Tag Archives: Peyton Reed

Yes, There Are Scenes During and After the “Ant-Man and the Wasp: Quantumania” End Credits

February 21, 2023 By in Movies/Films/Flicks Tags: , , , , , , , , , , , , Leave a comment
Two Paul Rudds facing each other in shock in Ant-Man costumes.

Wacky Scott Lang vs. Serious Scott Lang: who wins?

Phase 5 of the Marvel Cinematic Universe begins! Paul Rudd returns for his fifth MCU outing and the third film in the Ant-Man trilogy! Unless they make more and it isn’t a trilogy! Which is just as well, because we’ve never had a literal, cohesive, hermetically self-contained MCU trilogy anyway. None of the first three Thor films resembles the other, the arcs of Iron Man and Captain America are incomplete without the four Avengers films, and Ant-Man’s life likewise had pivotal moments in Captain America: Civil War and Avengers: Endgame. I’d love to pretend Guardians of the Galaxy will be the exception come May, but the story of Star-Lord and Gamora in Volume 3 won’t make sense without the traumatic events of Avengers: Infinity War as well as Endgame. As their multiverse presently stands, there’s been no such credible thing as a “Marvel trilogy” since Blade.

After a three-month moment of silence for us all to meditate on the fallout from Black Panther: Wakanda Forever, the MCU’s back with its 31st big-screen chapter, Ant-Man and the Wasp: Quantumania, ostensibly directed by returning Ant-maestro Peyton Reed (he of Bring It On and the unjustly forgotten Down with Love), whose sensibilities are definitely felt in the film’s first ten minutes and its last twenty, but not nearly so much during the long, dour, draggy, perfunctory infodump and overextended Star Wars Cantina interlude between them, like an endless row of empty, pastel-graffitied boxcars separating engine and caboose.

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Yes, There Are Scenes During AND After the “Ant-Man” End Credits

July 24, 2015 By in Movies/Films/Flicks Tags: , , , , , , , , 5 Comments
Ant-Man!

“Why can’t I just stay in my black suit? Daredevil looked great in HIS black suit!”

Once upon a time in 2003 there was a cute throwback comedy called Down with Love in which Ewan McGregor and Renee Zellweger were paired together in a light, fluffy homage to the Rock Hudson/Doris Day sparring matches of cinematic yore. It had a man’s man taken down several pegs, a feminist who rejected romantic love yet came around to her own version of it by the end, a bouncy soundtrack, a zippy pace, winning supporting turns from Sarah Paulson and David Hyde Pierce, a musical number during the end credits, and an absurdly convoluted revenge speech delivered in a three-minute uninterrupted take. Anne and I were among the very few viewers who loved it in theaters and bought it on DVD. I made a point of remembering the director’s name, Peyton Reed, in hopes that someday we’d see more from this up-‘n’-comer.

Reed’s resumé includes other well-known works such as the original Bring It On and The Weird Al Show, but I’ve seen none of them. Regardless, Reed is back at long last with his latest comedy Ant-Man, which was shot on a much higher budget and made more in its first two days of release than Down with Love made in its entire three-month run worldwide. So maybe now Hollywood will take him seriously.

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