Tiny Flash Gordon

The problem with Marvel trying to widen the scope after the universe effecting events of Thanos and his technicolour dream glove is that the more you explore "different" realms the more obvious it becomes that everything is basically the same. The multiverse of "madness" turned out to be the universe of "quite similar but the traffic lights are upside down" and here the unknowable quantum realm, where physics and time don't exist in any way we understand, is just another alien world.

To be fair, the alien world is a pretty cool one. There are funky creatures and weird characters, giving things a 50's B movie or Flash Gordon vibe, complete with appropriate wacky visuals. Sadly all this stuff is rushed, not really giving the chance to take in the view or enjoy fun moments, including a cameo everyone would surely love to have seen more of. You get the feeling an earlier phase of the MCU would have leaned into the "Lost in Space" of it all a bit more but here we have to move quickly on to the Super High Stakes. These involve Jonathon Major's Kang, played in a reserved style that makes him menacing but a little out of sync with the rest of the movie. Given he is from another dimension that may be the point. Kang's sidekick MODOK is a fun take on a ridiculous villian but the departure may divide comic book fans.

On the hero front its good to see Michelle Pfeiffer given a substantial role and it looks as if a grown up Cassie Lang is intented to be a fixture going forward but Evangeline Lilly has such a reduced role it seems pointless keeping "The Wasp" as part of the title. Micheal Douglas is enjoyable when on screen but kept mostly to the periphery of proceedings and while he is having fun you can tell he isn't exactly massively invested in whats going on. Leading man Paul Rudd is, well, Paul Rudd. He brings the charm and liability to Scott Lang you've come to expect. He manages this despite being stuck with a pretty stupid character arc where he begins the film suddenly averse to helping people for no well defined reason.

This is symptomatic of some fairly lazy writting in parts, with some of the most by the numbers dialogue yet seen in a Marvel movie. Fortunately there is enough visual and stylistic creativity on display to make the film more than watchable, if certainly no Giant Man of the genre.

7 hyper intelligent insects out of 10 ants.

Comments

2024 at the Cinema

Bye bye 2024, time to put your ducks in a row. If ducks are films I saw in the cinema. As ever, ranking is purely my opinion (although my opinion is obviously correct), a movie needs to have been released in the UK during calendar year 2024 and I have to have seen it on the big screen for it to be eligible. 60. The Strangers: Chapter 1 Unrelentingly tedious reboot of an already mediocre home invasion thriller that ramps up nothing but the banality. If your idea of entertainment is watching an insufferable couple hide while a man and a woman in stupid masks walk about slowly then this is the film for you. Otherwise the only scary thing here is the fact they have already filmed chapters two and three. 59. In a Violent Nature You don't need to make people drink curdled milk to know it would taste awful. Similarly, you shouldn't need to make people watch a slasher film that follows the killer for the whole runtime to know it's a terrible idea. Dialogue is replaced by endless...

Room With a Viewer

Few directors can release films with same consistency as Steven Soderbergh (he averages over one a year this century), never mind in so many different genres. With Presence, he steps into the world of the supernatural. Don't be fooled by the "presence" of a spirit however, this is not a horror film, more a family drama infused with a sense of doom. The film begins with a family, consisting of domineering mother Rebecca (Lucy Liu), unhappy father Chris (Chris Sullivan), swimming star son Tyler (Eddy Maday) and troubled daughter Chloe (Colina Laing) moving into a new home. Things are far from rosy in the Sullivan household, Rebecca is involved in some unspecified shady work business and dotes on her athlete son (the whole reason for the move is to get him into a premium school) while showing little interest in her daughter, who's best friend recently died. Chris is fed up with his detached wife's favouritism and considering divorce while both the offspring are in ...

Econ Air

Single location thriller Flight Risk is the latest film to suffer from an "over eager" trailer. That is to say, the trailer covers pretty much everything that happens in the movie, more or less in the exact order it occurs. On the plus side, it isn't a film that was ever going to keep any secrets so it doesn't suffer as much as some others have. FBI agent Madelyn Harris (Michelle Dockery) takes a flight with informant Winston (Topher Grace) but a short way into their journey they discover the pilot, played by Mark Wahlberg, is actually a mob hitman there to end them both before Winston can squeal. There is a brief opening at an Alaskan cabin and the finale is on a runway, but for the most part it's just the three of them in the cabin of a small plain. Events unfold almost like a theatrical play as the three talk and argue with intermittent attempts at murder. The main thing to know about Flight Risk is that it is ridiculous. The decisions the characters make a...

My Girl 2025

Companion opens with Iris (Sophie Thatcher) reminiscing on her meet cute with Jack Quaid's Josh before accompanying him to a secluded house for a weekend of partying with his friends. Everything is normal on the surface but there are hints that something else is going on as Iris appears insanely dedicated to her boyfriend's happiness and at least one of his friends are a little off with her. Sure enough, a reveal around a third of the way in switches things up and the film becomes a bungled heist movie leading to a chase through the woods with freedom and lives on the line. If you have seen the final trailer for Companion you already know what the reveal is. I won't spoil it here for those who want to go in blind but it is fair to say this is, partially at least, a sci fi film. You may well spot the twist (especially with the Stepford Wives nod kicking things off) but something so morally abhorrent and potentially dangerous being completely commonplace and having so littl...

Eyes, Eyes Baby

You would be forgiven for thinking Heart Eyes is a simple holiday themed slasher movie riding the coattails of 2023's Thanksgiving. While it takes place on Valentine's Day and features a killer dispatching people with a cupid themed arsenal of weapons, that is only half the story. What Heart Eyes really is, is a full on rom com with a slasher slapped over the top of it. How does that work? Thanks to a heightened comic tone and some sharp writing, pretty bloody well. Olivia Holt plays Ally, a love cynic who stalks her ex online and whose bitterness has seeped into her work, endangering her job as a marketing agent for a jewellery company. She has a meet cute in a coffee shop with Mason Gooding's Jay, only to later find out he has been hired by her company to fix her campaign and may be a threat to her position. True love sceptic forced to work with a hot new guy (who happens to be a hopeless romantic) under tense circumstances is a classic rom com set up and there is even...

Dan Says its Alright

Search This Blog