'Ant-Man' review by Captain Raptor

'Ant-Man' review by Jake Boyle

I told myself I wouldn't get excited. I promised. They took the film Edgar Wright had been developing for nearly a decade and pushed him away from the project, but even their aggravation of the director I revere the most couldn't overcome my intrinsic Marvel fanboy nature. Besides, if the script has to be rewritten, Adam McKay and Paul Rudd are reassuringly competent hands, one would think. So, yeah, I did get excited for Ant-Man in the final month or so before its release, and as you've probably figured out by now, I'm feeling pretty foolish about that.

Perhaps the one thing that Ant-Man is most sorely lacking is the idiosyncrasies and occasional offbeat ticks that have made previous fan favourites such as Iron Man and Guardians Of The Galaxy so beloved. A thief who can shrink himself and communicate with ants is a promisingly oddball premise, but there aren't as many attempts at humour as there needs to be, and the jokes that are made often fall flat, neither written or delivered with much assurance. This might perhaps be an unavoidable consequence of changing the script and director midway through production, but nevertheless there's a dire lack of charisma on display. It's especially notable given that Ant-Man is understandably light on action for much of its runtime, meaning that great swathes of the movies are just dry exposition, despite the best efforts of an impressively energetic Michael Peña. The training sequence in the second act is nearly excruciatingly dull, and made me yearn for the days when a cheesy but brief montage would have sufficed. This section seriously calls into question the directing ability of Peyton Reed, seemingly incapable of carrying out even the simplest of jokes (apparently the way to execute a pratfall is not to see it at all and just see other characters roll their eyes). It's made worse by a truly miserable performance from Evangeline Lily, whose underwritten character is further diminished by her apparently having no comprehension of how human facial expressions work.

As damning as all that is, Ant-Man isn't spectacularly bad, really, just disappointing coming from the MCU. Things really pick up for the final half an hour, when the action starts flowing better and fully embracing the premise - the climactic showdown partially takes place inside a suitcase and on a toy train track, and while the interspersing wide shots showing how inconsequential their fighting appears is quite an obvious joke, it does regain the film a needed sense of knowing. Paul Rudd doesn't make as charming or funny a lead as expected of him, but he's not a total wash; some of the film's worst moments (such as a kiss at the end that truly pushes new boundaries for chemistry-free forced romances) are made less awkward by his natural affability, and while no aspect of his performance is as promising as Peña's, I do think he'll serve well in Markus and McFeely's presumably stronger script for Captain America: Civil War. In terms of visuals, the film is once again disappointingly bland until the end, where a highly predictable moment is immeasurably improved by the inclusion of some trippy kaleidoscopic special effects that could have been taken from the end of Interstellar.

Ant-Man is not a good film, but it is also not a truly bad film. That's damning with faint praise already, but given the general level of quality of Marvel films and the potential this film began with, it's hard not to feel that all things considered, this is a failure. It's not without merit and the last thirty minutes were unambiguously enjoyable,  but none of that is enough to overcome the significant flaws that riddle the movie. Without wanting to sound bitter, Edgar Wright would almost certainly have made a much better movie, and while the end product is mostly watchable with some encouraging moments, it's telling that the strongest of all these moments is Falcon making a joke about Captain America - completely unconnected to the main storyline and characters, and simply reminding the audience of the superiority of Marvel's other properties.

'Wet Hot American Summer' review by Captain Raptor

'Wet Hot American Summer' review by Jake Boyle

Looking back at the cast of Wet Hot American Summer, it's crazy to see how successful pretty much everybody involved with that movie has become. It seems like a minor miracle that the entire original cast has agreed to reunite for the upcoming prequel miniseries, an event that provides the perfect reason to become acquainted with one of this century's most culty indie comedies, and one last point-scoring opportunity for Paul Rudd before I get to see Ant-Man.

Wet Hot American Summer's starting territory is hormonal teenaged antics, and while it manages to obtain a fair share of genuine laughs out of hapless pursuits of the heart and groin (think more Animal House than American Pie), there's a definitively erratic tone, energetically transitioning between a multitude of characters and comedic stylings. There are silly, goofy moments interspersed with jokes about drowning children and heroin dens, and deadpan non-sequiturs. Mixing baser comedy with more abstract humour benefits both; the film can divulge in bizarre flights of fantasy and Airplane!-esque zaniness but remains grounded by the easily understood character motivations and more relaxed adult jokes. The dialogue has been confidently written and is delivered and reacted to with equal self-assurance, mostly with a straight-faced simplicity that lets the strength of the comedy speak for itself. However, this confidence also allows for incredibly exaggerated moments (Paul Rudd turns picking up a plate into a 30 second routine that had me giggling constantly) because the viewer can appreciate that the film understands subtlety, and has chosen to temporarily abandon it.

Rudd's unflappable moodiness is a piece of brilliance, and one that is matched by every member of the cast. They all possess the ability to switch from low-key to frenetic in a second, most notably David Hyde Pierce, and they gel together seamlessly. A special commendation, however, must be awarded to Christopher Meloni's intensely kooky performance as a perverted, delusional Vietnam veteran. He embeds every ridiculous line with a real sense of seething rage to beautifully contrast the absurdity of what he's saying, and steals the show with film's funniest scene, a monologue about self-acceptance that involves him talking to a tin of peas and dry-humping a fridge. Aside from these moments of unapologetic lunacy, the independent production further benefits Wet Hot American Summer by allowing for the relaxed inclusion of gay characters being intimate (rarely found nowadays, let alone in 2001) and deliberately terrible props. No matter what territory the plot strays into, the film remains permanently light (even when dealing with the aforementioned darker elements) and unsentimental, culminating in an ending that gleefully deconstructs stereotypical happy resolutions and undoes its major character arcs.

Wet Hot American Summer sold out four times on its premiere at Sundance, and it isn't hard to see why. Energetic, inventive, and unabashedly weird, it's a film that has torn up the comedy rulebook, but only after having studied it laboriously and mastered every style. Each moment of balls-to-the-wall foolishness is sandwiched by dry wit and highly self-aware writing, and the quick pace with which we move through the multitude of scenes bequeaths a aura of snappiness, although the relaxed performances of the film's fantastic ensemble never let proceedings get too out of hand. The outlandishness of it all might grate on some, especially towards the end where the craziness is ramped up to compensate for a slight running out of steam, but this is an incredibly funny movie and while the Netflix series is a risky move, it's one that I eagerly await.

'Ted 2' review by Captain Raptor

'Ted 2 review by Jake Boyle

I thoroughly enjoyed the first Ted movie when it came out, but it's highly likely that a large contributing factor was that I was 15 at its time of release. Now that I'm a little older and supposedly a little wiser, I was wary that being bombarded with jokes about weed and genitalia might not hold the same appeal it once did, especially given Seth MacFarlane's rather lacklustre form lately. However, the trailer suckered me in with something I could never refuse, a joke about Samuel L Jackson, and it'd been so long since I'd been to see anything that it still sounded like a good option. 

I guess I'm still actually 15 because I had a pretty good time with Ted 2. It's not that I'd misjudged it, entirely - the film's two funniest scenes (by a considerable margin) both revolve around semen - but there is evidence of craftsmanship to MacFarlane's method. There's a lot of puerility (although, to be fair, not as much as there easily could have been) but the scenes containing them are all precisely timed and built around the reveal of the grossness to provide a greater reaction from punchline moments. Not the most intellectual of techniques, perhaps, but certainly an effective one. Ted 2 doesn't provide as many moments of brilliance as its predecessor, partially from the law of diminishing returns, but the joke rate is high with most of them sticking to varying degrees. The whole affair is classic MacFarlane - race jokes (much less shocking than he's shown himself to be capable of, for better and for worse), pop culture references galore and a plot that more closely resembles a series of skits and asides than a focused story. These aren't always the best ingredients but MacFarlane knows his tools well, and while it does feel like he's playing it safe, the result is a film with a real sense of confidence that gleefully rhymes off joke after joke with very little flab. 

The myriad of references and in-jokes (Patrick Warburton redonning his Tick costume just to beat up nerds at Comic-Con is a particular treat) show the effort that's been put into this film, but sometimes it feels like overcomplication and a distraction; there are far too many earnest moments for a film that delights in cynicism and mocking. Amanda Seyfried's heartfelt plea for Ted's right to personhood is, to a point, a genuinely touching moment, but Morgan Freeman doing the exact same thing (with far less effort) 30 minutes later is totally void of any real substance. The sense of humour is very on point but in the moments where it's dropped it quickly becomes evident that there's nothing else to this film. The strength of MacFarlane and his cowriters' comic material is heightened by a cast that (barring Freeman's aforementioned pointlessness) gels well together and deliver every line with reassurance - Mark Wahlberg continues his impressively game performance in the series, and Seyfried helps form a strong trio dynamic with the Thunder Buddies. The weighty themes of identity and humanity make the non-comic scenes mismatchingly pensive, but they provide ample framework for humour to be built around, and the early scenes about Ted and Tami-Lynn trying to become parents are inventive and hilarious in equal measure. 

The verdict on Ted 2 comes down to a glass half-full or half-empty approach. You could view it as a retread of familiar. simplistic jokes with nothing new to offer or as a return to form by someone with a genuine passion for something so unashamedly dumb. I'd skew towards the latter, but whichever way you cut it, Ted 2 is a consistently funny movie with enough energy and panache to survive most criticisms. It's obviously not suited to all tastes, and if jokes about Jay Leno having "gay bathroom sex" don't sound appealing, then you'd be wise to steer clear of this. It's not as wild or inventive as one might have hoped for, but it's still far from disappointing and a reliably good source of laughs.