Marvel films have performed incredibly well with both critics and audiences and, most importantly, the box-office. Their success is such one can’t help but wonder if the studio’s gotten courageous and is willing to gamble on making films featuring lesser known characters.
Guardians of the Galaxy, for example, starred relatively obscure (at least before the movie’s release, natch) characters yet was a HUGE box office hit (I really didn’t like the film so don’t look for explanations from me as to why it clicked so well with audiences).
Following Guardians of the Galaxy came word Disney/Marvel were, along with writer/director Edgar Wright (Shaun of the Dead, Scott Pilgrim vs The World) working on a movie version of Ant-Man. This character was another decidedly (ahem) small-time Marvel superhero yet the presence of Mr. Wright, a man who built a great reputation for creating clever and at times manic comedies, gave reason for optimism.
Then the roof fell in.
Creative differences resulted in Mr. Wright leaving the project and Peyton Reed taking over. Fans of Marvel films were concerned. Because of these behind-the-scenes problems, could this be Marvel’s first outright failure?
As it turned out, there was little reason to worry.
While Ant-Man may not reach the high bar set by Captain America: Winter Soldier (my personal favorite Marvel superhero film), it is a solid, entertaining feature and another win for Marvel.
The movie starts in the distant (cough, wheeze) past of 1989 where Dr. Hank Pym (Michael Douglas) confronts his fellow scientific whiz-kids about his experiments. They want him to share his reduction technology but Dr. Pym fears it will be militarized and angrily leaves the company he founded. Though he is gone, it is clear his ex-workers (including Howard Stark) will continue pursuing his work.
Fast forward to the present where Scott Land (Paul Rudd), electrical whiz and, more importantly, master thief, is released from jail. He is a very likable guy (hey, he’s played by Paul Rudd, how could he not be?!) and is determined to straighten out his life. He wants to re-connect with his daughter but his ex-wife is now dating a police officer who doesn’t care for or trust this ex-con.
Meanwhile, Dr. Pym’s successor, Darren Cross (Corey Stoll) continues to work on the reduction formulas Dr. Pym claims he failed to create. Under the watchful eye of Hope Van Dyne (Evangeline Lilly), Dr. Pym’s supposedly estranged daughter but actually secret mole, the two realize Darren Cross is getting too close to replicating this formula and fear he will sell it to the highest military bidder.
They are running out of time and have to stop Cross and destroy his work. How to do so?
Why, by using the reduction formula and breaking into the heavily secured laboratories.
Naturally, this leads to Dr. Pym recruiting the reluctant Scott Lang to do this skullduggery and things move from there.
Without getting into spoilers, suffice to say we’re soon following along as Scott Lang tries his best to master the reduction technology while planning and, eventually, breaking into the top-secret laboratory.
To my eyes, Ant-Man retains much of Edgar Wright’s DNA (the screenplay is still credited to him) within and, as a result, is a cool and breezy ride. The movie is never too terribly serious or dark, instead giving us a more lighthearted affair that doesn’t place too many demands on its audiences.
To me, the movie’s biggest fault is that Darren Cross is never a terribly well defined villain. As a result he never elicits the fear we probably should have regarding the possibility of succeeding.
Still, Ant-Man is a fun ride that even those who know or care very little of Marvel superhero movies should find entertaining. Recommended.
It’s been a very long time since I cared about the Pirates of the Caribbean franchise. In fact, I liked the first movie and that was pretty much that. I saw the second film (remember nothing about it) and maybe a bit of the third when it aired on TV.
Nonetheless, this news regarding the (gulp) fifth movie in the franchise proved, as stated above, mildly interesting…
The reason I point the article out is not so much for the story -good on Paul McCartney taking on the role…hope he has a blast- but rather for a clever comment posted by “Steve”, one of the readers of the article. I’ll reproduce it here in full:
Considering the title -= dead men tell no tales, there will be in jokes that only old people and Beatles fans will get, that Paul’s character will be named Billy Shears, rumored to be dead and replaced with a lookalike and his outfit will look similar to the costume he wore on the Sgt Peppers album.
If that would happen, it would be clever. Even if only us “old folks” will get the joke.
In case you haven’t looked, Rottentomatoes.com as of yesterday started posting reviews for the very soon to be released Batman v. Superman: Dawn of Justice aaaaaaaannnnnnddddd…
The reviews so far -from movie critics- aren’t all that great. At this moment (though they haven’t gotten a “concensus” yet), the movie is scoring a below mediocre 41% among critics…
The breakdown is as follows: Of the 66 reviews released so far, 27 are favorable and 39 are not, hence the 41% rating.
There will be more reviews posted and I suspect the ratings might rise and/or fall a little before there are enough ratings available for the site to state there is a good enough sampling.
However, based on the rather large number (66 reviews is pretty high, IMHO) of ratings so far, I wouldn’t be surprised if the number stays roughly in that neighborhood, hovering somewhere around 50% approval/disapproval.
I remain curious to see the film and, while I’ve tried to avoid the actual written reviews for fear of the movie being “spoiled” (as was done to me about one big aspect of Spectre) I did see one review that was disheartening wherein the reviewer stated that if you’ve seen one of the trailers (I’m guessing one of the longer ones) you’ve essentially seen a condensed version of the movie.
That sucks.
Sometimes I wonder what goes through the minds of the movie studios when they put together trailers for their films…and sometimes go way too far in revealing elements of the film.
A while back I did a post regarding trailers that gave away too much (you can read it here). I would reiterate what I said in that particular post: Of all the trailers I’ve seen, the one that for me “ruined” a film the most has to be the one for Terminator 2.
If you were to see the first Terminator and then put on Terminator 2 without knowing anything at all about either film, you would likely have been shocked when in T2 it was suddenly revealed the “bad guy” Terminator from the first film was actually good this time. Director James Cameron was obviously playing with the audience’s expectations and wanted to surprise them when it was revealed who was bad and who was good.
Which makes the trailer released for that film all the more head-scratching…
I mean, why give away the movie’s biggest surprise in advance?! It made absolutely no sense.
I just hope the review I read about Superman v. Batman proves not to be true.
3/24 Update:
A day later, rottentomatoes.com has a “consensus” rating for the movie and, alas, the critical reaction has taken a turn downward. The film as of today scores a poor 33% approval among critics (47 liked it, 94 didn’t). On the other hand, the film enjoys a healthy 80% positive among movie-goers who have seen the film thus far.
Though I didn’t mean to, there was another of those reviews that kinda stopped me in place, one that stated (and I can only paraphrase as I don’t have the exact quote) Batman v. Superman was essentially a long commercial for future DC superhero movies.
Ouch.
On the other hand, Andrew O’Hehir at Salon.com liked it…
Of the current crop of professional reviewers out there I happen to enjoy Mr. O’Hehir more than most and his take on the film (it is spoiler free) is amusing and interesting and, yes, he does like the film!
Interesting article from i09 written by Charlie Jane Anders regarding the upcoming Batman v. Superman and Captain America: Civil War films and how they appear to share the same general storyline (I noted this before as well), ie that the heroes have to account for the destruction they wrought in the previous movie(s).
Interestingly, the similarities only grow: We have a “true blue” patriot type character in Superman/Captain America fighting against a corporate billionaire/genius (in armor!) in Batman/Iron Man. All deal in some way with the concept of Superheroes representing a new form of fascism, at least according to Mr. Anders.
While for most comic book heroes exist firmly in the realm of fantasy and wish-fulfillment, it is my belief we’ve gradually moved to the point where writers and audiences have taken a “realistic” view of what it means to have Superheroes.
One is tempted to say this began in the late 1960’s, particularly with the then hard-hitting Denny O’Neil/Neal Adams Green Lantern/Green Arrow stories which, among others, addressed issues of drug abuse…
Religion…
And, in the very first story done by the duo, racial equality/racism…
However, there has always been a sub-context of exploring the “reality” of superheroes in society. Stan Lee, Jack Kirby, Steve Ditko, et al in the early through the 1960’s established a relatively new view of superheroes via Marvel Comics by creating a somewhat cohesive universe where characters interacted and, at times, engaged in almost soap opera level loves.
However, one need not look too hard to see the first “real” interactions between Superheroes and society. The following images, presented in the very first Superman story which appeared in Action Comics #1 and were written and illustrated by Jerry Siegel and Joe Shuster, featured among other scenes the following:
Yup, that’s a wife beater getting his just desserts. Then there was this, also from that very first Superman story:
In the above scene, Superman forces himself into the Governor’s home and, eventually bedroom to get the man to call off an execution of an innocent woman!
After this start, however, comic book superheroes would take a step back from harsh realism and vigilante escapades…
and featured less “heavy” themes and more garish, “fun” adventures. It was at this time that comic books became viewed as “children’s” literature, though there was always those who tried to move the art form back into a more adult realm.
With the 2013 release of the Superman movie Man of Steel, something else changed. The mass destruction presented at the end of the film was jarring to many viewers and director Zach Snyder appeared to make no effort to minimize the potential loss of human life in that movie’s climax.
While many were troubled by this, the fact is the Marvel movies, particularly the two Avengers films and Captain America: The Winter Soldier, also featured a startling level of large city-wide destruction, though they did make an effort to explain away/minimize/excuse the potential loss of human life.
It would appear, however, the destruction presented in Man of Steel not only made the makers of that film feel the need to address the topic but it also did the same for the makers of the Marvel/Disney films. Both Batman v. Superman and Captain America: Civil War appear to at the very least have similar concepts behind them: The idea that the destruction wrought by our heroes needs to be addressed and the heroes take different views on how to address them and ultimately clash.
As with so many things, there’s evolution of concept here. For now, this is where the creators of movies seem to want to go. In a few years, superhero movies might become passe and we might have new topics which engage the public. Or perhaps the more joyful “all ages” and/or campy superhero will re-emerge to the forefront (One can see some of this, especially the more joyful superhero, in The Flash TV series).
Regardless, for better or worse and for this summer film goers will deal with the destruction superheroes create and their impact on society…and fascism.
News came out yesterday that director Steven Spielberg and Harrison Ford would return for a fifth (and I’m presuming last) Indiana Jones film. It would be the fifth film and follows the monetarily successful but critically panned Indiana Jones and The Kingdom of the Crystal Skulls.
I say “presuming last” film in the Indiana Jones series because -and brace yourselves here- Harrison Ford will be 76 years old when the film is being made and be turning 77 when the film is actually released.
Mind you, Mr. Ford has maintained himself very well -if only everyone could look as good as he does when they reach that age!- but the reality of seeing a 76 year old man in a high octane action film, frankly, makes me wonder.
Years ago I wrote the novel Cold Hemispheres, a story set in The Dark Fringe universe which features an elderly protagonist on what amounts to his “last” hurrah.
For many, many years the idea of presenting one “last” story for a “hero” has intrigued me, well beyond my writing Cold Hemispheres. The concept is not unique, of course.
Mythologies are full of heroes who have one last adventure. There are story finales involving Robin Hood, King Arthur, Don Quixote, El Cid, and Beowulf. Robert E. Howard provided a magnificent ending, in poem form, to Solomon Kane. In comic books, there have been story finales offered (though they are called “elseworlds” or “imaginary” tales) for Batman (Frank Miller’s original The Dark Knight Returns) and Superman (The Alan Moore written Whatever Happened to the Man of Tomorrow).
Whether tragic, exciting, humorous, or depressing, every story featuring a strong protagonist eventually ends and, if the protagonist appears in multiple stories, there is a temptation to explore their mortality and where it all ends.
Many years ago I took a sequential art (ie comic book storytelling) class with comic book legend Will Eisner. This was somewhere around the time or shortly after the full release of Frank Miller’s The Dark Knight Returns.
When my friend and I left one of the classes we wound up taking an elevator ride alone with Mr. Eisner and I gathered my courage and asked him if he ever considered writing/drawing one last Spirit story. I noted The Dark Knight series (again, it was very much on most comic book readers’ minds at the time) and wondered if he ever considered making such a story. I further stated if such a story were considered and created, it didn’t need to have quite as large a page count as Mr. Miller’s Batman story but rather could fit in with the usual Spirit stories which often ran no longer than 7-8 pages.
Mr. Eisner, at least to my mind, was either intrigued with the notion or, more likely, had been asked this question many times before and rather than shoot me down politely stated something along the lines that it was an interesting idea but that he had other works he was more interested in pursuing.
Mr. Eisner would ultimately pass away in 2005 and, to my knowledge, never did create a formal “finale” Spirit story.
Following the critically reviled Kingdom of the Crytal Skull, Mr. Spielberg and Ford are given a second chance to create an Indiana Jones finale (unless they feel they can make yet another Indiana Jones movie after this one!). I hope with this film they create something magical thought I will admit beyond Raiders of the Lost Ark the other Indiana Jones films are, IMHO, lesser works.
Haven’t seen the movie, but every commercial and still I’ve seen for the film 10 Cloverfield Lane features…well…read the article by Laura Bradley which appears in Slate.com for yourself:
I know, I know…we’re talking about but one aspect of the movie but Ms. Winstead’s character in the film is the protagonist of the piece, and, as I stated, whenever I see clips or images from it all I see is the (strategically) exposed bra…
Maybe exposed bra/bra straps are the new lens flare for J.J. Abrams produced works?!
When word came the latest James Bond film, Spectre, was about to be released, I made it a point to clear up free time to see it while it was still in theaters. When the movie was first released in England, the reviews were kind and I got doubly excited to see it. When the movie was given its world-wide release shortly afterwards, those initial wildly enthusiastic reviews from England were met with far less enthusiastic reviews elsewhere. (The movie has a 64% positive rating from critics and a 63% positive rating from audiences over at rottentomatoes.com)
Unfortunately, I read a few of the reviews at that time and my desire to see the film cooled considerably. I finally gave up on seeing it in theaters after reading one particular review which SPOILED the relationship between Bond and the villain of this piece. (You can read my original post regarding this here. And a more in depth, SPOILERY post here)
Despite my negative reaction to the reviews, there was never a doubt I’d see Spectre eventually. Good, bad, or indifferent, I’ve seen all the James Bond films, sometimes many multiple times. As good as some of the great ones are (Dr. No, From Russia With Love, Goldfinger, The Spy Who Loved Me, For Your Eyes Only, The Living Daylights, Goldeneye, Casino Royale), there are also some really bad ones (You Only Live Twice, The Man With the Golden Gun, Moonraker, A View To A Kill, License to Kill, the other Pierce Brosnan Bond films).
With all due respect to the ratings over at rottentomatoes, Spectre for me falls deep into the “bad” category. In fact, I’d rank it among the very worst of the James Bond films. And you know what the most amazing thing about that is? What irked me so much about the film before seeing it and what kept me from seeing it upon its initial release, ie the stupid, unnecessary relationship between Bond and the villain, turned out to be one of the film’s lesser sins.
Seriously.
So much was wrong with Spectre that by the time we got to the “big reveal” of Bond and the villain’s relationship I was numb.
But as bad as it got, Spectre nonetheless starts off quite well. The opening action montage, set in Mexico during their annual Day of the Dead festival, is exciting and visually appealing. After this opening act the film manages to keep up its interest but only because of the momentum provided in that opening. As soon as that momentum is gone the film sputters and dies.
Yet like the living dead, it goes on… and on…. and on……. and………. on……….
At the 1 hour and 30 minute mark I had to pause the film for a bathroom break. On the TV screen was displayed how much of the movie we’d seen and how much was left. We still had an hour of Spectre to go. Yes sir, ladies and gentlemen…not only is the film not good, there’s plenty of it. It runs an astonishing 2 hours and 28 minutes.
Let me offer an example of how unexciting Spectre was. During what was envisioned as one of the movie’s big action set pieces, a car chase through the streets of Rome, James Bond (a really bored and surly looking Daniel Craig) is being chased by Hinx (Dave Bautista). They are both driving high powered sport super cars and, you would think, these scenes, in the right director’s hands, would be brimming with excitement.
Not so.
The “action” is apparently so non-threatening to James Bond that, DURING THE ACTUAL CAR CHASE he places a phone call to Ms. Moneypenny (Naomie Harris) to get her to look in on some information.
I repeat: James Bond makes a phone call DURING THE CAR CHASE SCENE to get someone else to look into something…and his call is never frantic or interrupted to any great degree. There’s no yelling or cursing or, you know, anything else one would think might be involved in racing at breakneck speeds in super sophisticated sports cars while trying not to kill yourself/be killed. In fact, I doubt Ms. Moneypenny even realized Bond was in any danger.
As Moneypenny goes, so did I. How could I feel Bond was in danger when he himself didn’t seem to feel he was?
But there’s more. Boy howdy there’s more.
The plot of Spectre also proves surprisingly unengaging and, frankly, piecemeal. I noted how the previous Bond film, Skyfall, was an odd bird of a film that had you on the edge of your seat while it played out but afterwards you couldn’t help but realize how the plot made absolutely no sense at all.
What saved Skyfall was the breakneck pacing that didn’t allow you to think about how stupid the plot was. The glacier pacing of Spectre, alas, does the exact opposite: It gives you too much time to think about what a pointless story we’re dealing with.
That story, as it is, goes something like this: Over video, James Bond is given one last task by the previous M (Judi Dench in a cameo appearance as her character -SPOILERS!- met her end in Skyfall): To kill a person and then attend his funeral and see who shows up there.
Not all that much, eh?
The person Bond was to kill is the man he takes out in the film’s opening minutes. So, Bond subsequently goes to the funeral and senses he’s getting close to a mysterious and powerful organization. The dead man’s wife, Lucia (Monica Bellucci in what amounts to a very small cameo) points him toward a get-together and, from there, Bond essentially follows a series of breadcrumbs which eventually lead him to Spectre, the evil organization which the Sean Connery Bond had to deal with for most of his run.
In the meantime, we have a secondary story involving the possible disbanding of the 00 spy network as a newcomer seeks to upgrade British Intel with powerful new computer surveillance equipment. Of course, both stories eventually intersect.
Returning Skyfall director Sam Mendes gets precious little out of his actors this time around. As mentioned, Daniel Craig appears both surly and bored in this feature. Bond “girl” Madeline (Lea Seydoux) is never much more than a pretty face and a damsel in distress. Blofeld (Christoph Waltz) is surprisingly unthreatening as the lead villain. Even Hinx, the movie’s big, supposedly scary henchman, is surprisingly dull.
But the worst thing about Spectre remains that nonsensical piecemeal story. Even as the film plays out audiences are left with so many unanswered questions and silly frustrations. There is not one, but TWO separate occasions in this film where Bond has incapacitated his enemies (in both cases they’re unconscious and helpless) and Bond stands only a few feet away from either of them. Rather than take a few seconds to check to make sure they’re dead (and if they’re not, put a bullet in their heads), he just walks away which allows them to come back and annoy him some more.
There’s also a scene later in the film where Hinx and Bond go mano-a-mano in a train (a clear homage to train fights presented in Bond films dating back to From Russia With Love). Hinx is clearly trying his best to kill Bond yet, immediately afterwards when Bond meets up with Blofeld, it is equally clear our main villain wanted Bond to get to his lair so he could personally kill him.
Was Blofeld’s henchman acting on his own? I mean, seriously…are employer/employee on different pages?
Later still and in the movie’s climax, Madeline leaves Bond and, inexplicably, walks away alone down a dark London street. Everyone knows there’s danger all around them and yet Bond simply lets the “love of his life” walk away alone and unguarded into the night?!? I’ll give you a single guess as to what happens to her.
I could go on and on (seriously) but all I’m accomplishing is raising my blood pressure.
Spectre, in the end, is Bond at its absolute worst. A too long “action” film with little action and a un-engaing -and nonsensical- plot. Sure, there are some nice scenes here and there and the movie clearly had a large budget and was filled with actors who normally do pretty good work but the end result, alas, is a dud.
Yesterday Disney released a new trailer for Captain America: Civil War and, while the trailer showed us some stuff we’ve seen and other, lengthier takes, we were also treated to some interesting new material.
Of the new material presented, the most intriguing occurs at the tail end of the trailer where we finally get to see a certain web-slinging wise-guy make his first formal appearance in the Disney Marvel Universe films:
And the fanboys go wiiiiillllllldddd!
Seriously, People went crazy for this. Over on i09 James Whitbrook offered an entire post dedicated to screen grabs/gifs of Spider-Man’s appearance in the trailer:
In fact, and I hate to say this considering how much I enjoyed the Rousso brother’s previous Captain America film, The Winter Soldier (I consider it one of the best superhero films ever made, second only to Richard Donner’s Superman), but the trailer left me rather cold.
Perhaps to some it’s going to sound like heresy but here goes: I think the above trailer is weak soup compared to the latest/last Batman v. Superman trailer.
To begin, the visuals (we’ll find out soon enough how the stories compare) alone blow Captain America: Civil War away. The B v S trailer, further, just feels a hell of a lot more exciting.
But let’s get back to Spider-Man and his new costume. Thanks to Jaren Cole over at Byrne Robotics I can cut-n-paste his handy reference regarding the various Spider-Man costumes presented over the previous few years:
Spider-Man from the Captain America: Civil War trailer
If I had to pick which one I liked the most, I’d go with Amazing Spider-Man 2, then the Sam Raimi Spider-Mans, then Amazing Spider-Man 1.
Alas, I feel the Spider-Man presented in the Civil War trailer, while certainly not horrible, is nonetheless the version I like the least, though I will admit I liked the way the whites in his eyes narrowed (this is a cool tip of the hat to the comic books which hasn’t been used in the films -at least to my awareness- until now).
So there you have it.
While people will no doubt soon enough argue the merits (or lack thereof) of the film to come, at least to me the “new” look of Spider-Man -as well as the overall look presented in Captain America: Civil War– isn’t doing all that much for me at this point.
POST-SCRIPT: It suddenly occurs to me that both Batman v Superman and Captain America: Civil War seem to be dealing with roughly the same idea: How does humanity react to super-beings capable of inflicting mass destruction as presented in previous films?
Now that I’ve seen The Martian, I’ve doubled the number of Oscar nominated Best Pictures for 2015 I’ve seen. I’ve gone from one to…two.
Woo…hoo?
Directed by the legendary Ridley Scott (Blade Runner, Alien) and based on the hit novel of the same name by Andy Weir, the movie concerns the travails of astronaut Mark Watney (Matt Damon, charismatic and pleasant as the protagonist) who is part of a group of American astronauts (included in the mix are familiar faces such as Jessica Chastain, Kate Mara, and Michael Pena) who have landed on and are exploring Mars.
When a sudden storm hits, Watney is slammed by a radar dish and flung away. Melissa Lewis (Jessica Chastain), the commander of the mission, tries to find Watney but the storm is so severe it threatens to knock the crew’s evac ship over. The remaining astronauts are forced to give up on Watney (whom by this point they believe is dead) and blast off back to their mothership and, from there, head back to Earth.
After the storm is over, we find that Watney has somehow survived. (Aside: While the movie tries to be “scientifically accurate”, this scene presented one of my biggest movie pet peeves: A character being knocked “unconscious” and awakening much later to no ill effect. In Watney’s case, he awakens after the storm is over. Had he been unconscious that long, he would probably be suffering severe head trauma).
Watney’s suit was punctured and it fritzed-out his life-readings which explains why the others thought him dead. Alive but alone, Watney realizes he will need to survive another four years before another ship reaches Mars. The big problem? He has supplies to last only a few more months.
The premise of The Martian is intriguing as well as unique and I can most certainly see why movie studios and book readers ate up Andrew Weir’s concept. The idea of a lone man trying to survive against all odds on an inhospitable planet while using real world (or at least plausible) science is an easy concoction to take down.
And as I watched the film I was most certainly entertained.
…but…
Ok, I don’t want to sound like a killjoy here and I would hastily add that I recommend the film and would give it a very solid three stars out of four…
…But…
As the movie played out I was bothered by the almost aggressive “niceness” it presents in all the characters. Every one of them, even Jeff Daniels’ Teddy Sanders, head of NASA, who engages in actions that draw him closest to being an almost-but-never-close to being labeled a “bad guy”, are so resolutely nice and pleasant and are all working so damn hard to get their man back and its rare any word is crossed and…
….argghh!…
I truly don’t want to get into specifics as I don’t want to give away the movie’s plot but it felt to me everyone was just too damn nice and too damn caring to the point where they didn’t “feel” like real people (It didn’t help that some familiar faces, such as Kristen Wiig, pop up and ultimately don’t do all that much). Never once did the film present us with a genuine, heated argument about the incredible logistics needed to be overcome to save Watney. Even the movie’s climax, which involved (while I don’t want to get into SPOILERS, I’ll have to here) a mutiny, was treated and resolved as if nothing big.
Bear in mind, the movie not only deals with Watney’s personal survival but the potential agony of those on Earth who alternately want so very badly to save the man but also must realize this involves a great deal of money, a lack of time (he only has to much), and the politics and personal risk involved in both failure and success…all to ultimately save ONE person.
While it is a great human interest story and the movie presented Watney’s point of view well, I can’t help but think it whiffed on presenting what could have been a more complex and emotional story regarding the agony of making the decisions which may, or may not, save this one stranded man.
Considering the film clocks in at 2:20 and it didn’t feel like it was padded in any significant way, I guess what I’m suggesting is that this story could have benefited from a longer run time. Perhaps it would have worked better as a cable mini-series?
Despite my criticisms, I stand by what I said above. The Martian is an entertaining, if somewhat incomplete, work that is easy to recommend.
Moving away from the depressing subject of politics (click here if you want to be depressed…or simply scroll to my previous blog entry), yesterday I was delighted to find that the soundtrack to John Carpenter’s original 1976 Assault on Precinct 13 was available for purchase…so I purchased it.
I love, love, LOVE the original Assault on Precinct 13 and consider it one of John Carpenter’s all time best films even though it was clearly a very low budget affair and some of the acting was…well…not that great at points but enough to get the job done.
A classic “B” movie thriller with an equally classic John Carpenter electronic score. If you like this…
