“Do you guys put the word quantum in front of everything?”
That’s the question Paul Rudd, playing Scott Lang / Ant-Man, asks in the new Marvel movie “Ant-Man and The Wasp.” Having seen the film I wonder why he didn’t speak up earlier, like when the screenwriters were scribbling about quantum physics, quantum realm, quantum void, quantum this and quantum that. These movies are supposed to be about a smart alecy guy who can shrink himself down to the size of an ant to solve crimes, not the Heisenberg principle.
The movie begins as Lang has just three days left on his house arrest following the events of “Captain America: Civil War.” Trapped in his apartment he has a strange dream. He sees Janet van Dyne (Michelle Pfeiffer), wife of scientist Hank Pym (Michael Douglas), mother of Lilly van Dyne a.k.a. Wasp (Evangeline Lilly), trapped in the quantum wormhole she disappeared into three decades before. Meanwhile Hank and Lilly are perfecting a method to rescue their loved one from the quantum hike she now calls home. Trouble is, they can’t do it alone. They need any information that may be trapped in Rudd’s head and money from a grubby bad guy. Time is of the essence as Ghost (Hannah John-Kamen), a spectral presence who can walk through walls, also seeks out Janet’s quantum power to heal her cellular disorder.
From the kitschy sounding title to the size-shifting characters to the scientific mumbo jumbo that takes up much of the screen time, “Ant-Man and The Wasp” is a throwback to drive-in movies of the 1950s. It’s been updated with better special effects and more authentic sounding science jargon, but make no mistake, for better and for worse, this has just as much in common with flickers like “Attack of the 50 Foot Woman” and “Them!” as it does with the Avengers. Like the 50s b-movies that were undoubtedly an influence, this is a loud-n-proud genre film but like many of the Avengers films that are part of the Ant-Man family, it is marred by excess. Too many characters, too many story shards—a rescue mission, two sets of baddies chasing down the quantum technology, a romantic subplot, a family film angle—too much exposition to much quantum theory.
There is a funny scene about an hour into the movie where Michael Peña, playing Lang’s former cellmate and current business partner, recaps the story so far. It takes two minutes, is laugh-out-loud funny and completely negates the need for much of the exposition—people in this movie love to ask things like, “What have you done?”—that comes before it. Move that to the beginning of the film and they could have saved pages of dialogue and juiced up the film’s fun factor by at least fifty percent.
“Ant-Man and The Wasp” does plough some new ground—it is the first time a female superhero’s name is in the title of an MCU film—but feels scattershot in its execution.
Richard sits in on the CJAD Montreal morning show guest host Ken Connors to talk about the small scale superheroes “Ant-Man and the Wasp,” the Christopher Plummer road trip “Boundaries,” the father and daughter drama “Leave No Trace” and the love letter to one of Manhattan’s great hotels, “Always at the Carlyle.”
Richard sits in with CTV NewsChannel anchor Marcia MacMillan to have a look at the Pixar film “Coco,” the Vietnam reunion movie “Last Flag Flying” and the festive flick “The Man Who Invented Christmas.”
Director Richard Linklater makes films that are more interested in presenting slices of life than delving deep into story. Beautiful romantic character studies like “Before Sunrise,” or coming-of-age stories like “Boyhood” or nostalgic throwbacks like “Everybody Wants Some,” get under the skins of the people who populate them, making us care about them not just their stories. His latest, “Last Flag Flying,” fits into this mould but doesn’t have the sense of connection that makes the other films feel so memorable.
The year is 2003. Former Marine Sal Nealon (Bryan Cranston) is a Virginia bar owner with a metal plate in his head and a motor mouth. When his old Vietnam buddy Larry ‘Doc’ Shepherd (Steve Carell) shows up at the bar the two haven’t seen one another for decades, since Doc earned a Bad Conduct Discharge and was thrown into the brig for two years.
Turns out Doc isn’t just making a social call. He’s there to put the gang back together, including former badass Mueller (Laurence Fishburne), now a God fearing preacher who prefers to be called Reverend Richard. He’s leaning on his old friends in a time of grief. He would like his old buddies to accompany him to his son’s funeral. Larry was told the young man died a hero in Bagdad and will be buried with full honours at Arlington but when they arrive to view the body the father discovers a different story. It’s then he makes a profound decision. “I’m not going to bury a marine,” he says, “I’m just going to bury my son.” The old friends take the body and embark on a forlorn road trip back to Larry’s New Hampshire home for a civilian funeral.
“Last Flag Flying” is a talky affair about the passing of time, loss and disillusionment that glows with occasional moments of aching poignancy but too often feels adrift. Gifted as the leads are, they never truly bring Sal, Larry and Mueller off the page. Each man is a walking cliché, almost crushed by the weight of the heavy-handed and often overwritten script. Sombre and sentimental, it is, unlike Linklater’s other films, also largely forgettable.
This weekend one of the most multipurpose and enduring movie stars of the past 30 years returns to the screen. Kevin Spacey? No.
Daniel Day-Lewis? Na’ah. Gary Oldman? Nyet. It’s Keanu Reeves.
Wait! Isn’t he the guy critics love to hate? That Reelviews said was, “an actor of exceptionally limited scope” just as the Daily Mail called his performance in Constantine an “impersonation of a sleep-walking plank”?
Yes, one in the same. He’s The Matrix’s Neo, the Ted of Bill & Ted’s Excellent Adventure and Point Break’s Johnny Utah.
This weekend he’s the title character in John Wick: Chapter 2, a down-and-dirty noir and follow up to the original 2014 hit.
The actor’s latest incarnation represents another reinvention in a career spent keeping audiences guessing. He’s gone on existential journeys, wooed Diane Keaton and played a peaceful extraterrestrial ambassador but Wicks is something else again.
The Wick movies are set in an alternative world of assassins where hit men and women are paid in special coins, stay in exclusive hotels — with killer views no doubt — and speak in a strangely formal way.
They see themselves as professionals with a civilized code of conduct… except that there is nothing civilized about the work they do. In the first film Wick was an assassin so tough he didn’t bother to take off his gore-soaked shirt when beginning his bloody quest for vengeance.
John Wick, the movies and the character are blunt, über macho instruments, brought to life by Reeves in a performance that cripples the argument Today.com made that he is simply a “reciter of dialogue.” First of all there is very little dialogue.
The opening 15 minutes of the first film is essentially a silent movie kept interesting by Reeves’s action hero charisma.
Unlike Meryl Streep he can’t do accents and he doesn’t have the range of some of his former co-stars like Oldman but what he does have is presence.
At his best Keanu understands how to be on screen. Author Bret Easton Ellis said that Reeves “is always hypnotic to watch,” and what is a movie star if not someone you can’t take your eyes off?
The Wick movies cap a busy and unpredictable time for the actor. After Speed and The Matrix he could have stuck to action films and made a career running, jumping and kicking people. Instead he diversified, jumping from romances like Sweet November to crime dramas like The Watcher to The Replacements, a sports comedy.
From studio movies to indies he is unpredictable in his choices, defying expectations. Take his erotic horror thriller Knock Knock for instance. He plays a man held captive in his own home by three female home invaders. It’s not a remarkable movie — I called it “deeply unpleasant” in my review — but what makes it interesting is Keanu’s character’s complete inability to protect himself. Most A-listers wouldn’t allow themselves to be portrayed as such easy prey, but Keanu relishes the chance to upend our view of him.
For sure Reeves has made some bad movies and even been bad in some movies but that sometimes happens when actors don’t play by the rules.
In John Wick, the character not the incredibly violent movies that bear his name, Keanu Reeves has found the pure essence of, for lack of a better word, Keanuness. Reeves has never been the most expressive actor, his appeal is physical and metaphysical. He can run, jump, shoot and punch with the best of them—that’s the physical part—but at the crux of his performances is a certain otherworldliness that makes him seem slightly detached from it all. He found the right balance in “the Matrix” and again in “John Wick: Chapter 2.”
The Wick movies are set an alternative world of assassins where hit men and women are paid in special coins, stay in exclusive hotels—with killer views no doubt—and speak in a strangely formal way. They see themselves as professionals with a civilized code of conduct… except that there is nothing civilized about the work they do. In the first film Wick was an assassin so tough he didn’t bother to take off his gore-soaked shirt when beginning his bloody quest for vengeance.
The new film picks up shortly after the events of the first. Wick wants a simpler life, away from the violence that has been his business. His retirement plan is disrupted when a former colleague, Santino (Riccardo Scamarcio), asks a favour. Actually, it’s more than a favour, it’s a marker, a promise to repay a debt, and Santino takes it very seriously. Santino’s request is an insidious one; kill my sister so I can take her place on the crime High Table.
“I’m not that guy anymore,” says John. “You are always that guy,” sneers Santino.
Rebuffed, Santino blows up John’s house. To put an end to the impending war Wick agrees to the job. His home a smoldering pile of ash, Wick re-enters his old world. A visit to the gun sommelier—“Can you suggest something big and bold for the end of the night?” he asks.—to a tailor who makes suits lined with tactical fabric and he is ready to square his debt.
(MILD SPOILER) Wick’s plan to return to a quiet life after the job is thwarted by a single phone call. “What kind of man would I be if I didn’t avenge my sister’s murder?” asks Santino. Cue a showdown with bad people with a seemingly endless amount of henchmen for John Wick to kill.
“John Wicks” created a wild world for its characters to inhabit that is unlike anything that came before. The second visit is almost as engaging. Much humour is found between the gunfights as these ruthless killers behave in a courtly way when not trying to bash one another’s brains out. It’s funny, but know this, it also very violent. Wick is a sentimental guy—this whole journey began when someone did something terrible to his beloved dog—but that doesn’t stop him from offing upwards of 140 people in the two hour running time. Much of the violence is goofy but tinged with hardcore Old Testament wrath.
As the man so mysterious he doesn’t even give his new dog a name, Reeves is in his element. It’s pure Keanu, a physical performance with very little dialogue. Think of him as a silent movie action star, an actor who transcends dialogue with sheer charisma. Like him or not, the guy understands how to be on camera, especially when he’s in motion, causing carnage.
Populating Wick’s world are a host of colourful characters brought to vivid life by Laurence Fishburne as the underworld boss of lower Manhattan, Ian McShane as Winston, the man who enforces the rules in the assassin’s twisted world, Common as a gin sipping security boss and Ruby Rose as a deadly and deaf killer.
As a sequel “John Wick: Chapter 2” hits all the right notes. It’s a tad too long but fans of the original will be reminded of why they fell in love with John Wick in the first place.
Richard sits in with Erin Paul to have a look at the special Wednesday releases, “Passengers” with Jennifer Lawrence and Chris Pratt, the videogame flick “Assassin’s Creed” with Micheal Fassbender and the animated sing-a-long “Sing.”
Like “Every Breath You Take,” the wedding band standard Police tune from 1983, the new film “Passengers,” depending on your point of view, is either an ode to romantic love or the story of an obsessed stalker.
The action takes place aboard the Avalon, a massive spaceship on a 120 year mission to deliver 5,259 people to Homestead II. All passengers are asleep, suspended in time until they arrive on the planet colony. “Don’t get homesick! Get Homestead!”
Among the travellers is Jim Preston (Pratt), an engineer anxious to start a new life in a new world. His deep slumber is interrupted when an asteroid slams the Avalon, waking him up ninety years too early.
Alone, save for android bartender Arthur (Michael Sheen), Jim is at loose ends. After a year drifting around the empty ship on an extended, lonely boys night out—he boozes-it-up, eats whatever he wants, plays video games and doesn’t shave—Jim becomes convinced he will die in a spacy solitary confinement long before the ship arrives at its destination. To alleviate his loneliness he goes about choosing a mate to pass the time. After some research he settles on Aurora Lane (Jennifer Lawrence), a pretty journalist from New York City. “Say you figured out how to make your life a million times better,” he asks, “but it was wrong. What would you do?”
That is the big quest=ion at the heart of “Passengers.” Is Jim a hopeless romantic looking for love or a stalker who plucked Aurora out of her safe bubble to essentially hand her a death sentence? Answer that question to gauge your “Passengers” enjoyment level.
“Passengers” could easily have played as a horror film. Imagine a different cast, the loneliness of space and a little less romance and you would have a perfectly creepy vehicle for Ben Foster. Instead we have a strappingly handsome presence in Chris Pratt who is does, to be fair, seem conflicted about what to do and later sorry for what he did. He’s a charismatic and likeable star and that is supposed to make it OK that he makes life and death decisions for her without first asking for consent.
Add to that some epic scale special effects—a gravity free swimming pool and a misfiring nuclear reactor—and you have one of the strangest movies of the year. It should work. Individually Pratt and Lawrence are spark plugs; unfortunately no sparks fly between them on screen. Each are reliable, amiable additions to almost any other movie, but here they fall flat failing to draw the audience into their strange new world.
The film is at it’s best when Pratt is prattling around the snip on his own, having trite conversations with Arthur. Sheen is wonderfully perfunctory as the android who (almost) always has the right thing to say and the sense of boredom and growing ennui that arises is effectively portrayed. It’s the misguided “romance” that comes afterwards that doesn’t seem to fit. Lawrence, the very model of grrrl power in the “Hunger Games” movies, allows herself to be relegated to the fantasy girl role here, inexplicitly easing Jim’s guilt when the movie runs out of ways to have the pair interact.
“Passengers” desperately wants to be a feel good romance but never quite gets there. A few tweaks could have turned it into a creepy look at Jim’s desperation or an amusing film about technology gone wrong—imagine if Hal from 2001 was an automated customer service attendant—but instead its done in by the story’s sexist undercurrent.
Canadians who were still digging themselves out of winter’s bounty in late April might feel a bit better after seeing “The Colony,” a new sci fi thriller starring Laurence Fishburne, Kevin Zegers and Bill Paxton. “The truth is,” we’re told by way of narration, “one day it started to snow and it never stopped.”
The movie takes place in a modern ice age. Survivors found refuge from the ice and snow far underground in places like Colony 7, a community run with an iron fist by former military man Briggs (Fishburne). The colony is divided along red / blue state lines—the liberal approach to governing from Briggs, versus a more practical reality espoused by Mason (Paxton), a gun touting enforcer whose catchphrase is, “We need to be tougher!”
The underground ecosystem is fragile at best. “It’s not the cold we need to worry about, it’s each other,” says Sam (Zegers).
An uneasy truce between Briggs and Mason holds until a routine call to Colony 5 goes unanswered. Briggs takes a two-man team—Sam and Graydon (Atticus Dean Mitchell)—to truck across the blustery tundra to investigate. While they’re gone things at Colony 7 go all “Lord of the Flies,” but it’s an even worse situation at Colony 5.
“The Colony” makes good use of the situation to build atmosphere and tension by using the icy outside and the claustrophobic interiors (it was shot at the decommissioned North American Aerospace Defense Command base in North Bay, Ontario) to good advantage. Shadows and creepy sounds stand-in for elaborate special effects, but when the going gets bloody old school nasty action effects—like a bisected bad guy skull—are effective and cringe inducing.
On the downside “The Colony” has many of the standard plot devices used in sci fi thrillers— who doesn’t see the sacrifice of the metaphorical red shirt coming?—and the ultimate survivors just happen to be the good-looking ones who escape to Adam and Eve it up elsewhere. But it makes up for its deficiencies with some excellently feral cannibals and an ending that while hopeful, is still bleaker and cooler than we might expect if this was a big Hollywood movie.
“Do you guys put the word quantum in front of everything?”
