Paul Rudd is Ant-man.
Ant-Man ****
Short Take: A refreshingly light superhero movie with big heart and lots of laughs.
REEL TAKE: In the interest of full disclosure, I’m not the half of Reel Takes that usually reviews the superhero movies. The last comic book I read was an Archie comic some time in the 1970s. (I don’t even think I was particularly aware that ‘Ant-Man’ even existed.) On the occasion when I do review one, I tend to think they take themselves way too seriously. Rumor has it the ‘fan boys’ like that kind of thing.
Fortunately for me, Ant-Man is likely to disappoint the serious fan boys. This film benefits from and actually thrives on the merits of its charm and humor, thanks in large part to its lead actor, Paul Rudd. Whether the film’s light and breezy attitude is a plus or minus will depend on the viewer. For me, it was a definite asset.
I’d wager a guess that the style and tone of this film is due to director, Peyton Reed. This is not a name associated with Marvel Comic Universe and comic-con type fare. Reed is known better for things like Down With Love (a favorite of mine) and The Break Up. What Reed is able to achieve here is a stylish film with lots of visual effects and action, but a film where the visual effects and action sequences take a back seat to the story, the characters and the humor.
Interestingly, the writing team is a mix of the usual and the unusual. Edgar Wright and Stan Lee tow the Marvel Universe brand (with references to The Avengers throughout), while Adam McKay and Paul Rudd (of the Anchorman team) and Joe Cornish (of the Hot Fuzz and TinTin teams) round out the creative team behind the story.
Rudd plays Scott Lang, a high tech cat burglar with a Robin Hood sensibility (which of course makes us like him even more) who, at the start of the film, is just being released from prison. Unbeknownst to him, his last heist caught the attention of Dr. Hank Pym (Michael Douglas). Pym was the original Ant-man and he wants to keep the technology he created out of the hands of evil doers, which includes his former protege, Darren Cross. Lang, who can’t even hold down a job at Baskin Robins, needs a good gig so he can regain visitation rights with his daughter and payback child support.
Pym has a daughter too, only his is grown and has issues with her father that are a tad bigger than ant-size. Hope (Evangeline Lilly), resents her father for not letting her in on his secretive work and not leveling with her about the death of her mother when she was just a girl. She has since aligned herself with Cross, but we must not lose hope.
Unlike Batman fighting for Gotham or Superman fighting for Metropolis, Lang and Pym are fighting for their daughters. Perhaps it’s little details like this that make it such a warm film. The film, story and central characters all have universal appeal; after all, every man is going to fight for his little girl.
I’d be remiss if I didn’t cite Michael Pena in the supporting cast as a definite stand out. He plays one Lang’s ex-con friends. He’s a wine-loving, art-loving, waffle-making thief who’s greatest gift is relaying a story. The way the filmmakers have Pena tell the stories is a stroke of genius and is one of the ways this film shines.
If you see Ant-Man, stay for the end credits. Suffice it to say Ant-Man will return and it’ll be a whole lot of fun. DC Comics can keep going dark (for the fan boys), but for my money, the Marvel Comics Universe is benefiting from the light.
Rated PG-13 for sci-fi action violence.
Review by Michelle Keenan
Mr. Holmes *****
Short Take: This unique look at one of literature’s most beloved characters is outstanding in every way. From all of the performances to the look, sound, and feel of the film, Mr. Holmes is extraordinary.
Reel Take: As is evident from the opening Short Take, I really, really liked this film. Some of that has to do with the fact that I love Sherlock Holmes. Some of it has to do with the fact that the vast majority of the other movies that I have seen this year aren’t in the same league as this one. Most of it, though, has to do with the fact that Mr. Holmes is simply a remarkable movie.
Director Bill Condon, who used Ian McKellan to great effect in his earlier Gods and Monsters (1998), is back at the top of his game after being lucratively sidetracked by the Twilight series. Working with Ian McKellan again doesn’t hurt either and neither does making Sherlock Holmes the focus of the film.
Just as Gods and Monsters is a re-imagining of the final days of British director James Whale (he made the first two Frankenstein films with Boris Karloff among others), Mr. Holmes takes the fictional character of Holmes and gives him a third act. Holmes is now 93 and living in Sussex where he keeps his bees and is slowly losing his memory.
The year is 1947 and the young son of Holmes’ housekeeper (Milo Parker in a wonderful performance) wants to know why Holmes gave up being a private detective. Holmes is trying to write it down but his failing memory won’t allow him to recall what really happened. Slowly and painfully he does remember and this results in a remarkable discovery about himself and about Dr. Watson.
To say anymore about the story would be giving too much away but once the plot kicks in the movie keeps you interested until the final revelation. But there is so much to savor than just the plot. The performances, in addition to McKellan and Parker, are uniformly fine down to the smallest bit part. Laura Linney does a terrific job as Holmes’ widowed British housekeeper who tries to stay connected to her son as he begins to fall under the spell of who Holmes is and what he does.
The film jumps back and forth in time allowing Condon and his technicians to recreate different worlds and to keep the audience consistently engaged. One of the settings is post atomic bomb Hiroshima which gives us a provocative glimpse of what really happened there. Like any good story (especially a mystery) the more that gets revealed the more intriguing the film becomes. The case that brought about his retirement takes place in 1919 so that Holmes is trying to recall something that happened almost 30 years before
While I found every aspect of this remarkable production beyond reproach, special mention should be made of the make-up job done on Ian McKellan. This is, unquestionably, the finest, the most natural old age make-up I have ever seen. These days old age make-up is often overdone just as in decades past it was underdone but this one looks just right aided immeasurably by McKellan’s spot on performance.
I don’t often say this, in fact I NEVER say this but Mr. Holmes is a movie that every discerning moviegoer should see. Of course it won’t play to The Avengers crowd but that’s fine. There’s more than enough material out there for them. If you enjoy quality moviemaking of the kind rarely seen today then you owe it to yourself (and to the movie) to see Mr. Holmes. Heck, you don’t even have to be a Holmes fan to enjoy it.
Rated PG(!) for thematic elements and some disturbing images.
Review by Chip Kaufmann
Self / less ****
Short Take: The latest updating of the old mind transfer plotline benefits from being slickly made and from the solid performances of Ryan Reynolds, Matthew Goode, & Natalie Martinez.
Reel Take: The idea of transferring one’s mind / personality into another body is a very old one. Discounting possession which is a whole other genre, there are a number of cinematic versions starting much further back then you might imagine. A Florida Enchantment, starring stage actor Sidney Drew (John Barrymore’s uncle and Drew Barrymore’s namesake), dates from 1914 and involves a wife and husband trading places. In the mid 1930s when mad scientists were all the rage, Boris Karloff made a British film aptly titled The Man Who Changed His Mind.
Then there’s the inversion of the theme where the mind transfer is played for laughs as in the low budget Bowery Boys Meet the Monsters (1954) to both versions of Freaky Friday (1976, 2003) and more recently 2011’s The Change-Up which also happened to star Ryan Reynolds. I give you all this background so that you can see how long the idea has been around and how hard it must be to come up with another version that’s compelling, well made, and worth sitting through but Self / less manages to succeed on almost every level.
It has been getting almost universally negative reviews and after reading many of them I know why. The movie that it resembles most closely on the surface is John Frankenheimer’s 1966 nightmare thriller Seconds with Rock Hudson. The basic plot lines are very similar. Older man is given the chance to start a new life by having his mind transferred into a young and healthy new body. In Seconds the protagonist is turned into Rock Hudson through surgery while Ryan Reynolds body is already there waiting to be occupied.
The problem for most critics seems to lie in the tone of the movie. Seconds is dark and relentlessly downbeat. It also has style to burn especially in its cinematography. Director Tarsem Singh, who in earlier movies like The Fall showed himself to be a major stylist, tells Self / less in a much more straightforward matter. It is also much more upbeat in its tone and in its ending although there is a wonderfully poignant moment near the end.
Wealthy capitalist Damien Hale (Ben Kingsley) is dying of cancer. His partner (Victor Garber) refers him to a secret organization that promises him a new body through a process known as “shedding”. His mind and personality will be the same only it will be housed in a healthy, young body (Ryan Reynolds) created in a laboratory. The man behind this project is a Professor Albright (Matthew Goode) who fulfills his end of the bargain but with the proviso that Damian, now called Edward, must stay on special medication.
Without the medication Damien begins to have flashbacks and realizes that he was once another person whose personality is being eliminated so that Damian can have his body. He has to piece his past together with the help of the wife (Natalie Martinez) of the original personality, a soldier named Mark. His soldierly skills come in handy as he must now take on Albright and his shadowy organization to keep Mark’s wife and young daughter from being killed.
Singh strikes a nice balance between the personal drama and the action scenes which makes Self / less ideal middle-of-the-road / popcorn entertainment. Critics who wanted more are missing the point. This isn’t a remake / reboot of Seconds and thank God for that. One of those is enough. The young audience I saw the film with left the theater having been royally entertained. For most movies (and some critics) that should be enough.
Rated PG-13 for sequences of violence, some sexuality, and language.
Review by Chip Kaufmann
Trainwreck ***
Short Take: A rom-com about a dysfunctional woman, raised to believe monogamy is unrealistic, who finds a guy great enough to tempt to her to give up one-night stands and booze addled days.
REEL TAKE: Interestingly, both of the films I review this month actually mock their genres. But while Ant-Man mocks its own genre, it also contributes to the sphere of super hero, sci-fi action. I’m not quite so sure the same can be said of Trainwreck. Written by the ‘It’ girl of comedy right now, Amy Schumer (Comedy Central’s Inside Amy Schumer), and directed by Judd Apatow (40 Year Old Virgin and Knocked Up), the story rakes the rom-com genre through the one-night stand gutter and hangover hell, and then does a total 180, becoming a contrived example of the genre it’s actually insulting.
Trainwreck centers around an exaggerated version of Schumer’s stage persona. Amy is a young singleton in New York City named Amy. She’s wasting her talents writing for a sexist men’s magazine. She has a penchant for f#$@ing, drinking and getting stoned. I don’t think of myself as a prude, but after a few minutes of getting to know her character I thought, “She needs a sponsor, daily meetings and a few rounds of penicillin.” But hey, who needs that when love blooms with promises of redemption and happily ever after with a sweet doctor, played by Bill Hader.
The funniest scene in the movie is the first scene, a flashback to young Amy’s childhood on the day her parents split and her father (played by Colin Quinn) tries to explain the break up by rationalizing his infidelities. This scene sets the stage for why Amy is the way she is. Then, flash forward to modern day; her father is suffering from MS, living in a nursing home, and he’s simply a horrible person (hilarious but horrid). It’s hard to understand why this woman wouldn’t break away from his ways.
There are some genuinely laugh-out-loud funny moments in the film, some of which (very surprisingly) include NBA great, LeBron James, and wrestling pro, John Cena. But for me, Amy’s prolonged troubles derail everything good that’s happening in the movie. Her road to redemption is a little too much, a little too late.
I may be off on this, but I also just didn’t sense any chemistry between Schumer and Hader, and without that it was really hard to see what this guy would have ever seen in her. With the exception of a couple of scenes (which he didn’t share with Schumer), Hader was sadly under-utilized.
Ultimately Schumer undermines her own brand of humor with the type of contrived, formulaic rom-com ending she seemed so hell bent on mocking. Millenials, fans of Inside Amy Schumer and This is 40 may weigh in more favorably on Trainwreck. For the rest of us, it’s hit or miss.
Rated R for strong sexual content, nudity, language and some drug use.
Review by Michelle Keenan