“The rush of battle is a potent and almost lethal addiction, for war is a drug.” – Chris Hedges, author of War Is A Force that Gives Us Meaning.
2009’s
The Hurt Locker is absolutely one of the finest movies ever made. It was completely gripping in its year of release and is a movie that will remain relevant until the end of time. It was monumental that director Kathryn Bigelow (
Point Break, Zero Dark Thirty) became the first woman to win the Academy Award for Best Director and the first woman to direct a Best Picture of the Year. It only took 80 years…Just as impressive, and a large credit goes to Bigelow, was the breakout performance for two future Hollywood A-listers in Jeremy Renner (
The Town, Wind River) and Anthony Mackie (
The Adjustment Bureau, Triple 9). Ironically, both have landed themselves as Avengers characters, something I will touch on later in this review. There have been many excellent movies about the war in Iraq (
Stop-Loss, The Green Zone, The Messenger, Grace Is Gone, Lions for Lambs, In the Valley of Elah, Jarhead),
The Hurt Locker is second, falling just behind Clint Eastwood’s
American Sniper. And it’s close. Each is a film that showed be watched multiple times. Each had a lead that hit his performance completely out of the park, each had incredible direction, and each had a chilling score that could be listened to on a quiet night on the couch at home. It is, without a doubt, a movie that should be viewed by anyone who enjoys/appreciates war movies.
I’ll preface this review by saying that I enjoyed Ant-Man, but that I know that if I do end up seeing Ant-Man 2, I will not enjoy it. I say that because traditionally I like superhero origin stories (except for when that same character gets retold over and over and over again like Superman, which…on a side note, I have yet to see a Superman movie that I’ve even remotely enjoyed, but that I am expecting HUGE things from Batman v Superman: Dawn of Justice). However, as with over 90% of movies that have sequels, superhero movies generally get worse (usually much worse) with each subsequent release. Of course, there are exceptions. Batman Begins was fantastic, but The Dark Knight is possibly the greatest superhero movie ever made. Iron Man and Spider-Man are both amazing movies, but there wasn’t much drop-off to Iron Man 2 or Spider-Man 2. Now Iron Man 3 and Spider-Man 3 were both much worse. But when you think about it, when is the 5th, 4th, or 3rd movie of a franchise ever really the best one? Hardly ever. 90% of the time, it’s the first franchise movie that is the best. I wish viewer franchises would make movies. I wish even fewer movies would be remade. But that is a different topic for another day. Regarding Ant-Man, the best thing that it had going for it was its originality. I cannot think of a scenario where Ant-Man 2 would have any originality that this first movie had. But, of course, we know Ant-Man 2 is coming. And then Ant-Man will probably end up in The Avengers movies, and I’ll look back on this first movie less positively.
Continue reading Ant-Man (2015) →
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