Every little helps...

I had a bit of a dilemma last week as I managed to watch a couple of movies that could have gone in the blog; ultimately I chose to vent my swollen spleen over the terrible pleb-dazzling buffoonery that was The Greatest Showman, a pointless little affair made especially for people who like Hugh Jackman and fluffy little inoffensive modern show tunes with twee lyrics about acceptance and tolerance and the like. Fate is a fickle beast though; sometimes it fills you with cake and biscuits and a second trip to the soft ice cream machine yet on others it shovels heaping spoons of miserable wilting cabbage on to your plate and the ice cream's brightly e-numbered toppings are but the fevered dream of a mad man. Which is basically saying I ragged on Wolverine Does Broadway, angered the gods and next-to-nobody read it. Such is this game though, we move ever onwards and upwards. Or, more accurately, sideways at a slightly inclined angle.

The weekend wasn't a complete cinematic wash however, because I was able to get to the cinema and see Ant Man and The Wasp which thankful contained much less singing, absolutely no Zac Efron and despite the amount of shrinking effects used, no shoddily-drawn dwarf legs (I'm going to litter this week's post with references to last week's so you're compelled to check it out so you know what I'm flapping my gums about). You'd be forgiven for expecting the wheels to come off the Marvel wagon at some point soon; it's almost unfeasible to produce 20 movies in a shared universe without an absolute howler. There are certainly some low points, but even they're pretty good by comparison to other, similar fare. Nobody expected Guardians of the Galaxy to be the unmitigated success it was and likewise, I think there was a certain amount of scepticism surrounding Ant Man when it came out a few years back. It was a difficult sell to fans who know Hank Pym as the horrifying drunken wife-beater he became in the comics and probably a more difficult sell to non-fans who couldn't work out how a guy who can shrink and control ants was going to be anything less than a weird sidebar to the real MCU. Add to that the directorial shenanigans of hiring and losing Edgar Wright, you could have had your first proper misfire. Fortunately, they pulled of a cracking little heist movie with superheroes in it (and thankfully no spousal abuse) and everyone relieved a sigh of relief. Ant Man and the Wasp, fortunately follows in those same footprints and the first post Infinity War Marvel movie is thankfully just as good as you'd hope. There may be spoilers if you haven't seen it, be ye warned.

One of the many questions raised by Infinity War was the whereabouts of Hawkeye and Ant Man, scheduling conflicts apparently not being an acceptable answer. Ant Man and the Wasp revolves itself around the premise that Ant Man is under house arrest for breaching the Sakovia Accords by rocking up to fight Iron Man in Civil War and that Hank Pymm and Hope van Dyne are still wanted for their part in the shenanigans from the first movie. It's not a particularly complicated set up nor is it very clever, but it doesn't really need to be. Much in the same way that the first movie wasn't about superheroes, neither is this; it's a sort of Fantastic Voyage vibe as the heroes set out to recover Hank's long lost wife from the Quantum Realm.

The good thing is that they've retained the feel of the first movie, much like GotG did, and although it does feel slightly separate from the Avengers movies it still exists nicely in its little corner. Scott Lang's criminal pals make a welcome return and get the lion's share of the good lines. The Baba Yaga and truth serum bits are stand out moments, especially Michael Pena's signature storytelling and there are any number of nice little throwaway moments based on the whole shrinking/growing gag without it being overused and getting old. The same is true of some of the ant-name puns which got sly chuckles from the cheap seats. In fact it ends up being a lot like one of those family action adventures from the 70's that used to get rolled out every Easter on ITV; if you haven't seen of 'One of Our Dinosaurs is Missing' then I pity you my friend because your childhood was incomplete. I probably wouldn't go back and watch it now though, I doubt it aged well and I'm fairly sure they had Peter Ustinov and Bernard Bresslaw in yellow face pretending to be unscrupulous Chinese thieves, but in 1975 that was ok I guess. Anyway, the whole thing ends up being a huge race against time to save Mrs Pymm involving a bunch off variably sized cars, buildings and people.

If there is a complaint it may be that the villains fall a bit short of the mark. They've continued the trend for relatable bad guys in Ghost, and her back story is all well and good, but she just doesn't capture the imagination as well as she could. Walton Scoggins is usually pretty reliable, but fresh out of a one-dimensional turn in Tomb Raider, we get a pretty one-dimensional arms dealer here as well and it does fall a little flat. I'm not going to suggest he's peaked but I feel like I've seen him as a bad guy in more things than I actually have, which is weird. Maybe he just has one of those faces. Fortunately though, the story isn't about them or any sort of plot to rule/destroy the world so it isn't the worst that they aren't great and things are, as standard nowadays, left fairly open.

If you enjoyed the first one, you'll enjoy this; similar oddball humour, similarly clever action sequences etc. The MCU train doesn't show any signs of slowing down, assuming the Gunn-gate doesn't throw an inappropriate-tweet-shaped spanner in the GotG Vol 3 works, but that's an entire post of its own. Let's be honest though, all this is just filler until Captain Marvel and Infinity War 2...

*SPECIAL ANGER IN A MAN SUIT SHOUT OUT*

It's fairly well documented that I hate inconsiderate cinema goers, but a special mention this week goes out to the three possibly drunken bell ends who sat in the row in front of us for this screening. Not only were they obnoxiously chatting loudly amongst themselves for the entirely of the trailers (not the worst, but still), but they were haranguing people for having their phones on before proceeding to spend the entire film on WhatsApp or whatever. Add that to the vaping, which is grim enough, but super special mention goes to the absolute dick who was so excited to see Stan Lee's 5 second cameo he shouted "There he is, there's my man!" so loud that I missed Stan's line. It probably wasn't the best gag of the day, but I'd have liked to have made that decision from hearing it myself you mouth-breathing, inbred, too-few-chromosoned, hillbilly, sister-loving cock satchel. And they didn't even stay for the post credits. Assholes.