I had a good idea for this morning’s blog post before I went to bed last night, but it’s completely gone now. So I’ll settle for pointing out that all of my books, including THE SANCTUM OF THE SPHERE, are now live at Smashwords as of this morning, and SANCTUM should be percolating out to Barnes and Noble and iBooks and everywhere else over the next few days. So if you use some sort of e-device other than a Kindle for your reading, you can get whatever format you like over there now!
Also, I have a comics piece up at Sourcerer this morning, so go check that out too. I have grouting to do this morning (after I’ve gone out and bought kneepads, which needs to happen first) and I’ll try and put up a post with actual words after that.
tl;dr version: You should go see this, even (and perhaps especially) you were skeptical about the idea of Ant-Man getting a movie.
I’ve seen every Marvel movie in theaters, and I think I’ve seen all of them opening weekend, although it’s possible I’ve missed one or two first weekend. I feel like Thor: The Dark World may have taken a few minutes for some reason. Ant-Man is the movie I’ve come closest to actually skipping; if it hadn’t been for my wife wanting to see it I can’t guarantee I would have ever prioritized it. I’m not a fan of the character, really, and I would have survived without seeing it.
I have learned to follow my wife’s lead in these things, as she’s always right, because Ant-Man is great, and it’s possible I enjoyed it more than Age of Ultron, which I also liked a lot. AoU had the disadvantage of being a sequel, and there’s a lot going on in Ant-Man that you haven’t seen on screen before. Evangeline Lilly’s hair, for example.
Yikes.
Also notable, although I can’t for the life of me find a still of this anywhere, is whatever sorcery they used for the brief 1989 portion of the film, where they appear to have traveled back in goddamn time to capture Michael Douglas and bring him forward to act in this movie. I don’t know if that’s CGI or a body double with CGI or insanely good makeup or a combination of the three but it is creepy as hell because however they did it it looks completely perfect. I remember what Michael Douglas looked like 26 years ago, guys; that’s him.
Anyway. On to the observations part:
Good stuff:
Paul Rudd. I’m not a huge fan of Mr. Rudd’s; he’s one of those actors where I’m absolutely certain I’ve seen him in other movies but hell if he was memorable enough that I can tell you who he was. But he nails this role and fulfills the number one thing actors have to do to make me enjoy your movie: make it seem like you enjoyed playing the role.
The action. Watching a guy fight who can miniaturize himself on command led to some great fight scenes, particularly the one with <spoiler> at the <spoiler> base.
The effects. The ant stuff was awesome.
Actually, all of the actors, with the exception of the guy playing Yellowjacket, were pretty damn good. Douglas is no slouch, obviously; Evangeline Lilly was great, and the three comic relief guys were funny. I’ve seen some reviews that complained that the familial relationships between Hank and Hope and Scott Lang and his daughter felt forced; I didn’t feel that way at all.
The bit with the tank, which I swear was a throwback to my favorite incarnation of the Hank Pym character– the lab-coated West Coast Avengers version.
Bug zappers. ‘Nuff said.
Both of the reveals at the end. The end reveals in this film were my favorite ones since the end of Captain America.
Less good stuff:
I could do without ever hearing another male character say the words “I was just trying to protect you!” to a female character again. (Note that this led to a good scene or two, I’m just really tired of the trope.)
The plot is basically Iron Man crossed with Ghostbusters. Perfectly serviceable but a bit fill-in-the-numbers, especially since…
…Yellowjacket was not great, and in fact I think he seems to have broken a couple of the movie’s rules along the way. Hope van Dyne seems to think that the Pym particles were affecting his mind, which would be a good idea, except for the part where he was wearing the suit for the first time at the end of the movie. That said, for someone wearing said suit for the first time, he was pretty darn good at it.
The whole don’t-cross-the-streams bit wasn’t well-used. It’s good that Sony still controls the X-Men, because who knows how many people would have died had anyone had access to adamantium.
Make sure to see this, guys. It won’t be the end of the world if you don’t see it in the theater– although I’d like the movie’s box office to be better than expected– but don’t sleep. It’s well worth seeing.
At some point last night at OtherJob I wrote an entire blog post in my head. I was pretty convinced it was a good one, too. Now it’s 10 AM Sunday morning and the only thing I’ve managed to achieve is a cup of coffee and a shower and I have no idea what in the world I might have gotten into my head to write about.
Let’s grab-bag a couple of things.
1) I think I’ve talked about this before, but I have no intention of purchasing or reading Go Set a Watchman. I never believed that she actually wanted the book published (this interview with her “editor,” a man who claims he doesn’t know if the book was ever edited and apparently doesn’t realize that planes exist, is terrifyingly shady) and from what I’ve seen from people who have read it, I stand by that decision.
2) The recent footage from Comic-Con from Batman V. Superman has, for the first time, made that movie at least a tiny bit interesting. I like the idea that Batman’s vendetta against Superman is rooted in losing people in Metropolis when Superman destroyed it. The shot of Bruce Wayne charging into the onrushing cloud of dust from the collapsed building is great. (Superheroes? Saving people? Crazy!) Unfortunately, Snyder’s Superman is still a useless, preening dick and in addition to the character assassination of Pa Kent in Super Powered Outer Space Alien 1 he’s now going after Ma Kent in 2. This continues to be deeply “no thank you” but at least there’s something interesting about it now.
Hmm. I guess two is a couple. I’m kind of going nuts over here; my lack of ability to be on vacation and the find-a-job stress is sorta starting to get to me a little. I expect to be found in the basement chewing on my underwear within a week or so.
The second entry in my series on science fiction comics, I’m talking about Brian K. Vaughan and Steve Skroce’s WE STAND ON GUARD this week. Check it out!
I was all ready to do a review of Avengers Assemble! when the boy noticed The Super Hero Squad Show on Netflix, and he hasn’t watched an episode of anything else since. There were only two seasons of this show for some reason, and both seasons are on Netflix. I think we’ve watched everything at least once by now.
This is actually a pretty good show, believe it or not. The premise: There are two cities, Super Hero City and what I believe is called Villainville, and they’re separated by a giant wall. All the people and all the superheroes live in Super Hero City, and the villains do villain stuff so that the heroes have to fight them. The first season is obsessed with finding and controlling little broken bits of a magic sword and the second season is all about what happens when the sword gets put together and is a lot more cosmic in tone.
There’s a rockin’ theme song, too. It has no right to not be a Bowling for Soup song. Check it out:
The cool thing about Avengers Assemble! was how seriously it took itself– and there’s a pretty good chance that I’ll still be writing a piece on that show soon enough. The Super Hero Squad Show takes absolutely nothing seriously, and that’s the genius of the show, because it knows it’s goofy as hell and runs with it. Particularly fun are the portrayals of Captain America and Thor; Cap (who is a side character, surprisingly) is convinced he’s still in the 1940s and talks like a dad from a sitcom from that era, and Thor has the Norse nonsense turned up to 12– the episode from Season 2 where Beta Ray Bill is introduced is especially funny.
Hulk calls the Falcon “Bird,” which absolutely never ever stops being funny.
My one beef with the show? It occasionally kinda treats its female characters like crap, and flat-out sexual harassment is a bit more of a theme than it ought to be, in that sexual harassment is a thing that happens and it shouldn’t ever be. There’s a bit where Mr. Fantastic is proud of Ms. Marvel for having a good idea and he kisses her on the cheek as a reward. It doesn’t surface all that often but when it does it’s really jarring and annoying, and Ms. Marvel is frequently a part of it; she’s frequently portrayed as a ditzy girl and it’s really obnoxious. She ought to be Captain Marvel anyway, dangit.
(It’s a boys’ show, you say? Shut up, I respond. Boys need to see females who aren’t doormats and aren’t going to take time during world-saving to squawk “You think I’m cute?” like Starfire does to Human Torch at one point. Boys need feminism too, goddammit. And that’s before we get to the part where girls watch superhero shows too. Even if no women or girls ever watched the show, the show needs to portray women better anyway.)
tl;dr version: You should go see this, even (and perhaps especially) you were skeptical about the idea of Ant-Man getting a movie.
At some point last night at OtherJob I wrote an entire blog post in my head. I was pretty convinced it was a good one, too. Now it’s 10 AM Sunday morning and the only thing I’ve managed to achieve is a cup of coffee and a shower and I have no idea what in the world I might have gotten into my head to write about.
