"ANT-MAN & THE WASP" (2018) Review

"ANT-MAN & THE WASP" (2018) Review

Two months after the theatrical release of the explosive "THE AVENGERS: INFINITY WAR", the Marvel Cinematic Universe (MCU) released "ANT-MAN & THE WASP", the sequel to the 2015 movie, "ANT-MAN". Peyton Reed, who had directed the previous film, returned to helm the latest one. 

Set two years following the events of "CAPTAIN AMERICA: CIVIL WAR", "ANT-MAN & THE WASP" found Scott Lang aka Ant-Man nearing the end of two years of house arrest for his participation in the battle at Leipzig Airport in Germany and his violation of the Sokovia Accords. Unbeknownst to Scott, his use of the Ant-Man suit and arrest led the U.S. government to view Dr. Hank Pym's Ant-Man particles technology and the Ant-Man suit as a violation of the Sokovia Accords. Both Hank and his daughter, Hope van Dyne, ended up becoming wanted fugitives from the law.

In the film's opening, Hank and Hope briefly manage to open a tunnel to the Quantum Realm, where they believe his wife, Dr. Janet van Dyne, might still be trapped after shrinking to sub-atomic levels during a mission as the Wasp in 1987. Two (or three) days before the end of his house arrest, Scott has a dream about him taking on Janet's body, when he was briefly inside the Quantum Realm two years earlier. He leaves a telephone message to Hank about the dream and a few hours later, finds himself kidnapped by Hope. Despite their anger at Scott for his actions with Captain America two years earlier, Hope and Hank need his help to stabilize Hank's quantum tunnel and pinpoint Janet's location, so they can retrieve her. However, there are a few problems that the trio have to overcome: 1) Evading Special FBI Agent Jimmy Woo, who has been assigned to monitor Scott; 2) prevent both arms dealer Sonny Birch and a quantumly unstable masked woman from Hank's past named Ava Starr aka "Ghost" from stealing Hank's shrunken lab that contains the quantum tunnel.

In the wake of movies like "BLACK PANTHER" and "THE AVENGERS: INFINITY WAR", "ANT-MAN & THE WASP" seemed like a light, adventure frolic in compare. Like its 2015 predecessor, the movie is a story about a family. Yes, I can anticipate the next comment. "BLACK PANTHER" was also a family saga. But unlike that film, "ANT-MAN & THE WASP"is a lighter fare that centered around the Pym-van Dyne family and the rescue of one particular member - Dr. Janet van Dyne aka the Wasp. Or the first Wasp. For once, Scott's relationship with his daughter Cassie Lang does not play a major role in the film's narrative. But his business relationship and friendship with his fellow ex-convicts - Luis, Dave and Kurt - did. Luis, along with Dave, Kurt and Scott had created a home security firm called X-Con Security Consultants. However, Scott's efforts to help Hank and Hope threatened the friends' plans to recruit new clients and financing for their new firm. After many mishaps, kidnappings and brushes with the law, Scott managed to recruit his friends to help the Pym-van Dyne family rescue Janet van Dyne from the Quantum Realm and deal with the threat of the Ghost and especially, Sonny Burch. And Hank's past conflict with former colleague Elihas Starr led to him dealing with the latter's angry and desperate daughter, Ava Starr aka Ghost.

Just like the 2015 movie, "ANT-MAN & THE WASP" brimmed with a great deal of light and witty humor. Some of the humor struck me as a bit too light - especially Hope's use of the large-sized ant to fool the F.B.I. into believing that Scott had not broken his house arrest. But a good deal of the humor struck me as spot-on. This included a sequence in which Scott, while wearing Hank's unfinished Ant-Man suit, breaking into Cassie's school locker to retrieve the old one; Scott's witty interactions with the F.B.I. agent monitoring him, Agent Jimmy Woo; and the crazy car chase through San Francisco's streets in which Team Pym struggled to prevent both Sonny Burch's men and Ava from getting their hands on Hank's mobile lab. But if I had to select the funniest - and what I believe to be the second-best - scene in the movie, it would have to be the one in which Sonny Burch and his men attempt to extract information from Luis using drugs, while Dave and Kurt looked on. That had to be the funniest scene in the movie and one of the funniest in the entire MCU franchise.

"ANT-MAN & THE WASP" also featured some pretty good action sequences. First and foremost was the San Francisco car chase mentioned in the previous paragraph. I thought director Peyton Reed did an excellent job in switching back and forth between the scenes that featured either Ant-Man or the Wasp and Luis during the sequence. Both Ant-Man and the Wasp's fight scenes with the Ghost struct me as entertaining and a little mind-blowing. At the same time, Reed and the film's special effects team did an excellent job in conveying how the Pym particles tech used by Ant-Man, the Wasp and Luis affected the chase sequence. This chase culminated in an excellent visual moment in which an enlarged Ant-Man rose through San Francisco Bay in order to get his hands on Hank's lab, which had been snatched by Sonny Burch. Truly a memorable moment. But my favorite sequence featured the Wasp's first-rate brawl with Sonny Burch's men inside a San Francisco restaurant, as she attempted to retrieve the money she and Hank had gathered to pay for a piece of equipment that Burch had refused to give her.

However, for a movie strong on comedy, it provided a good deal of emotional drama and pathos in the film. After all, at its heart, "ANT-MAN & THE WASP" is a family-dominated film. Just as I had earlier pointed out. The movie opened on an emotional note as audiences watched Hank and Janet say good-bye to a young Hope before embarking on that mission that would leave Janet lost in the Quantum Realm for the next three decades. Between Janet's communication to her family via Scott's body, the revelation of Ava's family tragedy and her current physical state and more importantly, Janet's actual reunion with Hank and Hope; the movie brimmed with some deep and very satisfying emotions. The one sequence that left me in tears proved to be the Pym-Van Dyne family reunion. Audiences did not learn, until the film's first post-credit scene that the events of "ANT-MAN & THE WASP" had occurred before and during the events of "THE AVENGERS: INFINITY WAR". And ironically, that last moment in which moviegoers discovered how Thanos' snap affected the character in this movie struck me as more tragic and effective than the ending of "INFINITY WAR". 

As much as I enjoyed "ANT-MAN & THE WASP", I cannot deny that it had flaws. For me, the film's main flaws stemmed from "CAPTAIN AMERICA: CIVIL WAR" and the Sokovia Accords. I have never liked the Sokovia Accords story arc. Not only did I find it questionable written, but not fully explored by the MCU after the 2016 movie - with the exception of early Season Four of "AGENTS OF S.H.I.E.L.D." and "ANT-MAN & THE WASP". My main problem with the Sokovia Accords is that the MCU writers do not seem to know the difference between an accord and a law. And since neither Scott, Hank or Hope had signed the document, I saw no reason why they should be affected. 

But apparently, after being rescued from the government's Raft by Steve Rogers aka Captain America; along with Clint Burton aka Hawkeye made a deal with the Federal courts and settled for two years of house arrest for violating the Accords. While being incarcerated inside the Raft, Scott had unintentionally revealed Hank's name, which led both Tony Stark aka Iron Man and Thaddeus Ross to recall that Hank Pym had created the Ant-Man suit. But when Scott made the deal, both Hank and Hope became wanted fugitives because Hank had not registered the Ant-Man suit. I have a lot of problems with this scenario. 

One, due to the bombing in Vienna, Austria; the Accords had not yet been ratified when Scott and Clint were first arrested. Two, Hank had first created the Ant-Man suit back in the 1980s and had been unaware of Scott's use of the suit in Berlin. After being freed by Steve, Scott had shrunken the suit and mailed it to his daughter Cassie, while declaring that it had been destroyed. If the suit was officially considered destroyed, why was Scott arrested anyway without the crucial evidence any prosecutor would need to convict him? Why were Hank and Hope declared as fugitives for failing to register a suit that officially no longer existed? Why did Hope become a wanted fugitive? The Feds remained unaware of the Wasp suit and her use of it. And she had played no role in the creation of the Ant-Man suit. Also, the writers did not need the Sokovia Accords as a reason for Scott to face conviction and house arrest. He had violated his parole when he left the country to help Steve, Sam Wilson aka the Falcon and the others. One day, I will write an article on why I regard the Sokovia Accords arc as the biggest pile of shit ever created by the Marvel Cinematic Universe (MCU). But I will add that the story arc made the narrative for "ANT-MAN & THE WASP" occasionally frustrating for me.

"ANT-MAN & THE WASP" suffered from one more flaw. The movie's villains did not strike me as particularly strong. As individual characters, both Sonny Burch and Ava Starr were interesting. They did not strike me as strong adversaries for this movie. Sonny was basically a slick capitalist who wanted to use Hank's technology to bolster his bank account. And his story arc was comedic at best. Although Ava provided plenty of strum and drang in the plot - including her threat to kidnap Cassie Lang and use her to convince Scott to hand over Hank's portable lab. But Ava's goal was fueled by anger at Hank for what happened to her father, and a desperate desire to use his quantum technology. By the end of the film, it took Janet to help stabilize her condition. Although I found both characters interesting, neither was another Darren Cross aka Yellowjacket, who had proven to be a more interesting and dangerous character to me. 

I certainly had no problems with the film's performances. Abby Ryder Fortson, Judy Greer and Bobby Cannavale gave solid performances as Scott's daughter Cassie Lang, his ex-wife Maggie Paxton and the latter's second husband, police officer Jim Paxton. Randall Park gave a funny and sly performance as F.B.I. Special Agent Jimmy Woo (who was a former S.H.I.E.L.D. agent), who happened to be Scott's parole officer. Laurence Fishburne proved to be both humorous and enduring as Dr. Bill Foster, Hank's former partner who became Ava's guardian following the deaths of her parents. Both Tip "T.I." Harris and David Dastmalchian were hilarious as Scott's friends and co-owners of the X-Con Security firm, Dave and Kurt. Once again, Michael Peña proved to be a comedic dream as Scott's closest friend, Luis, who proved to be the brainchild of X-Con Security. Harris, Dastmalchian and especially Peña were breathtakingly funny in one scene in which Luis found himself being interrogated by Sonny Burch after being injected with truth serum. That has to be, without a doubt, the funniest scene in any MCU movie I have ever watched.

Michelle Pfieffer was only seen in the film's pre-credit and post-credit scenes, along with at least fifteen minutes of the main narrative. And yet, being the first-rate actress that she is, managed to provide a very poignant performance as the missing Dr. Janet van Dyne aka the former Wasp. Due to the comedic elements of his character, Sonny Burch did not strike me as a particularly memorable villain. But I cannot deny that I found the character very entertaining, thanks to Walton Goggins' smooth and insidious performance that seemed to be punctuated with a good deal of sharp comedy. I have only seen Hannah John-Kamen in at least two other films - "TOMB RAIDER" and "READY PLAYER ONE". While I found her appearance in the latest Lara Croft film rather brief and unmemorable, I was very impressed by her intense performance as one of the villains in "READY PLAYER ONE". In "ANT-MAN & THE WASP", John-Kamen skillfully added a lace of desperation to her intense performance as Ava Starr who frantically tries to get her hands on Hank's quantum lab in order to save her life. 

After viewing "ANT-MAN & THE WASP", I think I was more impressed with Michael Douglas' portrayal of Dr. Hank Pym aka the former Ant-Man than I was in the 2015 film. This movie revealed just how emotionally volatile and annoying Hank Pym could be. Douglas did a superb job in exploring Hank's not-so-pleasant personality and at the same time, managed to make him still likable. Evangeline Lilly's portrayal of the film's leading lady Hope van Dyne aka the Wasp struck me as more relaxed in this film than in it was back in 2015. That is understandable, considering that Hope seemed to be in a better place emotionally in her relationship with her father and as the new Wasp. I also happily noticed that Lilly managed to give a more witty, relaxed and elegant performance. I also found her rather funny, thanks to scenes that featured her scenes with Scott at Cassie's school and Luis' drug-enhanced flashbacks during his interrogation by Burch. Paul Rudd was equally funny as the movie's leading man, Scott Lang aka Ant-Man. Rudd brought his usual charm and comic timing to the fore throughout the movie. But he also proved what a truly first-rate actor he can be - especially in one scene in which Janet's spirit took control of his body. He did an excellent job in recapturing Pfieffer's mannerisms and diction without being heavy-handed or obvious.

Overall, I enjoyed "ANT-MAN & THE WASP" very much. My only problems with the film was that it could have used a stronger villain and screenwriters used the Sokovia Accords as part of its narrative, when it was unnecessary. However, "ANT-MAN & THE WASP" featured some great direction by Peyton Reed, excellent performances by a cast led by Paul Rudd and Evangeline Lilly, a first-rate family comedy-drama and a very memorable and poignant post-credit scene.

"TOMB RAIDER" (2018) Review

"TOMB RAIDER" (2018) Review

Some seventeen years ago, Paramount Pictures released a movie called "TOMB RAIDER". It starred Angelina Jolie and it was based upon a popular video game of the same title. The success of this film led to sequel that was released two years. However, that was as far this film franchise went. For a while. Fifteen years after the second film, Warner Brothers, Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer and two smaller production companies released a reboot featuring actress Alicia Vikander. 

This new or "reboot" "TOMB RAIDER" was not based upon the 1996 video game, but the new 2013 game that reconstructed the origins of the franchise's heroine, Lara Croft. Major elements of this game was utilized by screenwriters Geneva Robertson-Dworet and Alastair Siddons for the movie's plot. In this reboot, Lara Croft makes a living as a bike courier in London, seven years after the disappearance of her archaeologist father, Lord Richard Croft. After Lara is arrested for a traffic incident with a police car, her father's partner, Ana Miller, encourages her to declare Lord Richard dead and claim her inheritance before the family's estate, Croft Manor, is sold. While examining her father's tomb, Lara discovers a pre-recorded message from him that details his research into Himiko, the mythical Queen of Yamatai. Richard also warns Lara to destroy all of his research, but Lara decides to further investigate his disappearance.

Lara's search for Richard leads her to Hong Kong, where she hires Lu Ren, the owner and captain of a ship called Endurance. Lu Ren turns out to be the son of the captain whom Lara's father had hired to take him to the Devil's Sea and the island of Yamatai, seven years earlier. The Endurance capsizes during a violent storm and both Lara and Lu Ren are washed ashore. The pair finds themselves taken prisoner and used as slave labor by one Mathias Vogel, the leader of an expedition to locate Himiko's tomb. The expedition has been funded by a shadowy organization called Trinity that seeks to harness and weaponize Himiko's power. 

"TOMB RAIDER" had received mixed reviews by film critics, but made a decent profit at the box office. Although the film made less money than Angelina Jolie's 2001 film, it made more money than the latter's 2003 sequel. Go figure. I will say this about this new "TOMB RAIDER" . . . it proved to be one of the most brutal action adventure films I have seen in recent years. One would not expect this after viewing the light-hearted "fox hunt" through London that led to Lara's arrest earlier in the film or her encounter with three thieves near Hong Kong Harbor. Once Lara and Lu Ren ended up on Yamatai, the movie became a narrative filled with brutal action as the pair and other Trinity slaves struggled to survive and escape their situation. This brutality was especially apparent in one sequence in which Lara managed to temporarily escape Vogel and his men, while one of the latter tracks her throughout the island.

Another aspect of "TOMB RAIDER" that I found particularly interesting is that its narrative seemed to be more or less coming-of-age story for the main protagonist. I found it odd that Lara was living in a small London flat, working as a bike carrier. At first, I assumed that her character had been revamped as a working-class woman, who would find herself swept into some adventure. But the revelation of her upper-class background, following her arrest, made me realize that Lara had been spending the previous seven years hiding from the heartache of her father's disappearance. Between her journey to the East and her adventures on Yamatai Island, Lara was forced to grow up and accept responsibility of her family inheritance. And in doing so, Lara discovered that the Trinity organization was not only owned by Croft Holdings, but also used its resources to find and weaponize supernatural artifacts . . . behind the backs of the Croft family. It was this discovery that led Lara to kick start her career as a "tomb raider".

However, the adventure on Yamatai Island and the search for Himiko's tomb led to what I regard as the film's one serious flaw. Although Queen Himiko was historically known as a shaman; Lara, Vogel and others discovered that the queen's body may or may not have held any magical properties. They discovered that the reason behind Himiko's sarcophagus being entombed in such an extreme manner was that the shaman/queen's body carried a disease so potent that mere physical contact triggered immediate bodily disintegration for some, and reduced others who are infected to an aggressive zombie-like state. Images around the tomb reveal that Himiko, who was a carrier and immune to the virus, had voluntarily traveled to the island and sacrificed herself to contain the virus. If I must be honest, I am a bit confused over whether Himiko's body had possessed a supernatural force or not. The video games, along with the two Jolie films, pretty made it clear that whatever artifact that Lara or the main villain sought had magical properties. I cannot say the same about Queen Himiko's body in this film. One scene featured Lara, Vogel and the others realizing that the queen's body had no magical properties. Yet, another scene featured one of Vogel's men disintegrating into dust and another becoming a zombie. I found the whole matter confusing.

Despite this problem, I enjoyed "TOMB RAIDER" and I enjoyed the performances featured in it. I confess that when I first learned that Alicia Vikander had been cast to portray Lara Croft . . . I just could not see it. I never saw the actress as the type to portray the protagonist in an action film. Thankfully, Ms. Vikander proved me wrong. She handled the actions scenes very well and I was also impressed by how she also conveyed Lara's character development.

Vikander also benefited from a talented supporting cast. Daniel Wu gave a charismatic performance as the Hong Kong sea captain Lu Ren, who conveyed Lara to Himiko Island. I was so impressed by his performance that I wish he had been in more scenes. Walton Goggins' portrayal as the villainous Mathias Vogel, who represented the Trinity organization. In fact, I found his Vogel to be a more interesting villain than the one he had portrayed in the recent Marvel film, "ANT-MAN & THE WASP". I also enjoyed Dominic West's performance as Lara's father, Lord Richard Croft. I thought he gave an excellent portrayal of the character's emotional journey throughout the film. The film also benefited from supporting performances from the likes of Kristin Scott-Thomas, a very funny Nick Frost and Jamie Winstone, Hannah John-Kamen, Emily Carey (who portrayed a younger Lara) and Derek Jacobi.

I am not going to pretend that "TOMB RAIDER" is a classic action-adventure film. But is it better than the two previous Lara Croft movies? I honestly do not know. My real complaint about the movie is that it seemed indecisive on whether the artifact that everyone sought was supernatural or not. "TOMB RAIDER" is not as stylized as the 2001 and 2003 films. But I do not consider this a bad thing. And if I must be honest, I was impressed by how director Roar Uthaug gave a brutal edge to the film's actions and Alicia Vikander's portrayal of Lara Croft. I may be unable to decide whether this film is better than the Jolie films, but I can state that I genuinely enjoyed it.

"ANT-MAN AND THE WASP" (2018) Photo Gallery

Below are images from "ANT-MAN AND THE WASP", the 2018 sequel to the 2015 Marvel Cinematic Universe (MCU) movie, "ANT-MAN". Directed by Peyton Reed, the movie stars Paul Rudd and Evangeline Lilly as Scott Lang aka Ant-Man and Hope Van Dyne aka the Wasp: 



"ANT-MAN AND THE WASP" (2018) Photo Gallery

"TOMB RAIDER" (2018) Photo Gallery

Below are images from "TOMB RAIDER", the adaptation of the new 2013 video game. Directed by Roar Uthaug, the movie stars Alicia Vikander as Lara Croft: 



"TOMB RAIDER" (2018) Photo Gallery