Current Quickies - Avengers: Age of Ultron and Ant Man

Current Quickie Mini Reviews

‘Ello my duckies! The end of the year is upon us, and I was thinking that this is as good a time as any to take a look back and reflect on the past twelve months. A while back, I did a preview of Marvel films that were coming up, and I thought that since they have now been released, I would back to do mini reviews of Avengers: Age of Ultron and Ant Man. Fant4stic is out too, but I haven’t seen that one, so no review of that, unless Santa thinks I’ve been a right little shit this year and leaves me a copy in my stocking instead of a lump of coal.

Without further ado, let’s get started. Cyoar!

Avengers: Age of Ultron

Following the massive success of the first Avengers film, expectations for the sequel were sky high. We all asked ourselves, “How could Avengers 2 top the first one?” The answer, unfortunately, is that it could not.

That’s not to say that it doesn’t try though. The typical sequel approach of more characters, more plots and more big action setpieces is here, and all aiming to beat the first film on scale. I’m torn on Ultron as I don’t mind the jokey, quippy Ultron that’s in the film, but I would have preferred the more menacing, ominous one the trailer promised and did such a good job of building up. Hawkeye getting more to do this time is nice, having spent most of the first film brainwashed and crazy. Quicksilver and Scarlet Witch don’t get a whole lot to do, and Quicksilver’s involvement in particular suggests that Marvel are still mad about Fox putting Quicksilver in X-Men first (The X-Men one’s better btw.) Vision is also shafted, but it’s more justified in his case, as he doesn’t appear until near the end, and he does get the best line in the film. It’s easy to imagine Joss Whedon giving himself a big smug grin and a pat on the back after coming up with it, possibly stifling giggles while watching the film afterwards until the line comes up.

The plot has an awful lot crammed into the running time, as alongside the main plot with Ultron, there’s hunting the last HYDRA forces in a conflict so effectively built up to in Captain America: The Winter Soldier and skipped to the end of here, much like the Clone Wars in the Star Wars prequel trilogy. (Which reminds me, Kylo Ren isn’t really a Sith lord, he’s an actor pretending to be one. There’s your Episode VII spoiler.) Unfortunately, this means Baron Strucker is killed off 20 minutes in to show how badass Ultron is. Thor’s vision cave lake thing makes no sense as it is, and should have either been expanded or cut entirely. The visit to Wakanda for Vibranium is there primarily to set up Black Panther later, and also for an Andy Serkis cameo, because you can never have too much Andy Serkis. Most of all, there’s the much publicised romance subplot between Hulk and Black Widow. The combination is a major crack pairing that comes out of nowhere, since their only interaction prior involved Black Widow being terrified for her life as Hulk rampaged after her. Not to mention that, for extra weirdness, this is fresh off Winter Soldier, where she spent a lot of time with Captain America, and Betty Ross isn’t mentioned at all, which one would expect Bruce to at least think about as he was letting another woman close to him. Nevertheless, even if the idea doesn’t work, I can at least appreciate what it was going for with trying to create a bond between two emotionally broken people, and I absolutely cannot condone the harassment from online feminists accusing Joss Whedon, who has always been a prominent advocate of feminism and other social causes, of being a sexist, misogynist monster and harassing him off social media earlier this year.

The action and setpieces are the most successful element of the film. These are great to look at and are very impressive in their scale, with the highlight being the big grudge match between Hulk and Iron Man’s Hulkbuster armour, although the climax does feel a bit similar to the first film’s, except with armies of Ultron clones instead of aliens. Then again, it does set itself apart with scenes of the Avengers working together to save civilians caught in the battle.

The biggest problem with the film is one that was hinted at earlier. There’s no tension, as the characters seem to talk almost entirely in witty quips as opposed to conversations, which the bad guys join in on as well, diminishing their threat. Even Ultron’s Pinocchio quoting loses its intimidation factor. It’s funny at first, but it quickly gets tiresome. At least the first film knew when to take itself seriously, a lesson that’s been forgotten this time around.

Overall, Avengers: Age of Ultron is rather disappointing, although considering how enormous the hype was, I’m not sure if anything could have lived up to it. It’s still good, but it’s not as good as we all hoped or expected it would be.

3/5

One last thing, that Star Wars spoiler is the twist from Iron Man 3 and not a real spoiler as far as I know. However I haven’t seen the film as of this writing, so I cannot confirm it is not real, and if that actually happens, I sincerely apologise for spoiling Star Wars. Come to think of it, Kylo Ren is played by Adam Driver – in other words, an actor pretending to be a Sith lord, so it’s true, from a certain point of view.

Ant Man

Coming into the summer, expectation was that Age of Ultron would be bigger than a very big thing indeed, whereas Ant Man was seen as a disaster in the making following the highly publicised last minute departure of director Edgar Wright, who had been attached for the best part of a decade, and starring a hero only marginally less ridiculed in the public consciousness than Aquaman, prior to his Game of Thrones inspired edgy makeover for Batman VS Superman. Ironically, it turned out that Age of Ultron wobbled, while Ant Man was a quiet return to form, a reassurance that everything will be OK after all.

Ant Man’s moveset allows for some very creative scenes, as regular settings such as a bathroom, the inside of a briefcase or a child’s train set become unique and dangerous settings when he is shrunk down, offering a new perspective which sets it apart from the other Marvel films. He also has discs that are used to make things grow, and a lot of fun is had with these as well.

Several plot elements are reminiscent of Iron Man, such as the hero having a new ability granting suit, learning to use their powers, the villain being a corrupt corporate executive, and the climax involving the villain getting his own upgraded suit and duking it out with the hero’s prototype suit. Surprisingly, it doesn’t feel as repetitive as it sounds, possibly because it’s been a while since Iron Man, and Ant Man approaches that plot in the context of a heist film, which Iron Man did not do, and allowing Ant Man to set itself apart.

Alongside the creativity, the film is also very funny, definitely Marvel’s funniest in my opinion. There are lots of laughs to be had from side characters like Scott’s friends, plenty of witty lines in the script and some comedy size shifting towards the end. There’s even a bit of emotion involved, thanks to Scott’s bond with an ant he names Anthony and his relationship with his adorable little daughter, desperately wanting to put his time in prison behind him and be a good father to his daughter. Because of this, there’s a feelgood factor attached to the film which will leave you with a big smile on your face afterwards. When I went to see the film, I was debating whether or not to go because I was not in a great mood at the time, but by the end I was glad that I had chosen to go, as I felt a lot better and enjoyed it a lot more than I thought I would.

Ant Man is on a smaller scale than the previous films, which is no bad thing. It feels like a back to basics breather before everything kicks off again in Civil War, and after Age of Ultron that’s just what was needed.

4/5

9 (2009)

9 (2009)

Release Date: September 9, 2009 (In other words, 9/9/09. Cool, huh?)

9 is what happens when Little Big Planet does Fallout. The premise of living dolls surviving in a post-apocalyptic world is certainly an unique one, but does the film itself live up to the concept?

The ragdoll 9 awakens in a scientist’s laboratory and ventures outside with a talisman he found in the laboratory. Outside he meets another doll, 2, who gives 9 the ability to speak before being captured by a cat robot. 9 meets another group consisting of 2’s apprentice 5, cowardly leader 1 and his bully of a bodyguard 8, and the mad oracle 6, who has a thing for circles. 9 disobeys 1 and goes to rescue 2, after befriending 5 and convincing him to come with him. 9 and 5 are able to find 2, but the three are attacked by the cat robot and it takes the timely arrival of the missing presumed dead 7 to save them and kill the cat robot. 9 finds that the cat robot was guarding a mysterious hole that his talisman fits right into, so he puts it in place. This was a very bad decision, as the talisman was the key needed to awaken Skynet, the machine that destroyed the world in the first place. As thanks, Skynet steals 2’s soul, rendering the rescue operation a bust.

7 shows 9 and 5 where she has been hiding with two other dolls, 3 and 4, who show us that Skynet was created as a thinking robot by the scientist, which was quickly co-opted by an obvious Hitler stand-in to create war machines. As is always the case, the machines turned against their creators and destroyed humanity with chemical weapons. The group returns to 1’s hideout, but he gives them an earful for putting his group at risk, and is proven right when Skynet sends a pteranodon robot to follow the dolls to their hideout. The pteranodon is destroyed, but the hideout also goes up in flames. That night, another robot captures 7 and 8 by using 2’s body as a hypnotising lure. This one’s on 8, as he was too busy using a magnet to get high when he should have been standing guard. I was gonna stay and watch guard, but then I got high...

The dolls head to Skynet’s factory but they’re too late to save 8, as Skynet steals his soul just as they arrive. On the plus side, 9 destroys the hypnotising robot and saves 7, while the others use a barrel of oil, a harpoon gun, and an airship to create a bomb and destroy the factory. (And they didn’t even need any rubies to get all those things!) The dolls celebrate, but Skynet survived the blast, and worse, it’s no longer trapped in the factory and can move about. 5 and 6 are killed, but 9 is finally able to figure out 6’s mad ravings about the source and returns to the scientist’s laboratory, where he finds a recording explaining that the scientist created the dolls using alchemy and his own soul. He was a Full Stitching Alchemist, if you will. Anyway, the recording reveals that removing the talisman will shut down Skynet, and 9 returns to the other dolls which had been holding Skynet back while he had been retrieving this information. 9 plans to sacrifice himself to buy the others the time they need to remove the talisman, but 1 finally grows a pair and pushes 9 out of the way, allowing his soul to be taken instead. While Skynet is distracted, 9 removes the talisman and releases the absorbed souls, turning Skynet into scrap metal in the process, and the surviving dolls (9, 7, 3 and 4)  all lived happily ever after – until the sequel when Skynet comes back as Matt Smith.

9 is an expanded remake of a short 10 minute cartoon. The original version featured only 9 and the cat robot, and what had happened to the world to cause this was left ambiguous. Naturally, the film has more time to go into what happened, as well as feature more characters. The inclusion of Skynet in the film works well, as the cat robot is frightening enough in both incarnations, making for a nasty surprise when it is revealed to be a low level minion for a far worse threat. The backstory answering questions posed by the original version as to what happened to cause the world’s ruin is also quite interesting, albeit nothing particularly original, and I wouldn’t have minded seeing more of it.

The grim feel of this devastated world is cleverly portrayed in visual short hand through the character designs. Characters are made from scraps scavenged together from anything that comes to hand. For example, the dolls are made from different kinds of cloth, with some having patches or being damaged in places, and it’s clear where they’ve been stitched together. Likewise, Skynet’s creations are a combination of rusty, jagged metal, bones and anything else that comes to hand. This lends an unique style to the film’s characters, as well as possible symbolism from the doll protagonists being made from soft materials and the evil robots desecrating their former compatriots and the remains of long dead beings.

One notable thing about 9 is that the film is very short by film standards. Not including the credits, the film lasts only 69 minutes. As such, events are very fast-paced, but there’s still a distinct beginning, middle and end to lend a strong structure. It doesn’t feel as if any time in the film is wasted, which is an advantage for a film as short as this one. If anything, there’s a lot of material to go through, and it feels like the film could have been longer if it had wanted to be.

9 is a film that sticks in the memory for its striking design and visuals, and for the confidence with which it presents its new world and lore. Although it doesn’t do anything terribly new, the assured execution and presentation of the material is enough to elevate the film.

Aliens VS Predator: Requiem (2007)

Aliens VS Predator: Requiem

Release date: December 25, 2007 (Yes, really. I’ve always wondered, does anyone actually go to the cinema on Christmas Day or Boxing Day? I assume they do, otherwise films wouldn’t be released on those days, but the idea seems so strange to me.)

It was announced earlier this week that four new characters would be joining the cast of Mortal Kombat X next year, and one of them would be a Xenomorph. It’s not just any old Xenomorph though, it’s a Xenomorph spawned from Baraka, and because Xenomorphs take elements from their hosts, this means a Xenomorph with blades in its arms.

How do ya like them apples?

To celebrate, I figured I’d cover an Alien film selected at random, and out of the hat came Aliens VS Predator: Requiem. Bugger.

During the first film, one of the Predators was impregnated by a Facehugger, and died fighting the Alien Queen alongside the human protagonist Ripley 2.0. A Predator ship then came to take the dead Predator’s body away, and the film ended with the dead Predator giving birth to a Chestburster that had a Predator’s mouth. The second film begins right here (It doesn’t explain what happened to Ripley 2.0, who was stranded in the frozen Antarctic wastes with no way of getting home as she was the sole survivor of the human expedition, but she must have managed offscreen somehow, as we know she moved to Virginia and married Cleveland, then they got cancelled and went back to Family Guy, but I digress.) The Predator ship is on its way back to the Predator home planet when the Predalien, having grown to full size in record time, kills the entire crew. The ruckus damages the ship and, with nobody capable of piloting it alive, the ship crash lands back on Earth, on the outskirts of the town of Gunnison, Colorado. A number of Facehuggers being kept in stasis on the ship also escape and infect a father and son hunting in the forest.

We’re now introduced to the human cast, which I must admit I remember very little about already, not even their names. Male Lead has a crush on Popular Girl, and delivers pizza to her party, where he gets bullied by Jock and his Crabbe and Goyle-esque henchmen for being a nerd, until Popular Girl tells them to cut it out and dumps Jock after he throws Male Lead’s Big Brother’s car keys into the sewers. The only thing missing is the Dawson’s Creek theme song…

 … Which I am kind enough to provide. Aren’t I thoughtful?

Elsewhere in town, Grieving Widow is putting up missing person posters for her husband and son, who we know are already dead, and Good Cop leads the search effort. Ripley 3.0 comes home from Iraq and gives her daughter Newt 2.0 a pair of binoculars as a gift. There are others too, but these are the ones who form the main group later, so I’ll just mention them.

The Predator home world finds out about the crashed ship and sends another Predator to destroy the Predalien, spawned Aliens and all evidence of the events. The Predator activates the self-destruct mechanism on the crashed ship and uses his cool phial of blue acid to destroy bodies, as well as finding time on the side to get the police manhunt called off by killing a policeman when he finds the Predator and pulls a gun on him.

Male Lead and his big brother go into the sewers to retrieve the car keys and are able to leave just in time before everything kicks off. The Predalien has found a community of homeless people living in the sewers and impregnated them all, and the Predator’s investigation leads it there, leading to a fight. The Predator uses a bomb during the fight, blowing a big hole which allows the Aliens to enter the town, after Male Lead and Big Brother had gone to the effort of closing the manhole behind them too, unlike most other horror characters escaping monsters. Not to be outdone, the Predator Shoryukens through the sewer roof to reach the road above him.

Male Lead and Popular Girl break into the school at night to go swimming, but doing awful flirty dialogue beforehand (“Why do you turn to look at me all the time in class?” “Erm… The clock is behind you.” Popular Girl strips. “Now are you looking at me, or the clock?”) gives Jock, Crabble and Goyle time to break in and bully Male Lead some more, as if they had sensed he was about to score with a girl, meaning he would not be a nerd anymore and they would have to find someone else to bully. Aliens arrive and ask if they can join in, and are turned down. A little known fact about the Xenomorphs is that they don’t take rejection well, and these ones react by eating Crabbe and Goyle while the others escape. The group take shelter in a gun shop, picking up Big Brother, Good Cop and Grieving Widow along the way, and are soon joined by the gun shop’s pothead owners, and Ripley 3.0 and Newt 2.0, who had escaped their own encounter with the Aliens when Newt 2.0 sees them outside with her binoculars (See, you knew those would be important, didn’t you?) and her dad tells her she was having a nightmare and there’s no such thing as monsters, just before an Alien’s Tempting Fate sensor goes off, prompting it to jump through the window and kill him as soon as he’s finished talking.

#Rekt, 360 noscope, wombo combo, round winning kill and so on.

More Aliens come to the shop, with the Predator in hot pursuit. The group lose the potheads, when they pull guns on the Predator, which works just as well as it did for the last person who tried it, and Jock, who gets pounced on by an Alien, but before he gets eaten, the Predator shoots the Alien and its acid blood goes all over Jock. Good Cop tells everyone that there is a military evacuation in the town square and they should go there, but Big Brother is suspicious and insists on going to the hospital, which has a helicopter because of reasons. Good Cop and Grieving Widow leave to go to the evacuation site (“The government wouldn’t lie to us, would they?” She says.)

In all seriousness, I know she’s a fictional character and all, but I envy her naivete and innocence, and I’d probably be happier if I was like her and not worrying about the state of the world. This is getting heavy now, so back to the funny.

The group go to the hospital, which proves to be a bad idea, as the Predalien has converted it into a hive with Aliens everywhere. Male Lead’s boss at the pizza delivery place, who joined the group in a trade for Good Cop and Grieving Widow, gets eaten almost immediately. Big Brother is impaled by the Predalien’s tail, which he is lucky enough to survive thanks to plot armour. Popular Girl freaks out and runs away… right into the path of the Predator’s buzz saw. The Predator drops its laser cannon, which the group take for themselves and use to fight off the Aliens as they reach the roof, where they’re lucky enough to find that there is a helicopter, and it hasn’t been taken by the hospital staff. After getting caught in the middle between the Predator and Predalien, the four survivors finally board the helicopter and escape, and find they made the right decision as the town is nuked (Good Cop’s dying thoughts included “I never was any good at heads or tails.” And “Oh shit, I was only three days away from leaving the force!”), but the resulting shockwave causes a crash landing.

The helicopter is intercepted by a tactical squad, who take the Predator’s cannon away, but leave the group otherwise unharmed, prompting Newt 2.0 and Ripley 3.0 to say “It’s over, it’s finally over” without triggering one final scare (the Tempting Fate sensor clearly needed recharging after Mr There’s No Such Thing As Monsters.) The squad give the cannon to their boss, Ms Yutani of Weyland-Yutani infamy, thus setting up Alien VS Predator 3, which probably isn’t going to happen, as if it was, we would have gotten it by now instead of Predator 3 and Prometheus, which supposedly apparently maybe possibly leads up to Alien.

First off, the film is really dark, in the sense that it’s very poorly lit. Most of the film takes place at night or in unlit places, meaning that it’s very difficult to make out what’s going on. It doesn’t help that the camera keeps moving about suddenly, enabling the viewer to only snatch quick glimpses of the monsters. The film takes a lot of delight from its brutal kills, so making them so hard to see is a serious oversight. It’s also worth noting that there are a lot of gruesome scenes where children are killed and pregnant women get Alien babies from the Predalien faceraping them, which feels tasteless and there purely for shock value. This film shows why children so rarely die in horror films: nobody really wants to see it.

Secondly, it’s hard to care about any of what happens, as the humans are uninteresting, clichéd stock characters. Because of this, it doesn’t feel as if there are any stakes for the characters to overcome, even though the need to escape the monsters has been in previous Alien films and worked there. Perhaps it’s because the tone is just too bleak and hopeless with the Aliens being able to overrun the whole town easily, thanks to the lifecycle being sped up and the Predalien being able to impregnate women with multiple aliens at once. The stock cast makes the film feel like a teen slasher movie, and not in a good way. The main draw of a slasher is arguably the creative kills, and unfortunately these ones are not. The Aliens seem like they should be a threat from all the killing they do, but they don’t feel like it as the Predator mows them down easily, and so do the human characters once they get a group. They’re apparently more competent than the military, who all get killed within minutes of their arrival, while an untrained civilian with a pistol can kill the Aliens. The plot armour feels blatant.

There are some interesting ideas here though. The Predator being just as much of a threat as the Aliens instead of teaming up with the humans after they’ve proved themselves fits because of the Predator’s role here as a destroyer of evidence, even if it does contribute to the bleakness. The film is also notable for being the first time the Predator homeworld has been in film, and for finally bringing the Aliens to Earth, a prospect which was teased all the way back in 1990 in a trailer for Alien 3. It’s a shame that these firsts couldn’t have been in a better film.

Rating: Nuke the Site From Orbit / 10. It's the only way to be sure.

Bonus: Apparently, there originally was going to be one final scare after Ripley 3.0 and Newt 2.0 said “It’s over, it’s finally over.” After the survivors hand over the Predator’s cannon, the soldier’s don’t lower their weapons. Just as it becomes clear why they took the cannon, the screen would cut to black as the sound of gunfire played. This scene would have fitted in better with the rest of the film tonally and thematically, as it was stated earlier the government intended to cover up the Aliens, so it makes sense that the survivors would be silenced. Wouldn’t want any eyewitness reports complicating the message! Maybe the filmmakers got squeamish at the prospect of Newt 2.0 being shot to ribbons, which is an odd place to draw the line when there’s already been a pregnant woman feeling her unborn babies eaten inside her after being orally raped, but whatevs.