Ant Man

Spanks – 5

Director – Peyton Reed

Writers – Edgar Wright & Joe Cornish and Adam McKay & Paul Rudd

Starring – Paul Rudd, Michael Douglas, Evangeline Lilly, Corey Stoll, Bobby Cannavale, Anthony Mackie, Judy Greer, Abby Ryder Fortson & Michael Peña

Release Date – 17 July 2015

MPAA Rating – PG-13

Run time – 117 Minutes

I was a little concerned with Ant Man because of the behind the scenes stuff that went on. Not long before production was set to begin the writer and director left because of creative differences. In the end the film came out great. They didn’t change the script to much, and it still had the feel of an Edger Wright movie. My only complaint is that it started a little slow, but after the first 20 minutes or so the pace speed up and turned into a great film.

Ant Man tells the story of Scott Lang. He is a former engineer who was arrested for burglary. Upon release from prison he has a hard time getting a job and is recruited by scientist Hank Pym to “break into a place and steal some stuff.” Dr. Pym is the creator of the Ant Man suit and teaches Scott how to use it so he can save the world.

The movie is very funny. I think it is the funniest of the Marvel movies to date. They also used macro photography for the scenes when Scott is in shrunken form which gave the film a different look then just using CGI. Paul Rudd was a perfect choice for the title roll, even though you wouldn’t look at him as a superhero, which is probably why it works. I am looking forward to seeing what happens next for Ant Man and where that will happen in future Marvel movies.

The World’s End

Spanks – 4

Director – Edgar Wright

Writers – Simon Pegg & Edgar Wright

Starring – Simon Pegg, Nick Frost, Martin Freeman, Paddy Considine, Eddie Marsan & Rosamund Pike

Release Date – 23 August 2013

MPAA Rating – R

Run time – 109 Minutes

The World’s End is the final part of Edgar Wright and Simon Pegg’s Three Flavours Cornetto trilogy. After a zombie film and a cop movie, we now have the science fiction feature. The World’s End is about five high school friends get together about 20 years after graduation to finish the pub crawl in their home town of that they failed to do when they were teenagers. When the group get back to the town of Newton Haven things seem strange at first and it is confirmed when a fight breaks out in the loo.

The World’s End is a funny movie and there wasn’t very many of these this summer. I laughed throughout the film as did the full auditorium. If you put this against the other two movies in the trilogy, it unfortunately it is the least funny. Shaun of the Dead and Hot Fuzz are two movies that from the start were hard to top.

The only problem I had with the film was that it started slow. Don’t get me wrong, the beginning was funny. It just took until the scene in the bathroom for the movie to really start going. Once that happened, you had the action that goes along with all the laughs that make up the Three Flavours Cornetto trilogy.