Ant-Man Is a Mess That Satisfies by the End. (SPOILER REVIEW)

Score: 3/5

*Contains Spoilers*

I'm sure I'm not the first to admit that I had mixed expectations for Ant-Man. In the months leading up to its release, I have read several news articles and interviews about Ant-Man's production issues. Usually when a movie has backstage problems, its quality suffers greatly. Examples include, but are not limited to Brave, Iron Man 2 and Thor: The Dark World.

As such, I was weary that Ant-Man could end up being a rare misfire for Marvel. Unfortunately, while I may be in the minority with my opinion, this somewhat became the case with Ant-Man. The key word being: "somewhat."



Right off the bat, Ant-Man started off pretty well. The main character Scott Lang is an instantly likable protagonist. Whether he's getting into a prison fight or working as Baskin Robbins, Paul Rudd gives an earnest charm to Scott that fits the character to a tee. Though the character himself was a cliched down-on-his-luck father with an estranged ex-wife and child, Rudd does his best to elevate the character. Something about the way he delivered his lines felt like he really cared about what he was filming, and it was a pleasant viewing experience. Even with all of the film's flaws, I am still looking forward to seeing Rudd play the miniscule warrior in future MCU installments.

On the other hand, despite how strong the supporting cast is, their characters are pretty weak. Hank Pym (played by the typically masterful Michael Douglas) comes across as yet another retired hero-turned-mentor who's only purpose in the film is to train Scott on how to use the Ant-Man suit. Sure, he has the occasional funny line, and Michael Douglas gives him charm, but he seems to take a backseat in this movie.

The problem with Hank Pym is that by the end of the movie, Scott doesn't really learn anything from him. During the film, Scott is caught in the middle of a tedious father-daughter conflict between Hank and his daughter Hope (played by the underrated Evangeline Lilly). Hope wants to wear the shrink suit instead of Scott, but Hank won't let her. The two go back and forth about how Hope's mother died several times until Hank finally tells Hope that she died using the suit and they reconcile. Since Scott has a daughter himself, you'd think that he'd learn something from this conflict, but no. He loves his daughter just as much at the beginning of the film as he does by the end. So essentially, this daddy-issues subplot was entirely pointless.

As for the character of Hope, she comes across as the typical gung-ho daughter who wants to fight when her overprotective father won't let her. All she really does is mope about how she wants to take up the shrink suit. By the time she does get a shrink suit of her own (during the mid-credits scene), I didn't care what happened to her. She just felt like another obligatory female side character that the protagonist ends up falling in love with.



The weakest character, by far, is the villain. Darren Cross/Yellowjacket has to be the worst villain in the MCU next to Malekith. He's just another smarmy businessman in a suit like in all three Iron Man movies and Captain America 2. What makes it even worse is that the film doesn't really try to make him memorable. His motivations for being evil are never really clear (whether it's a hunger for power or a chemical imbalance), and he is just forgettable as a whole. At least in Captain America: The Winter Soldier, Alexander Pierce was memorable in the context of the film's political plot.


The film even has to resort to showing him performing cruel animal testing on adorable lambs to force the audience to hate him. When a script has to stoop to something that obvious and desperate to get you to hate the villain, you get the feeling like even the filmmakers think the character is weak. Imagine if all Red Skull did was punch puppies: you'd hate him on instinct, but it would feel as lazy as a fake-out jumpscare in a horror film.

Moreover, the fact that the movie changed writers/directors was pretty clear to see. Some scenes suffer from jarring tonal shifts. For example, what seems like a training montage is interrupted by tragic exposition of Hope's mother dying from shrinking into oblivion. This, in turn, is concluded by a witty remark from Scott that feels out of place and awkwardly timed. If this was meant to be funny, it wasn't.

Based on several interviews and stories that I’ve read, the most likely reason why Edgar Wright left Ant-Man was because the heads at Marvel Studios wanted him to tie his film more into Marvel’s Cinematic Universe. The urge to tie this movie into the universe becomes quite apparent in one scene where Scott just happens to drop in on the newly-built Avengers headquarters to steal an unknown device. The scene, which features a fight with Falcon (played by Anthony Mackie) is almost completely pointless and only serves as a forced universe tie-in. If this scene is the reason why Edgar Wright left, I can certainly sympathize with him.

Despite all of these flaws I’ve had with the film, there were still plenty of moments that delivered the goods. The humor, for the most part, is just as witty as you'd expect from a Marvel movie. In particular, Michael Peña’s character Luis was the comedic highlight of the movie.


Luis is Scott's good friend and former cell mate. Despite the fact that he went to jail, his mother died, and his father was deported, he is still strangely optimistic. He also has a knack for telling stories in a humorously rambling manner. Peña’s genius performance combined with the character’s awkward nature make Luis one of the best comic relief characters I’ve ever seen. As many people have already said, I'd love to see a one-shot of his character narrating Ant-Man's events in a silly, rambling manner.

The potentially silly concept of Scott being able to control the minds of ants was executed flawlessly as well. Seeing him train and learn to become one with the ants was so surreal, and yet incredibly fun to see. Seeing Scott fly around on a carpenter ant and build fire ant bridges proved that big imagination can come in small packages.

The scene where he breaks into Cross' building to steal the Yellowjacket suit is especially exhilarating, and I was truthfully fully engaged. To put it bluntly: seeing Ant-Man surf on a bed of fire ants is destined to be a classic Marvel moment for me. On paper, something like that in an action film seems destined for mockery, but director Peyton Reed really makes it work.

As a side note: RIP Antony.

It is no surprise that the best scene in the movie was straight from the mind of Edgar Wright, and Peyton Reed amiably translates it onto the screen. The final fight between Ant-Man and Yellowjacket takes place in Scott's daughter's bedroom. Toys are thrown, a piggy bank is blown up, and Thomas the Tank Engine blows a hole in the wall. Again, what sounds stupid really works well on film. The sheer creativity of this fight scene is something that has to be seen to believe, and I dare say it's one of the best fight scenes I've seen in recent years.

Both of the previously mentioned scenes happened at the end of the movie, so I walked out feeling satisfied with what I've seen. The experience itself was worth it. Sure, the movie is far from perfect, but I felt like I had spent my money well. It was only in retrospect that I really reflected on the movie's flaws.

In a way, the movie does exactly what it sets out to do; giving audiences something ambitious while still hyping them up for future MCU movies. Ant-Man is a mess, yes, but I do recommend checking it out for what it is and what it offers for longtime Marvel fans.

2016 Razzie Award Predictions.

It's only August, and yet with all of the bad press surrounding certain films, I found it quite easy to make my predictions for the Razzie Awards. While I can't guarantee which of these films will be nominated, I have a pretty good idea of what the nominees will be.

Note: this list doesn't necessarily reflect my opinion on who/what should be nominated, but who/what likely will be nominated. I base the predictions on popularity and notoriety, which is what the Razzies usually go by.


Worst Supporting Actor

• Ninja - Chappie
• Josh Gad - Pixels & The Wedding Ringer
• Kevin James - Pixels & Little Boy
• Jai Courtney - Terminator: Genisys & The Divergent Series: Insurgent
• Eddie Redmayne - Jupiter Ascending

Worst Supporting Actress

• Sofia Vergara - Hot Pursuit
• Michelle Monaghan - Pixels
• Yolandi Visser - Chappie
• Stefanie Scott - Jem and the Holograms
• Amanda Seyfried - Ted 2

Worst Screen Combo

• Jamie Dornan & Dakota Johnson - Fifty Shades of Grey
• Ninja and Yolandi Visser - Chappie
• Kate Mara, Miles Teller, Michael B. Jordan and Jamie Bell - Fantastic Four
• Sofia Vergara & Reese Witherspoon - Hot Pursuit
• Adam Sandler & Michelle Monaghan - Pixels

Worst Prequel, Remake, Rip-Off or Sequel

• Alvin & The Chipmunks: Road Chip
• Terminator: Genisys
• Paul Blart: Mall Cop 2
• Vacation
• Poltergeist

Worst Screenplay

• Kelly Marcel, Patrick Marber & Mark Bomback - Fifty Shades of Grey
• The Wachowskis - Jupiter Ascending
• Tim Herlihy - Pixels
• Jeremy Slater & Simon Kinberg - Fantastic Four
• Kevin James & Nick Bakay - Paul Blart: Mall Cop 2

Worst Director

• The Wachowskis - Jupiter Ascending
• Josh Trank - Fantastic Four
• Chris Columbus - Pixels
• John M. Chu - Jem and the Holograms
• M. Night Shyamalan - The Visit

Worst Actress

• Reese Witherspoon -Hot Pursuit
• Dakota Johnson - Fifty Shades of Grey
• Kate Mara - Fantastic Four
• Mila Kunis - Jupiter Ascending
• Cassidy Gifford - The Gallows

Worst Actor

• Adam Sandler - Pixels
• Miles Teller - Fantastic Four
• Channing Tatum - Jupiter Ascending
• Jamie Dornan - Fifty Shades of Grey
• Kevin James - Paul Blart: Mall Cop 2

Worst Picture

• Pixels
• Jupiter Ascending
• Paul Blart: Mall Cop 2
• Fantastic Four
• Fifty Shades of Grey

Top 5 Least Anticipated Films of September/October 2015.

They always say to get the bad news out of the way first. Well, before I reveal my top 5 most anticipated movies of early autumn, I figured I'd list the ones that you'll least likely catch me watching. So here they are in all their dull, rusty glory.

5. The Transporter: Refueled

Even ignoring the fact that Jason Statham is not starring in this, I honestly do not see the hype for this. Nobody I know is talking about it, and after seeing the trailer, I can understand why. It just looks like a run-of-the mill action movie with girls, cars, fights and explosions. Everything looks pretty much par for the course for an action movie and nothing really stands out.

4. Hotel Transylvania 2.

Hotel Transylvania was pretty much the best thing Adam Sandler was involved with in the past decade. It wasn't perfect, and did suffer from a few bad jokes, but I found it to be thoroughly enjoyable due to it's often snappy screenplay and its flawless direction by Genndy Tartakovsky (creator of Dexter's Laboratory). While Tartakovsky did return to direct the sequel, there are still some major red flags that may keep me from seeing Hotel Transylvania 2.

First of all, Adam Sandler is officially on the writing team. In the past few years, Sandler has written such films as Bucky Larson: Born to be a Star, Jack & Jill and Grown Ups 2. All of these films emphasize crude and cringe-worthy jokes that serve no purpose to the plot except to make the teenagers in the audience giggle. He does have his talents as an actor, but he is pretty much unbearable as a writer. This is in addition to the backstage issues involving co-writer Robert Smigel giving Tartakovsky a hard time and micromanaging the film's production. Even with Genndy directing, Sandler and the demanding Smigel may have had too much of an influence on the film for it to be as good as the first.

3. Paranormal Activity: The Ghost Dimension

Just when you thought the Paranormal Activity series was dead and buried, in comes the sixth film in the series to make you say: "nah...I'm not seeing that." Ever since the success of the original Paranormal activity, the found footage genre has been milked to death and dragged through the mud. Films like The Devil Inside, Devil's Due and The Gallows showed that the genre had pretty much run its course. With the new Paranormal Activity film, you'd think that Hollywood would know this and add something new to the aging series. Unfortunately, what they added only makes the newest installment even less appealing

Where the earlier Paranormal Activity movies focused more on subtlety than cheap scares and special effects, the newer installments seem to be focusing on the latter. With Paranormal Activity: The Ghost Dimension, any hope of clever scares or atmospheric tension is dashed with the addition of dark cgi blobs added into the film to represent the titular ghosts. Audiences who constantly complain about horror movies "not showing enough of the monster" will likely be won over, but everyone else is just out of luck here. Expect to sleep well after seeing this installment (if you don't already fall asleep while watching it that is).

2. Goosebumps.

After something like Pixels, who would have any faith in Sony to make a good movie to honor a childhood pastime? Pixels took the video games that its intended audience grew up playing and enjoying and drowning them in a bucket of awful jokes and insufferable characters. Goosebumps, to no surprise, looks to do the same thing.

The film's trailer revealed that R.L. Stein (played by Jack Black) is not actually the main character of the film. Instead, it stars the cliched good-hearted teenager with a single parent who just moved in from another town. He is joined by an equally cliched annoying goofball friend and obligatory female love interest. As if the cliched characters weren't bad enough, the dialogue looks shrill and unfunny, and the plot is just another "Sealed Evil in a Can" story that has been done too many times to count. Perhaps if there was more of a horror element in the trailer, it might have looked more appealing. Unfortunately, the film just looks like yet another goofball comedy fueled by shallow nostalgia like Pixels.

1. Jem and the Holograms

This film, along with Ouija, is proof that Hasbro's film division is incredibly pointless. Where Ouija was a generic jump-scare fest with high school students getting killed off one by one, Jem and the Holograms is a generic rags-to-riches story where the lead singer gets into a conflict with the rest of the band. Besides Jem and the Holograms having a shallow and dull plot, the movie doesn't even seem to stay remotely true to its source material.

The original series was based on a flashy 80's rock band. The characters played 80s pop music, dressed up in flashy outfits, and infused their hair with plenty of hairspray and mousse. On the contrary, the film adaptation takes place in modern times. As seen in the trailer, things like YouTube and Photoshop are mentioned, making it clear that the studio wanted to modernize something whose fans fondly remember it as being a piece of 80's nostalgia. What's the point on banking on 80's nostalgia if you are going to take everything remotely 80's out of it? Even if it was faithful to the source material, would you really want to see the 80's equivalent of Hannah Montana on the big screen?

If Nintendo Wants to Make Movies, Here's What They Should Do.

In a recent interview, Nintendo head designer Shigeru Miyamoto (宮本 茂) said that the company may finally start taking their beloved franchises to the big screen. Miyamoto said:

We’ve had, over the years, a number of people who have come to us and said ‘Why don’t we make a movie together—or we make a movie and you make a game and we’ll release them at the same time?’ Because games and movies seem like similar mediums, people’s natural expectation is we want to take our games and turn them into movies… I’ve always felt video games, being an interactive medium, and movies, being a passive medium, mean the two are quite different….As we look more broadly at what is Nintendo’s role as an entertainment company, we’re starting to think more and more about how movies can fit in with that—and we’ll potentially be looking at things like movies in the future.

Shigeru Miyamoto

In summary, Nintendo realizes that taking something interactive like a video game and turning it into something more passive like a movie is a challenging process. However, expanding Nintendo into different forms of entertainment is still something that the company is interested in doing.

If Nintendo wants to make movies, the first thing they should understand is that they must be animated and not in live action. While one could argue that the Legend of Zelda characters could work in live action, cartoonish characters like Mario, Kirby and Star Fox simply would not look right. Gritty live action versions of colorful characters are often the subject of parody, and should not even be considered by Nintendo. Would you honestly want to see something like this...

Mario in a Japanese Mercedes commercial.

or this?

A satirical live action Pokemon poster.

Moreover, perhaps the most important thing that Nintendo should (and hopefully will) understand is why previous game-to-movie adaptations failed. Previous adaptations took only the bare basics of the source material and put them into an unfaithful and shallow product.

King Koopa and the Goombas from Super Mario Bros.

The last attempt at a movie based on a Nintendo property was 1993's Super Mario Bros., a disastrous attempt to make a gritty, marketable film for general audiences. Bowser/King Koopa was portrayed as a bleach-blonde Dennis Hopper and the Mushroom Kingdom was a grimy, dark city. It ended up failing with critics and audiences and is still known as being one of the worst and most unfaithful game-to-movie adaptations of all time (as if most video game movies were ever faithful to begin with).

Even to this day, studios like Sony Pictures and 20th Century Fox are pretty much incapable of making a good video game movie, as evidenced by this year's Pixels and Hitman: Agent 47 respectively. Studio higher-ups could care less about making game-to-movie adaptations respectful and memorable and more about giving them flashy aesthetics hoping that they could gross enough money from casual crowds. Most of today's current studio executives did not grow up with video games, and thus do not have an interest in them to begin with. This leads to them hiring writers and directors who don't understand what people love about video games or how to put that love into a film.

How not to do an adaptation.

Pixels was a mashup of awful jokes and unlikable characters mixed with the occasional video game character and/or 80s song to trigger knee-jerk nostalgic reactions. The effects were nice, but the film treats its licensed characters with no real respect or understanding. Instead, it just throws the characters on screen and hopes that enough people will go "hey, I remember that" and forget about the poor overall quality of the script. It was the film equivalent of fruit stripe gum; it gives gamers a short burst of nostalgia before making them indifferent with an overall lackluster film.


Hitman: Agent 47 took the slick, stealth-based elements of the video games and traded them in for generic wannabe-matrix-style setpieces, guns and explosions. Once again, the people behind the film took no interest in what people love about the games and instead slapped the licence onto an easy-to-write action film to wring a few bucks out of audiences.

It's obvious that the creators of the games had little to no involvement in these movies. Therefore, it would be interesting to see what Nintendo could do if they themselves produce their own films. Hopefully, the movies will be much more faithful to the beloved games that inspired them and really give a reflection of what drives fans to play them.

Someone who loves the property should be involved.

Conversely, while it is important to stay faithful to the source material, Nintendo should still be willing to take a few creative liberties. Like Miyamoto said, without the interactive elements of the games like smooth controls and engaging gameplay, turning them into movies can prove challenging. For example, the typical damsel-in-distress storyline, while being a staple of the Mario and Zelda games from the beginning, is a dated plot element in film.

That isn't to say that Nintendo's movies should win over people like Anita Sarkeesian, but they should still be open to give the traditional stories of their games a twist. Much like Peter Parker getting bit by a radioactive spider, audiences have already seen Mario/Link save Peach/Zelda, and without the ability to interact with the characters on screen, audiences need a reason to keep watching.

Just look at The Lego Movie; its detailed animation and numerous references were nostalgic enough, but it also had well-examined themes of fatherhood and creativity. The character Emmet represented every child who wanted to look past the instructions and try their own ideas. Some may scoff at how "weird" something like a double-decker couch sounds, but it could still end up being a great idea after all.

How an adaptation should be done.

A Super Mario Bros. movie could explore themes of leadership. On the surface, it could still be the classic tale of Princess Peach being kidnapped by Bowser, but it could still be more than just that. Just like in New Super Mario Bros. U, perhaps Bowser could take over Peach's castle and hold her and her entire staff hostage. Much like the president in Olympus has Fallen, Peach must prove that she is a competent leader in a hostage situation, and could even help out Mario by sending him secret notes and health powerups like in previous Mario games.

Instead of a one-dimensional bad guy, Bowser could be a somewhat misunderstood father who wants to give his son Bowser Jr. a mother. This plotline was previously explored in Super Mario Sunshine and the Super Mario Adventures comics, and could certainly be carried out in the film adaptation. Again, the theme of leadership can come into play here, as Bowser learns throughout the film that he could be a competent single parent on his own. He could still be a villain by trying to destroy the Mario Brothers and having an overall bad attitude, but he could still be a fun villain like Captain Hook in Disney's Peter Pan.

Bowser can be funny but still threatening.

As for the Mario Brothers, Mario could be more than just a mild-mannered and likable Italian stereotype. He could be like Fix-It Felix Jr. in Wreck-It Ralph and be a good-hearted guy but slightly naive at the same time. In Wreck-It Ralph, Fix-It Felix Jr. is a good guy, but doesn't understand how Ralph truly feels about his status as a villain. Perhaps Mario tries too hard to protect his younger, more timid brother Luigi from danger and doesn't realize he's holding back Luigi's true potential. At the end of the movie, Mario can finally stop being overprotective of Luigi and let him contribute his own ideas to defeat Bowser's evil plans.

Note: Mario's dialogue must be carefully written to avoid lines like "all toasters toast toast."

There are several possibilities for other Nintendo movies. A Star Fox movie could be a humorous, witty and somewhat dark sci-fi tale in the vein of Guardians of the Galaxy.

Can you see the possibilities?

A Pokemon movie could be about Ash and Pikachu forming a friendly bond to defeat Team Rocket like Hiro and Baymax in Big Hero 6. A Legend of Zelda film could be a grand fantasy adventure like The Dark Crystal where Link and Zelda work together to defeat Ganondorf's reign of terror. The possibilities are more endless than the 1up trick in the original Super Mario Bros.

All of these films could even be a part of a Nintendo Cinematic Universe that fans have been craving for so long. Super Smash Bros. could be like The Avengers and see all of the heroes (and perhaps even villains) combining their strengths to defeat the evil Master Hand.

While nobody can predict what approach Nintendo will take with their movies (or if they'll even get made), one can only be optimistic that Nintendo will make the right decisions with what to do with their property. Just as long as they keep Happy Maddison far, FAR away from it.