Courier Summer 2021

The Staffroom Ant Man & The Wasp Director: Peyton Reed Running Time: 118 minutes Starring: Paul Rudd, Evangeline Lilly, Michael Pena Synopsis: As Scott Lang balances being both a superhero and a father, Hope van Dyne and Dr. Hank Pym present an urgent new mission that finds the Ant-Man fighting alongside The Wasp to uncover secrets from their past. At some point in the future I will write a review for Tenet. However, I teach 5 exam classes and I’ve gotta mark a literal shed load of work, so I don’t have the weeks to work out what the film is flipping on about at present, so maybe for the next one. Instead I’m going to review Ant Man & The Wasp. I really enjoyed the first Ant Man. It was irreverent in a good way, and you can see Edgar Wright’s fingerprints all over it even though he left the film due to creative differences with Disney (basically, Wright is a teenager who wanted to improvise on school uniform and Disney is a school leadership team trying to ensure the teenager represents the franchise appropriately. With neither willing to compromise, Wright went to Sands School in Ashburton so he could wear whatever he wanted and everyone got on with their lives and no one cared. Not that this has any links to this school. That’s why I’ve used ‘a teenager’ and ‘a school’. I could be talking about South Dartmoor. In fact, I am talking about South Dartmoor). The use of editing and sound to make moments of exposition less dull is clearly influenced by Wright – you know, when everyone speaks with Michael Pena’s voice. Question for Media and Film students: is this sound diegetic or non-diegetic? Get it Edgar Wright and you get a Bojangle. Anyway, this tactic is used in the sequel Ant Man & The Wasp and even though it works, it does feel like it’s just trying to imitate its predecessor by trying to entertain you with jokes it’s already told you before. You know, like that person who you put up with who tells you the same joke again and again because it once made you laugh and they think this is their common ground with you now, so they repeat it every time they see you, which not only makes the joke no longer funny, it also makes you want to punch yourself in the face. And only Tyler Durden does that. And if you get that last comment and you’re under the age of 18, we need to have a talk but we really can’t talk about it. Still, the film is enjoyable enough as typical Marvel fodder. It just doesn’t really contain anything fresh and original. This is the problem with sequels. In most cases the very fact a sequel exists is due to the success of its predecessor and it’s always trying to compete and somewhat rehash the successful formula that got it the green light in the first place. So it immediately has a problem of living up to the success of the original whilst also trying to not disgrace its legacy. It’s a Catch 22: if it isn’t anything like the original it’ll be criticised for ruining a good franchise; if it’s too much like the original it’ll be criticised for its lack of originality. This is the problem with Ant Man & The Wasp: it tries to be like its predecessor but by doing so it ends up being like a can of Diet Ant Man: it’s Ant Man but it just doesn’t taste as good. But this isn’t even its main problem. The film’s main issue comes from the fact that it doesn’t really have an antagonist. The antagonist is meant to be Ghost. But we find out that Ghost is a young woman who was struck by tragedy as a child and now just wants what the protagonist wants so she doesn’t die. So in the end we really just feel sympathy for Ghost. We don’t necessarily want her to lose. She isn’t evil. And because of this there really isn’t an antagonist to root against. Which means there isn’t really a protagonist to root for. Which in essence means you just don’t care – arguably the worst thing that an audience can feel about a film. Contrast this with more obvious antagonists of the genre, like The Joker or Thanos. These characters have a clear purpose and it’s one we’re positioned as an audience to root against. They are charismatic in their own way; they scare us too. This makes us root against them and fear them. But we also want to watch them. We want the protagonist to win because if they don’t the results will be catastrophic. This keeps us engaged with the film. In Ant Man & The Wasp if Ghost wins then she survives and an old lady gets stuck in a microscopic world she’s been living in for ages anyway. In essence, the film is asking ‘who should we save: an old lady or a young orphan?’ It positions the audience to root for the saving of the old woman, but do we really agree with that? Is that really the choice we’d make? And being that it’s not a clear decision of choosing the old woman over the young orphan, the fact the film just positions us to want to save the old woman just leads the film to not work: we don’t care, we don’t necessarily agree, and we don’t really want to waste our time watching this again. In a nutshell, a Superhero film may often take the title of the Hero but it’s the villain who keeps us watching. Rating: ** Mr Chilton's Film Review As cinemas start to reopen their doors, we asked Mr Chilton to once again take a film, ruminate on it and let us know his thoughts. Anyone expecting a review of Tenet, don't bother. Instead, read this great account of why sequels are nearly always mediocre and disappointing... Page 20