Ant-Man and the Wasp (2018): based on characters created by Jack Kirby, Stan Lee, and others; written by Chris McKenna, Erik Sommers, Paul Rudd, Andrew Barrer, and Gabriel Ferrari; directed by Peyton Reed; starring Paul Rudd (Scott Lang/Ant-Man), Evangeline Lilly (Hope Pym/The Wasp), Michael Pena (Luis), Michael Douglas (Original Ant-Man/Hank Pym), Laurence Fishburne (Bill Foster/Goliath), Michelle Pfeiffer (Original Wasp/Janet Van Dyne), and Hannah John-Kamen (Ava/Ghost):
Genial sequel to Ant-Man gives Evangeline Lilly's Wasp the first titular mention of a female superhero in the Marvel Cinematic Universe. Actually, it's a two-fer. Michelle Pfeiffer, playing Lilly's mother, was the first Wasp just as Michael Douglas was the first Ant-Man. And hey, the hero called Black Goliath in the 1970's comics, played here by Laurence Fishburne, also appears without the superhero name that had that adjective because that's how we did it with non-white superheroes in the 1960's and 1970's!
At about 105 minutes, this breezy caper-comedy of cosmic dimensions would be about perfect. It's 15 minutes too much, pretty much all of it devoted to a plot thread starring Walton Goggins as an annoying super-tech black-marketeer. I guess if it were the seventies, he'd be Black Marketeer, but only if he were played by Jim Brown.
The stakes are personal in this movie, a nice change from the universal stakes of the last Marvel Joint, Avengers: Infinity War. Michael Douglas wants to save Michelle Pfeiffer from The Quantum Realm. Paul Rudd just wants to make it through his house arrest for being a superhero in contravention of the Sokovia Accords so that he can have fun with his daughter and stuff somewhere other than his house. The deftly, hilariously used Michael Pena just wants to get the new security firm he and Rudd are running into the black. Ant-Man's daughter wants him to embrace his superherodom. Superheroness? Whatever.
So there's lots of shrinking and growing action. Ant-Man spends about as much time being Giant-Man as he does Ant-Man. Oddly, the Wasp never grows. If she does, does her superhero moniker change to the Hornet?
Walton Goggins, though, and his crew. Phew. Killjoys' Hannah John-Kamen plays Ghost, a villain who really isn't a villain because she's trying to cure herself of a bad case of reality cancer. The real villain is... who again? A rogue agent of some kind, in it for the money. There's some cosmic trippiness in the Quantum Realm. Michelle Pfeiffer looks great. Certain things seem to be set up for Avengers: Infinity War, as I assume Ant-Man will get to participate in that superhero slugfest. Here, Peyton Reed keeps things light and semi-jokey. There are zingers that are actually funny. And Pena gets an extended monologue in the same style as the first Ant-Man, and it's hilarious.
So too his (true!) observation that "Latinos love The Mozz!" The Mozz is Morrissey, formerly of The Smiths, btw, and Latinos and Latinas really do love him, though not for The Mozz's increasingly xenophobic politics.
The ants continue to squeak and vocalize, which is impressive for creatures without lungs who communicate through smell. Nitpicking the science in this movie is pointless, unless you want to note that shrinking into the Quantum Realm while keeping one's mass would eventually cause a hero to turn into a miniature black hole. Where the Hell does the mass come and go from with these crazy Pym Particles? And can you make a Pimm's Cocktail with Pym Particles? I'm asking for a friend. Recommended.
The Game: written by John Brancato and Michael Ferris; directed by David Fincher; starring Michael Douglas (Nicholas Van Orton), Sean Penn (Conrad Van Orton), Deborah Kara Unger (Christine), James Rebhorn (Jim Feingold), Peter Donat (Samuel Sutherland), and Carroll Baker (Ilsa) (1997): A twisty and enjoyable 'What's reality?' plot derails towards the end for reasons I'll leave to you to discover. Still, it's fun getting there in what was director David Fincher's third feature film (after Alien 3 and Se7en). Michael Douglas is suitably flustered, though the character's anti-social tendencies and rigidity needed more development at the beginning to make the the ending work the way it seems to have been intended to work. This initial softening of the character helps make an improbable ending almost intolerable. Lightly recommended.
Hector and the Search for Happiness: adapted from the Francois Lelord novel by Maria von Heland, Peter Chelsom, and Tinker Lindsay; directed by Peter Chelsom; starring Simon Pegg (Hector), Rosamund Pike (Clara), Jean Reno (Diego Baresco), Ming Zhao (Ying Li), Christopher Plummer (Professor Coreman), Stellan Skarsgard (Edward), and Toni Collette (Agnes) (2014): Well, the whole thing is a bit gooey. Or perhaps mushy. But Simon Pegg is Simon Pegg, and much of the writing in this picaresque film is light enough to keep things from bogging down in First-World Problems.
The cast is first-rate throughout, though Pegg's character is somewhat unbelievable as a psychiatrist: just imagine he's the comic-book-shop employee/comic-book illustrator he played on Spaced and the whole movie makes way more sense. Funded by what seems to be about nineteen different countries, supplied with an international cast, and seemingly only released to about three theatres, the film almost seems to have been some sort of tax shelter scam. Oh, well. Recommended.
Unstoppable: written by Mark Bomback; directed by Tony Scott; starring Denzel Washington (Frank), Chris Pine (Will), Rosario Dawson (Connie), Ethan Suplee (Dewey), Kevin Dunn (Galvin), Kevin Corrigan (Werner), Kevin Chapman (Bunny), and T.J. Miller (Gilleece) (2010): Denzel Washington and the new Captain Kirk strive to stop a runaway train from blowing up half of Pennsylvania. This film was indeed inspired by real-life events which are crazy enough -- both reality and film involve a train on the same tracks chasing down the crewless runaway. The movie pumps things up with helicopters, explosions, and domestic drama for Captain Nu-Kirk.
Still, the late Tony Scott was in his wheelhouse for this action/chase movie. He keeps things tight and tense, brings the movie in under 100 minutes, and supplies the viewer with enough train technobabble and real-world stunts to make the whole thing an engaging, old-school diversion. One could imagine this movie being made almost verbatim in the 1950's, albeit with Humphrey Bogart in the Denzel Washington role and John Derek in Chris Pine's position. The supporting cast is surprisingly deep and well-served by the movie, with Rosario Dawson as a female lead who isn't required to fall in love with either of the male leads. I guess that's progress. Recommended.
Last Vegas: written by Dan Fogelman; directed by Jon Turteltaub; starring Michael Douglas (Billy), Robert De Niro (Paddy), Morgan Freeman (Archie), Kevin Kline (Sam), and Mary Steenburgen (Diana) (2013): Relatively enjoyable, fairly tame senior-citizens' version of The Hangover gets aided by its top-notch cast. A number of scenes play like ads for Las Vegas, LMFAO, and Red Bull (to name three of the most blatant). Coming off cancer surgery, Michael Douglas looks haggard and about a decade older than everyone else in the cast. Lightly recommended.
Stardust: adapted by Matthew Vaughn and Jane Goldman from the novel by Neil Gaiman and Charles Vess; directed by Matthew Vaughn; starring Charlie Cox (Tristan), Claire Danes (Yvaine), Mark Strong (Septimus), Michelle Pfeiffer (Lamia), Robert De Niro (Captain Shakespeare), and Kate Magowan (Una) (2007): Somewhat loose adaptation of the Neil Gaiman novel originally and heavily illustrated by the great Charles Vess is a real charmer for those people looking for something to watch after watching The Princess Bride for the fiftieth time.
The cast is strong, and given enough decent lines and character bits to keep everything percolating in what may be a slightly too-long film. Michelle Pfeiffer is terrific as the arch-witch Lamia. Several transition scenes involving walking and riding are photographed pretty much exactly as these things are done in Peter Jackson's Tolkien movies, possibly in the hopes of tricking some people into thinking they're at a Lord of the Rings movie. The score also comes pretty close to Horner's LOTR score at points. I do wonder whether these things were done at studio insistence -- certainly the majority of the movie is lighter and cleverer than Jackson's Middle Earth. Recommended.
The Fisher King: written by Richard LaGravenese; directed by Terry Gilliam; starring Jeff Bridges (Jack), Mercedes Ruehl (Anne), Robin Williams (Parry), Amanda Plummer (Lydia), Michael Jeter (Unnamed), Tom Waits (Uncredited) (1991): Gilliam and LaGravenese's urban fantasy offers a sometimes sarcastic love letter to New York. Bridges, Ruehl, Williams, and Plummer all do terrific work, though only Ruehl (deservedly) won an Oscar.
Seen now, The Fisher King is a document of a much dirtier New York, one that hadn't yet had Times Square turned into a food court at Disneyland. Williams manages to modulate manic and melancholy as he did in few other movies, and Bridges is his usual Jeff Bridges self, making the acting appear too effortless and invisible for him to be recognized for how good it always is. He's probably the perfect fit for the role of a vain, self-centred, but potentially decent talk-radio shock-jock: he may be handsome, but he's not afraid to look awful in a variety of ways.
This is probably Gilliam's biggest commercial success (along with 12 Monkeys). He tones down his weirdness without ever losing it -- his vision of New York suggests the medieval at the right points, and not the shiny medieval, but the crap-covered ground-level world we laughed at in Monty Python and the Holy Grail. It isn't Gilliam's best film, but it's certainly his sunniest. Highly recommended.
Behind the Candelabra: adapted by Richard LaGravenese from the non-fiction book by Alex Thorleifson and Scott Thorson; directed by Steven Soderbergh; starring Matt Damon (Scott Thorson), Michael Douglas (Liberace), Rob Lowe (Dr. Jack Startz), Dan Aykroyd (Seymour Heller), Scott Bakula (Bob Black) and Debbie Reynolds (Frances Liberace) (2013): Enjoyable but slight HBO outing by Soderbergh which features a fairly stunning bit of acting by Michael Douglas as Liberace. Soderbergh says he couldn't get funding for this picture from movie studios because it was too gay, hence its production by HBO.
But as even I only vaguely remember Liberace as a performer, probably from The Muppet Show in the 1970's, I wonder if the studio redlight on this production was also a result of executives wondering if anyone in the younger movie-going populace would have the faintest idea who Michael Douglas was playing. Brokeback Mountain this isn't. The love story here is pretty creepy, as Liberace gets Thorson to undergo plastic surgery so as to look more like a young Liberace. Eww.
Douglas pretty much nails Liberace's voice, though the pitch is a bit lower than I remember it. Damon is perfectly adequate as Liberace's late-in-life love Scott Thorson, whose book the movie is based on. I'm not sure why Soderbergh didn't do more with lighting values, as he's done on so many other films: this seems like a movie that needs to look much more stylized, but except for a few oversaturated scenes, it's actually about as conventionally photographed and edited as a movie of the week. As the film's major intertext is Sunset Blvd., black-and-white photography might have been nice. But I think we're supposed to feel much more sympathy for Liberace than we do for Norma Desmond, and I can't say as I felt it. It's like being asked to feel sorry for a Dick Tracy villain.
Rob Lowe, though. Holy Moley! His plastic surgeon character actually looked worse than the filmmakers have Lowe made up here. He looks like he got caught in a face-stretching machine from Brazil or possibly Star Trek: Insurrection. In any case, I'd guess that Douglas is a mortal lock for a least a best acting nomination in next year's Emmys. Recommended.
