I’ll preface this review by saying that I liked Ant-Man, but that I know that if I do end up seeing Ant-Man 2, I won’t 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 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 my favorite superhero movie. Iron Man and Spider-Man are both incredible 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 want to see even fewer remakes. But that is a different topic for another day. Continue reading Ant-Man (2015)
There is a good chance that Trainwreck will go down as the funniest movie of 2015. There doesn’t appear to be a ton of comedies this year, and the one that I was most excited for (
Joel Edgerton’s (
I think when I first saw the trailers for Robert Redford’s (Quiz Show, A River Runs Through It) Lions for Lambs, I thought it was a movie I had to see. The previews made the film look exciting, and it featured an A-list cast. Well, when the movie’s commercials became 15-second clips after the first week, and it scored a whopping 27% fresh on Rotten Tomatoes, the need to see it quickly waned. The movie earned just $15 million at the box office. Box office earnings don’t necessarily reflect a film’s quality, but this movie was expected to generate significant revenue. While the production costs of this movie were low (I’ll explain below), stars like Meryl Streep and Tom Cruise commanded high-dollar figures for their appearances. This wasn’t a little indie movie. MGM produced this movie. On top of a film that was received so poorly by critics was a plot (stories about the war in the Middle East, especially politically driven ones) that had consistently kept moviegoers away back in the early 2000s. Lions for Lambs was a decent movie, but certainly not a great one. And it was by no means as exciting or as drama-filled as the trailers made it out to be. Lions for Lambs is a dialogue-driven movie that succeeds because of its excellent cast.
If I could describe the German-released movie North Face in just a single word, it would be the word horrific. Based on the true story of a competition to climb the most dangerous rock face in the Swiss Alps, the subtitled movie gets better and better with each passing frame. For those moviegoers who aren’t into subtitled movies, I can sympathize. I tend to groan when I know I’m about to embark on one of those, too. Subtitled movies are ones that you need to prepare for, and, unfortunately, when a subtitled movie is bad, it almost becomes twice as dreadful to trudge through. But, at the same time, I have seen some fantastic foreign-language movies, and North Face ranks right up there with them. And, as with any good subtitled movie, when you are truly engaged, you don’t even notice you are reading the words anymore. I don’t know how I came across this movie, other than the fact that I love a good adventure movie (I am one of those people who tend to separate the adventure genre from the action genre).