kellym40 film review

Four friends bring fun, sentiment to ‘Last Vegas’

Rating 3/5

The premise of Last Vegas brings the idea of four life long friends coming together again for a big hoo-rah after nearly 60 years. This kind of formula has been seen before and since the release of this movie. However, it still works. It works, due in part, to the acting talents of Michael Douglas, Robert De Niro, Morgan Freeman, and Kevin Kline. That’s not to say the film isn’t flawed, but the flaws are minor and are somewhat lost through the fun overall story.

The film generally has a nice story of friendship and forgiveness, mixed with a love triangle (twice). The film begins with four young boys who seem to do a lot together. They protect each other. They have fun together. Flash forward to nearly 60 years later and we find the four are living their lives, but they still have a yearning to have some fun. It starts with Billy (Douglas) who is dating a much younger girl and suddenly proposes to her. So what does he do? He calls his childhood buddies to the wedding in Las Vegas. We then see Archie (Freeman), after suffering a minor stroke, living with his son (who treats his father as a child, becoming very protective). Sam (Kline) is married, but still misses his youthful times. Archie and Sam, on their way to the airport, decide to stop by and pick up Paddy (De Niro). Here we learn Paddy and Billy have had a falling out. Paddy reluctantly agrees and the three head off to Vegas.

Upon arrival, they meet up with Billy and get to the hotel only to find the hotel is still being renovated as they squabble over who was supposed to make the reservation. They go to the casino, to the bar, to the pool and manage to obtain a room for the rest of the weekend until the wedding. While there, they meet a beautiful lounge singer Diana (Mary Steenburgen) who Paddy seems to instantly fall for, and Billy is not far behind. This brings up a similar love triangle from their childhood where they both liked the same girl. This ultimately resulted in their riff between each other. This plays out, though, through comedy and a touching gesture that turns their friendship around.

Jon Turteltaub directed the film written by Dan Fogelman who created likeable characters and an enjoyable story with humor, love, and sentiment. The film ran for 1 hour 45 minutes, which seemed a tad long to tell the story, but the story was good and the pace seemed to flow. However, one problem of the film’s story was when the guys meet Dean (Jerry Ferrara), a seemingly obnoxious 20-something and that whole line in the story just didn’t seem to satisfactorily play out. There were a couple of decent moments with the character, but it just didn’t seem to fit in as well with the rest of the film.

De Niro, Freeman, Douglas, and Kline all turned in fine performances, as did the supporting cast. It wasn’t stellar. But it didn’t have to be. It was a very enjoyable film. And now it seems there is a sequel in the works with an unknown release date. Time will tell if it will be as enjoyable and satisfying as this first go around.

 

 

kellym40 film review

Marvel’s Ant Man Delivers ‘Big’ Fun

Rating 3.5/5

This summer the Marvel movies continue. After “The Avengers: Age of Ultron” was released earlier this year, and next came “Ant-Man.” And while the film has only garnered just over $106,000,000 since its release July 17 on a $130 million dollar budget, it’s certainly not one of Marvel’s biggest blockbusters to date. Watch the trailer below.

Ant Man Trailer

However, the film is not without its merits. Edgar Wright was at the helm before he bowed out. Reportedly Adam Mckay and Paul Rudd penned the rest of the script along with Joe Cornish. They created a lighter tone with this film than the other Marvel films. And it was more lighter and seemed more “family friendly.” I will admit that I’m not an avid comic book reader. I didn’t read a lot of comics in my younger days. I did follow G. I. Joe, Star Wars and Spider-Man some. And maybe a few others here and there. I knew some basics about other superheroes such as Fantastic Four, X-Men, Iron Man, Batman, and Superman. This review is as any of my other reviews as I base it on my view of the script, acting, story and so forth.

There are some spoilers below.

This is my first Marvel review and I will say that it did not disappoint. As mentioned, it has not grossed as much as previous films from Marvel in its release, but I don’t necessarily think it has to do with the film being a poor film. I believe Marvel has stated that the character is more or less obscure and not in the mainstream of Iron Man, Captain America, or Spider-Man (even though the previous Spider-Man films were owned by Sony prior to this. Now that the iconic hero is in Marvel’s hands, it should be exciting to see what happens with the hero). It does fit in the Marvel Cinematic Universe well as it does connect with The Avengers and future characters within that universe.

The story revolves around Dr. Hank Pym (Michael Douglas) and his invention of the “Pym Particle,” which allows the shrinking of organic material to a smaller size. Of course we learn Pym was the Ant Man and fought along with S.H.I.E.L.D in his younger days. To make a long story short, in present day USA a former protégé of Pym’s, Darren Cross (Corey Stoll), has discovered the Pym Particle and is upset with Pym because he locked it away for many years so he could keep it out of the wrong hands. Well apparently it falls into the wrong hands when Cross gets a hold of it. Pym tells Cross, “There’s a reason I buried this.” Cross wants to sell it to the military and create a powerful army of “unseen” soldiers.

Meanwhile, Pym has enlisted the help from his daughter Hope (Evangeline Lilly) and an ex-con, Scott Lang (Paul Rudd), who has just been released from prison and is trying to make a life for himself. Pym allows Lang to steal the suit, with the help from his con buddies Luis (Michael Pena) and Dave (T. I.), and discover its possibilities. After a little give and take, Lang agrees to become the Ant Man and try to stop Cross, who has developed a suit of his own and now calls himself the Yellow Jacket.

The film was a bit more comical than the other Marvel superhero films and it seemed to work for this one. Stoll wasn’t particularly menacing as the antagonist here but still brought conflict into the story and became an obstacle for the hero Lang to overcome, especially when he brought his daughter into the fight. Earlier, Lang is told to “be the hero she already thinks you are.” Of course, Lang rises up and becomes the hero to save the day. The hero and villain appear to have the same type of powers in the film. But what makes the conflict interesting is Yellow Jacket actually has weapons – laser type weapons to be exact. The visual effects made the fight scenes particularly entertaining, especially the climactic battle involving the Ant Man, Yellow Jacket, and a Thomas the Train toy.

Rudd plays a bit of himself, or at least a bit of other roles he’s played before. He seems to play the somewhat cocky character with a seemingly smart ass answer to everything. But I felt it worked for this film. The connection he had with his daughter touched the heart a little and allowed him to do what needs to be done as Pym tells him, “It’s not about saving our world, it’s about saving theirs.”

The supporting cast added to the humor and good overall feel to the story with Judy Greer playing Lang’s ex, Maggie, and Abby Ryder Fortson as Cassie, Lang’s daughter. Bobby Cannavale plays Paxton, a cop and Maggie’s new beau. And Saturday Night Live alum Garrett Morris even makes a cameo. Pena and T. I. as Lang’s buddies, along with computer tech Kurt (David Dastmalchian) bring more humor into the mix.

The story and characters were true what the script served. I will say that I may not have enjoyed this film as much as say Iron Man or Captain America (mostly because I didn’t really know about the character until recently prior to the film’s release). This was an enjoyable film and did have entertaining characters and a classic hero/villain conflict that produced some big fun.

“Ant Man” is rated PG-13 and runs just under two hours at 117 minutes. The film is produced by Kevin Feige and directed by Peyton Reed. He took over after Wright left and has directed such comedies as “Bring it On,” “The Break-Up,” and “Yes Man.” The film included two “extra” scenes at mid-credit and a post credit scene. These scenes, of course, allude to the future of the Marvel Cinematic Universe.