Ant-Man and the Wasp: Quantumania

The MCU's sardonic cul-de-sac adds one more showcase home. Is it as “nice” as the earlier constructions? Well, clearly no expense was spared, and it displays many of the features you would like if you’re in the market to buy: a strong cast of likable actors, plenty of eye candy (in the visual effects, not necessarily in the hottie sense), and your occasional decent stab at humor -- but frankly, the neighborhood has seen better days. It doesn’t particularly resemble the place it once was. And some of the new house’s features are somewhat odd and seemingly not entirely a good fit; they’re not necessarily innovations that a buyer couldn’t live without. All in all, this isn’t a bad movie, but it’s not something you should have been clamoring to pay money to see -- better to be a subscriber and have waited for this one to move into its permanent digs, where the value is much higher than in the newly-made market. That's hardly a level worthy of aspiration, but that seems to be where this thing is now. Whether you really need to visit this place depends pretty much entirely upon you.

Ant-Man and the Wasp

Fun. Not profound, to be sure, but certainly an entertaining piece of popcorn cinema. It's also an object lesson: when the first in this series came out, I was certain that it was a bridge too far for the Marvel milieu. Not so; this line of the story has its own niche--humor driven, narrowly focused (a family, instead of the world or universe)--and, so long as they keep the pseudo-scientific hooey to a minimum, entertaining instead of eye-rolling. Not bad for a minor, never-heard-of-it-before character and storyline. It helps, too, that the cast--leads and supporting actors alike--play their parts nearly perfectly; the right people are plugged into the right roles, and that creates plenty of leeway with the audience. The implication: keep things fresh, and fun, and light, and perhaps fantasies of an MCU in perpetuity may be possible--whether its focus characters are big or small.

Ant-Man

I avoided this movie when it first came out, and assumed I would not like it if I did happen to stumble across it. It seemed like just a step too far--into the absurd--for the Marvel franchise. But I happened to spot it in the on-demand listing and couldn’t resist the superhero siren-song. And the verdict is...it’s OK. Not awful, not great. The premise is indeed absurd, even for a superhero film; the formula--wisecracking, flawed do-gooder; oddball supporting cast; tech as both savior and source of villainy; ham-handed attempts at building a realistic emotional foundation--is competently done, but has been done better; and the promises of things to come, given what precedes, don’t really generate that much excitement. I suppose it’s all fine, but I can’t help feeling that, if all this effort had been put towards generating something truly new and interesting, that’s exactly what we might have gotten.

Traffic

Tough to watch, thanks to the fact that this film is about total wretchedness and the cancerous evil that inhabits the soul of a nation (and that nation is not Mexico, kiddos). The extensive cast gives good performances, but Soderbergh's directorial gimmickry--tinted lighting, grainy textures, self-conscious editing--considerably detracts from the overall movie.

Wonder Boys

Solid, and surprisingly funny. Good work by Michael Douglas and Tobey Maguire. ETA: sorry, I know that's thin, but I saw this movie way over a decade ago--I can't say anything at this remove other than I liked it.