Since I got seven movies (Infinity War will be its own post), I’m splitting this up. Today, it’s Ant-Man, Captain America: Civil War, and Doctor Strange. I pretty much saw all of these movies in theaters. I was able to re-watch Civil War and Dr. Strange on Netflix somewhat recently. As for Ant Man, I had to look for that elsewhere.
Ant-Man
Ant-Man was released during August of 2015. The movie follows burglar Scott Lang as he tries to put his life back together after getting out of prison. After having no luck, a friend tells him about a job that requires the skills that got him into trouble. He ends up stealing a suit that has the ability to change shape. He is then contacted by Hank Pym, the creator of the suit. Pym hires Scott to uses his skills for an even bigger heist that involves Pym’s former protégé mass-producing the size tech. With the help of Pym and Hope, Pym’s daughter, Scott is made into the new Ant-Man.
On that day, Thomas realized he was in with the wrong crowd. One wonders what the Mayor thinks...
Everyone does a good job here. I thought Michael Douglas was a good Hank Pym and Evangeline Lilly was cool as Hope. I thought Paul Rudd was hilarious in this. In fact, a lot of the humor for this one worked especially the stuff involving Scott's team. Even though this was pretty much a comedy, there was also some nice drama and heartfelt moments. The scenes involving the suit and seeing Ant-Man do his thing were cool and pretty inventive. The action scenes were pretty good as well and the special effects were top-notch.
This was a fun fight.
As for the negatives, the biggest one is the villain. Darren Cross is your usual megalomaniac. Corey Stoll does a good job in the role, but there's not really much there for him to do. All he can do is be evil and somewhat crazy. I also felt that the pacing could be a bit off at times. There's also the fact that not much of it really sticks with me. It could be that I'm just not a fan of Ant-Man in general, but you never know. Overall, Ant-Man was a fun but "whelming" time.
Capatin America: Civil War
Captain America: Civil War was released during May of 2016. It’s loosely based off of the Civil War crossover event from 2006. It also includes elements from Ed Brubaker’s run on Captain America.
In the movie, the Avengers get caught up in a controversy when a bunch of innocents are killed during an attack in Africa. The United Nations decides that the team needs accountability and oversight, so they draft a new set of rules called the Sokovia Accords. This leads the team to split in two with Iron Man’s side sticking up for the Accords and Captain America’s side not being in favor. Things get even tenser when James “Bucky” Barnes (The Winter Soldier) is supposedly involved in an attack on the UN. As more things happen and newer heroes join the fray, both sides go to war while a new villain tries to play the teams against each other.
All I'm hearing is the ending of the 90's X-Men theme.
For a Captain America movie, this really felt like another Avengers movie. That’s not a bad thing since I thought this movie was pretty good. The Russo Bros. knocked it out of the park in The Winter Soldier and while Civil War isn’t as good, it gets close. A lot of that has to do with the nice adaptation of the Civil War story. They took an interesting but supbar event and made it work for this version of Marvel. Unlike the event, you really get a sense of where everyone is coming from and you don’t know which side to really root for. At least that’s how I felt anyway. I was more #TeamNatasha and it isn’t just because she’s cuter than Steve and Tony.
I thought the whole cast was pretty good here. Of course, Chris Evans and Robert Downey Jr. were on their game. Everyone else was quite nice too. I thought the introductions to Black Panther and Spider-Man worked for the most part. T’Challa’s definitely worked and I liked how integral he was to the story. Spidey… I’ll get to him later. Even seeing Thunderbolt “Jackass” Ross was a treat. I also thought Daniel Bruhl was an interesting version of Baron Zemo. While he’s far from his comic version, he worked for me. He’s the one that made everything go from bad to worse and I thought that was a nice way of handling him.
Tony, you may get some gruff, but that took some guts.
As usual, the action scenes were nice for the most part. The Russos took a lot of what worked from The Winter Soldier and added it here. The extended scene of Bucky and Steve taking on the cops and T’Challa was quite nice. While I’m not a big fan of that final fight, it was staged really well. Of course, my favorite fight (though maybe not the best one) was the big throwdown between the teams. It was cool to see something like that happen in a blockbuster movie.
T'Challa: You know, you could have just stayed home.
Zemo: And miss this epic fight? Come on, man!
T'Challa: True. Got beer?
Zemo: Yep... I never knew these pointers I got from that Lex dude would help!
Of course, there are things I didn’t like about the film. While I liked the action, some of the fight scenes were a little choppy. The most notable one for me was the first one in Africa. While the final fight was nice, I thought Tony going “kill mode” on Bucky felt off. Also, did we really need Spider-Man here? While having him here was nice, it definitely felt like a weird pitstop. Also, the Steve/Sharon Carter romance (or lack of one) felt off since they’ve barely interacted. Finally, while I liked Zemo, his role towards the end was pretty weird. Other than those things and small nitpicks, this was good.
Doctor Strange
Doctor Strange was released during the end of 2016. It’s pretty much the origin of Stephen Strange’s trip into magic. When a car accident takes away his awesome skills as a surgeon, Dr. Stephen Strange uses all his resources to get those skills back. His last resort is to travel to Kamar-Taj in order to see if holistic healing can work. He gets a lot more than he bargained for when he meets the Ancient One and learns about the astral plane, spells, other dimensions, and what lies beyond. During his trials, he really gets put to the test when Kaecillius, a former student, tries to bring down the Sanctums that protect the Earth so Dormommu, a dark being, can take over.
I thought this was another solid one from Marvel. Doctor Strange isn’t one of my faves, but I did like the animated movie that was done on him in the 2000’s. While Stephen Strange is mostly an egotistical douchebag for some of the movie, you do have some sympathy for him. Benedict Cumberbatch (I’ll use his real name this time) played the role of an ego-centric surgeon turned less-ego-driven sorcerer well. While he wasn’t necessarily my pick for Strange, he did good work here. I also thought Chiwetel Ejiofor was also great as Mordo and I liked how he was handled in the story.
As for the story, it was pretty good. While it is a typical origin story, it works for the character. We learn all we need to know about Strange’s world in about two hours and they did go there with the whole magic realm. The scene where Strange gets sent through the Multiverse is one-part cool and one-part trippy. The small bouts of humor worked well too. The final “battle” with Dormommu was hilarious in a dark way.
The special effects were awesome. You could tell that the creators were inspired by Inception when Strange and the rest entered into the Mirror Dimension. The action scenes were quite nice and it was nice to see Scott Adkins in another Marvel movie. Too bad he was a henchman, though. Finally, the music was pretty nice. Since Michael Giachanno composed it, I could hear hints of the new Star Trek theme in there.
Come on, Scott! Kick his butt... wait, never mind.
There were things that weren’t as good, though. I thought Mads Mikelsson was wasted as Kalicus—Kal-El? Kal-fus-Dah? I ain’t spelling it right, okay? I get what they were going for, but the character was just there. You can also say the same for Dormommu’s cameo. At least it was funny. Also, it does turn into a typical Marvel movie with little surprises. Also, and this is a nitpick, was Tilda Swinton the right person for The Ancient One? She played the role well but it just felt a little weird. Other than these things and a couple of small things, this was good.
In order to avoid dry eyes, don't summon dark beings from the Multiverse. Also, just use Visine. Wow.
...................................................................
Well, I'm going to cut it off here. Next time, I'll talk about the next two movies that came out. Until then, Peace, God Bless, and be careful out there.
No comments:
Post a Comment