Tuesday 28 July 2015

22 Things I Learned from Ant-Man


1. Tanks can go from zero to sixty in two-point-five seconds.

2. Criminals enjoy waffles.

3. There are ants everywhere.

4. Helicopters can crash in major urban centres without consequence.

5. The button for the laser grid is always switched off at the last possible millisecond.

6. Paul Rudd’s head is just slightly too big for his body.

7. Michael Pena never met a relief he couldn’t comic.

8. It makes so much sense for a man who has built a shrinking suit to also be able to speak to ants that this correlation is not even worth discussing. (Also, why not bees? Or bears? Or other people?)

9. Seeing a villain outright murder someone is not enough to prove their villainous credentials. They must also kill a lamb.

10. Ex-cons have no rights whatsoever.

11. I fancy a Baskin Robins Mango Fruit Blast. I wonder why?

12. Bobby Cannavale and Judy Greer make an absurd couple. They are also both making careers out of being wasted by Hollywood.

13. You can get up to pretty much anything in your back garden without arousing suspicion.

14. Marvel are still casting Janet van Dyne.

15. There is only one police precinct in San Francisco.

16. For heist films to work the location of the heist has to be clearly laid out, and should ideally have at least a couple of interesting architectural details.

17. The subatomic realm looks like a late-90s music video.

18. Romantic relationships happen offscreen.

19. The idea of a cultured Mexican is inherently absurd.

20. You don’t need cities crashing to the ground for an exciting action finale.

21. Bathos is all well and good, but it can get pretty tiresome.

22. Somewhere, Edgar Wright is shrugging.

Wednesday 8 July 2015

Which of These 22 Decisions From the Makers of Terminator: Genisys Was the Worst Decision?


1. The spelling of the title.

2. Thinking it is endearing/appropriate to turn everything into a punchline.

3. Letting Arnold Schwarzenegger continue phoning it in.

4. Hiring Jason Clarke but giving him no direction.

5. Hiring Jai Courtney.

6. Wasting Matt Smith.

7. Wasting Byung-hun Lee.

8. Sampling the song ‘Bad Boys’ over a mugshot montage.

9. Thinking that helicopters can do that.

10. Thinking that school buses can do that.

11. Featuring an affectless I-can-load-bullets-faster-than-you pissing contest scene.

12. Endowing the villain with inconsistent powers and motives.

13. Making Terminators essentially unthreatening in any guise.

14. Filming everything like an NBC TV show.

15. Attempting a lame critique of contemporary techno-culture.

16. Having the characters bicker like children. Constantly.

17. Aping a Marvel film (also, see above).

18. Aping a Resident Evil film.

19. Ruining all interesting twists with horrendous marketing.

20. Resembling bad fan fiction.

21.Treating the iconic star of the franchise like a 1970s sitcom character.

22. Progressing beyond the first production meeting.

Monday 6 July 2015

22 Unanswered questions from Season One of Daredevil


1. Does Matt Murdock dye his hair? And if so, why?

2. Did the chemicals make him a superhero, or the fact that he was taught by an old King Fu master?

3. Why does Elden Henson play Foggy as though he’s at an initial table read?

4. Is Vincent D’Onofrio a better actor when he’s nowhere near the screen?

5. How did Stick find Murdock, and why?

6. Why is all the banter so cringe-worthy?

7. When Murdock knocks a guy out and he falls into the Hudson, does that count as murder?

8. Why did that Russian mobster, previously so cautious and respectful, burst in on Fisk’s private dinner like an idiot?

9. Is the graphic violence making a point about the brutality of vigilantism and criminality, or is it just there because the show is on Netflix?

10. What is Black Sky, and why should I care?

11. How do any of the heroes pay their rent?

12. Why does Rosario Dawson only have half a haircut?

13. Has there ever been a protagonist journalist who hasn’t been chewed out for pursuing a story by their business-minded editor? And didn’t I see this exact same plot in the first season of Boss?

14. Surely there are easier ways to solve your problem than poisoning a whole swathe of New York aristocrats?

15. Why do Fisk and Vanessa have no chemistry whatsoever?

16. Why was that gun loaded, and what was it doing on that table in the first place?

17. Just how many abandoned factories, buildings and alleys are there in Hell’s Kitchen?

18. Are all superhero properties contractually obliged to feature a scene (or several) in which a henchman is quietly incapacitated after he walks into the shadows?

19. No really, why hasn’t Foggy been killed off yet?

20. Why does all that Catholic hand-wringing over the problem of righteous murder go in the last episode?

21. Is it really possible to tail a car along rooftops for several dozen blocks?

22. Will I bother with Season Two?