar, Ant-Man revolves around a super hero who can shrink down to the size of an ant and command ants to do his bidding. He may not be the lamest sounding super hero – Aquaman takes the cake there, as exemplified by shows as diverse as Family Guy and Big Bang Theory – but he's not far off.

However, via a series of inventive fight scenes, including a one-on-one battle with Falcon (Anthony Mackie), Ant-Man makes an excellent case for why Ant-Man deserves a place at the Avengers' table. It's exciting to imagine the havoc the little guy could wreck when playing alongside the big boys.

Like nearly every film Marvel Studios has made over the last seven years, Ant-Man struggles with a weak villain and repeats the same basic story about keeping a powerful McGuffin from falling into the wrong hands. And, although it was long-billed as a heist movie, the central heist of the film is underwhelmingly derivative.

Despite all that, the film is a blast. Structurally, it hits many of the same beats as Iron Man with a disgruntled second-in-command and a strong redemption angle to boot. The film offers an interesting retcon of the MCU thus far, positing that Hank Pym (Michael Douglas) was another player in the fight against Hydra, much like Peggy Carter (Hayley Atwell) and Howard Stark (John Slattery).

Some super impressive CGI is used to de-age Douglas for a flashback that establishes Pym developed a suit that allowed shrinking to the size of an ant via the use of Pym Particles. Although Pym used his tech to fight America's enemies as The Ant-Man, he refused to share his formula, fearful it would fall into untrustworthy hands (smart move given Hydra had infiltrated Shield by that point even if they remained hidden until the events of Captain America: The Winter Soldier). Years later we see him struggling with the notion that his former protégée Darren Cross (Corey Stoll) is on the precipice of cracking the formula and preparing to sell it to Hydra (who else?).

Enter Scott Lang (Rudd), a wronged-engineer who struck back at the fat cats as a Robin Hood-like cat-burglar and wound up in prison. At the outset of the film, he is released from jail, and we see the struggle he has getting his life back together so he can reconnect with his beloved daughter Cassie. Pym, who has a troubled relationship with his own daughter Hope (Evangeline Lily), targets Lang as the ideal candidate to use his suit in an effort to stop Cross.

This is the first post-Avengers film to really address why other heroes aren't lending a hand, and best of all, the reason is rooted in character. Immediately after hearing Pym's pitch, Lang says, "I think we should call the Avengers," and it's refreshing as hell to hear. But Pym had a strained relationship with Howard Stark, and so he refuses to seek the help of his son, whose Iron-Man suit he dismisses as "cute tech" when compared to the Ant-Man one.

Thematically, the film does a lot with fatherhood, exploring the notion of earning the adoration our children naturally give us. The film is borderline cloying at times, but the coupling of the off-center tone and a game cast keeps everything together. This is far-and-away the jokiest Marvel film to date, and all of it lands perfectly. The film gets a lot of mileage out of size-related humor and Douglas, Rudd and Lily charm in the lead roles. However, despite filling the second most generic major role in the film (first goes to Judy Greer's no-fun mom, a role she recently played in Jurassic World), Michael Pena practically walks away with the movie on the strength of his unfettered energy and a great running gag.

Few would argue Peyton Reed is as strong a filmmaker as Edgar Wright (who shepherded the project for years but then left right before production due the creative differences), but, as a big fan of the character, Reed was a good choice to take the project across the finish line. Ant-Man is a real winner for Marvel, and another testament to their ability to turn outlandish properties into four-quadrant entertainments. Jury’s out on if they can continue that trend with next year's Dr. Strange, but I wouldn’t bet against them. B+

David Gordon Green Finds Tonal Harmony in "Prince Avalanche"

Prince Avalanche offers a winning, low-key sense of humor.

At first glance, Prince Avalanche doesn’t seem like much. 

It’s a modest ’80s-set indie about two mismatched road workers who are conducting maintenance on a highway through an area that was recently ravaged by wildfire. They spend the bulk of their days painting traffic lines and hammering in reflector posts, and at night they sleep side by side in a tent. They also spend an awful lot of time bickering and bonding too, but that’s pretty much the extent of it.

It’s a movie I expect some would label as boring, but one I haven’t been able to shake. It feels an awful lot like a stage play that Samuel Beckett or Harold Pinter might write if they were in a goofy mood, except it relies heavily on its expansive locale (it was filmed in Bastrop County, Texas shortly after the massive wildfire there in 2011) and is actually a remake of an Icelandic comedy called Either Way.

The film has been written and directed by David Gordon Green, an enigma of a filmmaker who first made a name for himself with dramatic indie darlings like All the Real Girls and Snow Angels before taking a hard left turn into big studio bro comedies like Pineapple Express and Your Highness. With Prince Avalanche, he seems to have married these two sensibilities, crafting a film that is somehow contemplative, lyrical and silly all at once. 

This is a movie about the illusions people can have about who they are and what happens when those illusions are tested. It stars Paul Rudd and Emile Hirsch as Alvin and Lance, two self-regarding chumps with different takes on masculinity. Alvin fancies himself a true man, the kind of guy who has mastery over life skills (i.e. gutting a fish, tying a knot), enjoys the serenity of nature and has sacrificed time with the woman he loves (Lance’s sister Madison) to go out into the wild and make money so they can run away together. Meanwhile, Lance thinks of himself as a stud with great dance skills and is exclusively concerned with getting back into town so he can “get the little man squeezed.” 

Looking awfully Mario-like.

Of course, most of that is bullshit. Lance can’t dance and he’s pretty much a clueless rube, while Alvin isn’t the noble figure he imagines. A key scene in which he finds himself alone on a burnt out property and mimes his version of domestic bliss is telling. Even then Alvin doesn’t interact with his girlfriend; instead she’s on the phone, and so he goes downstairs and sits on a rocker, happily in silence.

Costuming plays a key role in hinting both characters aren’t the men they think they are. It’s hard to believe a man’s man or a ladies’ man would be caught dead in the bright Mario Bros-like overalls* these guys spend the bulk of the film wearing. However, there are plenty of other details along the way – things like Alvin wearing his tool belt backwards – that also show the cracks in the façade.

* In addition to the overalls, Rudd sports a mustache in the film, which only works to further enhance the Mario connection. But for anyone who’s played a Mario game over the last decade or so, what puts the joke over the top is Alvin’s answer to the question of what skill he would perform if he were in a Ms. America-type pageant – the triple jump.

Hirsch reminds why he was such a hot up-and-comer a few years ago, injecting this dummy with a real groundswell of emotion. He has a five or six page monologue in this thing that’s so funny and so sad all at once, and his ace delivery makes one hope he gets better opportunities than shitty TV remakes of Bonnie and Clyde moving forward. 

However, this is Rudd’s show, and he gets a chance to flex acting muscles he doesn’t normally use. Despite his success in mainstream comedy, Rudd’s a classically trained actor who has shown his stage-honed skills on film before – notably in Neil LaBute’s The Shape of Things. Here, he excels at portraying a man who views himself in terms he can’t live up to. 

Joyce Payne adds a palpable sense of loss to her section of the film.

Beyond the two leads, there isn’t much in the way of a cast here. The late Lance LeGault plays a truck driver who stops in on the duo from time to time, offering some sort of homemade moonshine along with odd advice. And then there’s Joyce Payne, a real-life victim of the Bastrop County wildfires who Green put in the film on a whim after meeting her and hearing her story. Alvin stumbles upon her burnt out house during a weekend alone and the scene that follows is powerhouse of emotion and pain. Her appearances later in the film hint she may be a ghost, which seems sort of out of place, but also sort of not. 

The soundtrack by Explosions in the Sky adds a great deal to the film, as does the landscape. Fortunately the film was shot in order, so Green is able to document a slight rejuvenation in nature that reflects that of the characters.

Overall, Prince Avalanche is a total triumph of tone. It’s a key film in the evolution of Green’s contrasting sensibilities, and it’s easy to believe that if ever there was a director who could pull off the long-in-development adaptation of John Kennedy Toole’s A Confederacy of Dunces, it’s Green (he was at one time linked to it). It’s far more likely his future projects will be totally out of left field, and that’s pretty cool too. A-

"Admission" Fails to Stand Out

The shower scene was necessary. Because of the cow placenta.

Admission is a decent enough flick. It’s professionally made and has many of the things you’d look for in a good film, including a likable cast, a solid setup and worthwhile themes.

It stars Tina Fey as a Princeton admissions officer who simultaneously discovers that her live-in boyfriend of nearly a decade (Michael Sheen) is leaving her for the snooty English scholar he impregnated and that one of her kookier admits (Nat Wolff) may be the child she secretly gave up for adoption back in college. Oh, and all of this turmoil is coming right in the thick of the busiest season for admissions, during which she’ll be vying to replace the retiring dean (Wallace Shawn).

The film also stars Lily Tomlin as Fey’s typically atypical mom and Paul Rudd as a romantic sparring partner and a teacher at the alternative school Fey’s possible son attends. And it makes some nice points about regret, parenting and the cruel and arbitrary guidelines used by college admission offices.

All in all, everything is very… amiable – amiable actors playing amiable characters in an amiable story by an amiable filmmaker (Paul Weitz). However, there’s not much takeaway beyond that general “meh, yeah, okay” feeling. It’s fitting that a movie that disparages the callousness of an admissions process that critiques students for how interesting and unique they are would be so competently ordinary, so readily unmemorable.

Although she's playing the clichéd wacky parent, Tomlin brings 

a nice energy to the film and kills her one dramatic scene.

That is perhaps somewhat harsher than it needs to be. Fey and Rudd share a nice chemistry, the messages play well enough, and there’s something to be said for the restraint the film shows in not wrapping an artificial bow around what would undoubtedly be a messy and anticlimactic situation.

In the film’s best sequence, the admissions staff meet to select next year’s batch of students, and, in so doing, they discuss the idea that they can only invest in so many on-the-bubble students.

With movies, it often works the same way. There’s always time for the big cinematic attractions that a Spielberg, Tarantino or Scorcese might make, but when it comes to these lower-wattage entries, there needs to be a certain vitality that sells the thing and gets it over the hump.

Films like Take This Waltz, Beginners, or Weitz’s own About a Boy manage to make the cut. Films like Admissions – well, they’re destined for the safety school that is basic cable. C

Despite Some Nice Moments, This is 40 Ultimately Underwhelms



Haha!

This is 40, the latest from writer-director Judd Apatow, is a relatively amiable quasi-sequel to Knocked Up. It focuses on Debbie (Leslie Mann) and Pete (Paul Rudd), the sister and brother-in-law from the hit pregnancy comedy, as they attempt to navigate the complications of marriage during a week in which they both turn 40.

Pete and Debbie were expertly-realized secondary characters in Knocked Up, and their presence upped both the comedy and drama of the movie. They adeptly added to the hilarity, but their emotions and problems were wonderfully specific and yet entirely universal, which is probably due to being pseudo-biographical (Mann is Apatow’s wife, his real-life daughters play the couples’ kids, andPete is likely a Judd surrogate). As a result of this, I was totally on board when I heard Apatow planned to further explore these characters, because I expected a personal and insightful look at what it means to be middle aged.

In some ways, the movie meets expectations. The interplay between the two leads, and the scenes depicting their relationship are largely affecting and often ring true.  There’s a real poignancy and truth to the way Apatow contrasts moments where Debbie and Pete question how they could have wound up together with euphoric moments of love and parental cooperation.

That said, while I enjoyed it and smiled most of the way through, in the end, the movie just didn’t leave much of lasting impression. There are a few reasons for that, most glaringly the bloated 135 minute running time.  Given the almost nonexistent nature of the plot (the movie just sort of meanders around until it’s time to end), that’s just too damn long. Apatow has always made surprisingly long comedies (40 Year Old Virgin and Knocked Up both clock in around 2 hours), but, with his last two films, he’s really developed a bad tendency to overstay his welcome by almost half-an-hour.  

When it comes to toilet time, women just don't get it.

Parts of Funny People, which ran a whopping 145 minutes, were some of the most searing work Apatow’s ever done, but the movie spent way too much time with Mann’s character and got really bogged down as a result. And here, he falls victim to the same type of problem, dedicating far too much time to fluff subplots, specifically one involving employees at Debbie’s boutique (Megan Fox, Charlyne Yi) that could’ve been entirely excised from the film, no harm done. And although they are enjoyable comedic performers, Apatow probably gives Chris O’Dowd and Jason Segel a bit too much screen time as well.

But then, on top of that, the film also features several plot points that set off the BS alarm. The title promises a somewhat universal look at the trials and tribulations of being a 40-year-old parent, but it’s all just so aggressively upper class and inane. Financial problems and daddy issues are major hurdles for the characters, and while that makes quite a bit of sense, the developments here are just downright annoying. 

Pete is struggling financially due to his fledging record company, which he foolishly stakes on risky fringe artists. As plot points go, that’s not so bad. Actually, the idea of failing at such an ambitious dream job is fertile territory, but Apatow doesn’t really do much with it and then he muddies up the situation by giving Debbie ridiculous financial issues revolving around 13K that’s gone missing at her store. She’s worried, but obviously can’t be all that concerned since she investigates it in the most innocuous way possible. 

Judd Apatow may seem somewhat nepotistic, but

all three of his ladies come off well in This is 40.

Meanwhile, Debbie has a somewhat interesting dynamic with a father (John Lithgow) who left her behind to start a new family, but then they dilute that by giving Pete daddy issues of his own. It concerns his inability to say no to a grubby father (Albert Brooks) to whom he’s loaned 80K over the last few years. Needless to say, this plot point is especially infuriating given all the other money issues these people face. It plays as overkill and makes you think “How can these people be this crazy bad and flippant with money?” 

It’s possible this stuff won’t bother most people, and they’ll be able to enjoy the quality domestic strife going on here. Rudd and Mann are both quite good, and Maude and Iris Apatow continue to be natural in front of the camera. But for me, it just didn’t jell. I think financial issues were a perfect way to go, but maybe focus on how the kids, not your dad, are sucking all your money out of you? Or jettison all the extraneous subplots and focus more on Pete’s business failings and the whole claustrophobic feeling that accompanies being a 40-year-old with responsibilities and declining health.

I don’t want to be unfair. In the end, this is a decent movie that ambles along with two likeable leads, giving them some funny people to bounce off of and some real emotions to play. I see the value in that. I just think this one misses the mark a bit. B-