The Game (1997)

Nicholas Van Orton (Michael Douglas) is a successful banker in San Francisco.  However, he lives alone in a huge mansion and has no family.  His ex-wife called him for his birthday, which he was spending home alone while watching TV.  His younger brother, Conrad (Sean Penn), has been a druggie and general failure.  During a lunch together, Conrad offered Nick a gift; it was a certificate for Consumer Recreation Services (CRS).  Soon after, Nick happens to be in the same building as CRS and decided to check it out.  Enrollment proved to be far more involved than expected, taking several hours.  After a meeting at work, he went home to find a body in the driveway!  No, it was just a clown-faced mannequin.  The game has begun. Though initially intrigued, it soon appears to be a scam, a fight for his life with people out to get his money.

Nick is having a mid-life crisis.  During the opening credits, family movies played that showed Nick as a kid with his clearly distant father.  It is also shown that his father committed suicide.  Of note, his dad was 48 at the time and Nick is celebrating his 48th birthday.  That may explain some of his choices during the game.  Overall, Nick is not likable.  By the end of the film, he still isn't likable.  He was pushed to the very brink and beyond but survived.  Is he a better person for it?  Not that one could tell.

The idea of the movie is great, but the execution is not.  Too often, the events that happen would be extremely hard to stage in a phony way.  Granted, Christine (Deborah Kara Unger) is generally on hand to lead him where the special effects are set, but what about the taxi into the bay?  Oh, we had divers ready.  Really?  And what are the odds that he just happened to jump in the exact spot to land on the airbladder?  A man as rich as Nicholas should have had access to more resources than his company lawyer and his ex-wife.  How does such a man end up hitchhiking if he has access to a phone?

Mediocre.

The China Syndrome (1979)

Kimberly Wells (Jane Fonda) is a reporter for KXLA.  She primarily does the feel-good stories, not hard journalism.  With camera man Richard (Michael Douglas) and sound engineer Hector (Daniel Valdez), Kimberly arrives at the Ventana nuclear plant to do a puff piece about energy.  Bill Gibson (James Hampton) offers a brief presentation about how a nuclear powerplant generates electricity and then shows them around the non-restricted areas of the power station.  The tour ends in a viewing gallery where they can see the control room.  Then there is an incident.  Though told not to film, Richard surreptitiously recorded the events.  Kimberly wants to show the film immediately upon returning to the TV station.  Having no sound and no expertise to determine if this was a mundane or serious incident, the management declines.  Meanwhile, Jack Godell (Jack Lemmon) knows there is something serious wrong.  Though they handled the incident effectively, there was a tremor that concerned him.  As he investigates, he discovers that some of the construction reports that were submitted are duplicates.  Further, he finds a radioactive puddle near the turbine.  Though he reports this, everyone above him wants to restart the station.  His efforts to expose the problem through contacts with Kimberly and Richard are thwarted by hired goons.

This movie, released in March 1979, coincided with the Three Mile Island nuclear accident and crippled nuclear power in the US since.  Though described by the nuclear industry as fiction and character assassination, there had been problems prior to Three Mile Island.  The Brown's Ferry Nuclear Plant in Alabama had a fire in 1975 that was much more dangerous than Three Mile Island.  That there were issues with nuclear energy is entirely true, but the portrayal of the executives was cartoonish in their villainy.  Despite the incident and being shown that construction guidelines were not followed, the executives choose to silence those trying to prevent a meltdown.

Chernobyl in 1986 and Fukushima in 2011 have further added to concerns about nuclear power.  However, in the history of US nuclear power, there have been 7 deaths (3 in Idaho in 1961 and 4 in Virginia in 1986).  By contrast, 5,788 coal miners have died in accidents since 1961.  Then there are other energy sources to consider.  In June 1984, a Union Oil refinery explosion in Illinois killed 19.  In May 1988, a Shell Oil refinery explosion killed 7.  In June 1999, a pipeline explosion in Washington killed 3.  In March 2005, the Texas City Refinery explosion killed 15.  In 2010, an explosion at a Connecticut plant killed 5.  In April 2013, a gas well blowout in Texas killed 2.  To be fair, one should also compare how much of our energy is provided by these sources and determine how many deaths per megawatt, but that would take more time than I want to commit.  The point is that all sources of energy have dangers, but we are cavalier in our attitude toward deaths from coal and oil production.

In any case, the movie is entertaining and certainly worth watching.

Ant-Man and the Wasp

After Scott (Paul Rudd) successfully returned from the quantum realm in the last movie, Hank Pym (Michael Douglas) told his daughter Hope (Evangeline Lilly) that it may be possible to recover Janet (Michelle Pheiffer).  He dusted off some old plans for a quantum tunnel.  Fast forward to the present, Scott is on house arrest for his involvement in Captain America: Civil War.  He is only a few days from being released from house arrest when he has a bizarre dream of meeting Janet in the quantum realm and playing hide and seek with a very young Hope.  The following morning, he is abducted by Hope and Hank.  They think he is quantumly entangled with Janet and can lead them to her.  However, there are obstacles, including a phasing villain called Ghost, a well-connected dealer of ill-gotten high technology, FBI Agent Jimmy Woo (Randall Park as a hilariously G-Rated character), and Scott's comically bumbling crew: Luis (scene stealing Michael Pena), Dave, and Kurt.

 

Much like Thor in Ragnarok, Scott becomes more of a comic figure.  He was really quite brilliant and resourceful - see his skills in breaking into Hank's house and stealing the suit - but is now often clueless and needs everything explained.  He suffers a lot of slapstick from a malfunctioning suit that leaves him too big or too small.  He too often comes across as a hapless but charming loser rather than a hero.  By comparison, Wasp is infallible.  Hmm.

 

Sonny Burch (Walton Goggins) was a strange villain as he had no powers at all, just lots of goons to be rapidly dispatched by Ant-Man, Wasp, or Ghost, depending on the needs of the moment.  Burch takes over from Paxton (Bobby Cannavale) who returns as a minor ally rather than adversary.

 

The mass issue is even worse in this movie.  Hank carries around an array of shrunken vehicles that should have their normal weight if all that happens is the space between atoms is decreased.  The ten story building should sink into the earth once compacted to the size of a suitcase.

 

The mid and post-credit scenes play into the 'Snappening' of Avengers: Infinity War and provide a dark ending to a comparatively light and comic movie.

 

Fun movie.  Go see it.

 

Romancing the Nile

Recently saw the classic movie and its disappointing sequel.  Here are my thoughts all these years later.

Romancing the Stone (1984): Joan Wilder (Kathleen Turner) has just finished her latest romance novel and celebrates with her cat.  Despite being a hopeless romantic, Joan appears to be a shut-in who will eventually become a cat lady.  Then she receives word that her sister has been kidnapped and her brother in-law murdered in Columbia.  She must deliver a map that her brother-in-law mailed to her before he was killed and trade it for her sister.  No sooner does she arrive than she is lured onto the wrong bus by a mysterious stranger who has been stalking her.  The stranger is about to kill her when Jack Colton (Michael Douglas) arrives to save the day.

The map leads to a treasure.  Jack, who is something of a scoundrel and opportunist, sees a chance to get rich quick.  The stranger proves to be a ruthless military officer with a death squad tone about him who wants the treasure for undisclosed reasons.  The kidnappers are Ira and Ralph (Danny DeVito), a pair of thieves who smuggle antiquities; this treasure promises to make all their previous efforts pale in comparison.  Joan is in the middle, mostly dependent upon Jack for keeping her safe in this unfamiliar country.

The movie is a good blend of action and romance.  Jack proves to be less of a scoundrel than he first seems and Joan blossoms into a confident and outgoing woman.  There is plenty of comedy, much of it provided by the hapless Ralph.  Being the 8th top grossing movie of the year, it spawned a sequel.

The Jewel of the Nile (1985): Joan's latest novel is not going well.  Now that she has sailed halfway around the world with Jack, romance doesn't have the same appeal.  Offered the chance to author a biography of a Middle Eastern potentate and her relationship with Jack on the rocks, she jumps ship.  No sooner has Joan left than Jack is accosted by a very angry Ralph, who ended the last film in a Columbian jail.  A rebel from the potentate's country (probably meant to be Sudan, though never named) arrives to recruit Jack to his cause, which is to save the Jewel of the Nile.  Ralph makes peace with Jack provided he gets a cut of this jewel.

Whereas the last movie was an adventure romance with comic elements, this one is a comedy with adventure and romance elements.  Joan as biographer doesn't play well and it goes badly from the start.  She plays more like Lois Lane here than Nora Roberts.  Jack is no longer a man of action but rather a comedic bumpkin.  He is more a victim of the situation than the captain of it.  That the jewel turned out to be a person with magical immunity to fire was groan-inducing.  Though this one did just as well at the box office as its predecessor, it did not result in a trilogy.

Definitely see Romancing the Stone but don't ruin your opinion of the characters by watching The Jewel of the Nile.

Ant-Man

Just saw this movie again and, since I didn't review it on my first viewing, I shall do so now.  The movie opens in 1989 with Dr. Hank Pym (Michael Douglas) storming into the under-construction HQ of SHIELD (the one that got destroyed in Captain America: The Winter Soldier) and resigning because Howard Stark (John Slattery) has been attempting to replicate Pym's shrinking technology.

In the present, Scott Lang (Paul Rudd) is released from San Quentin for burglary and computer hacking.  His former cellmate (Michael Pena) picks him up and let's him crash at his place until he gets on his feet.  Despite having a Masters in Electrical Engineering, his felony record finds him at Baskin Robbins, scooping ice cream.  Though desperate to stay on the right side of the law, he needs to pay child support in order to see his daughter.  He turns to crime, which brings him to the home of Hank Pym and possession of the Ant-Man suit.  Scott becomes the new Ant-Man under the mentorship of Hank Pym and his daughter, Hope van Dyne (Evangeline Lilly).  Darren Cross (Corey Stoll), Hank's one-time protégé, has gone bad.  He had staged a hostile take-over of Pym's company and has now perfected the Ant-Man technology himself.  However, he plans to sell it to the highest bidder.

 

This is a comedy heist movie.  It is one of the funniest entries in the Marvel Cinematic Universe.  Michael Pena steals every scene he is in.  His narratives are the funniest parts of the movies.  Particularly great was when Stan Lee delivered the line 'crazy stupid fine!'  There is this Mission Impossible feel except with superpowers.

 

The big failing is the physics.  The movie fails to follow the rules that it has outlined.  Pym explained that his technology narrowed the space between atoms, thus allowing an object to shrink while retaining its mass.  Ergo, a two hundred pound man who shrank down to the size of an ant is still two hundred pounds.  If that is the case, there is no way he can uses a carpenter ant as a mount; he'd crush it to pulp.  He repeatedly stands on people and they don't notice, until he hits them.  When he fell on the floor, he broke a tile.  When he fell on a car, he put a dent in it.  His weight varies depending on what works best for the movie.

 

Unsurprisingly, Scott adopts Hank's dislike for the Starks and becomes a natural ally to Captain America in the Civil War.  This was further setup with his humorous fight with Falcon (Anthony Mackie), who is proving to be Cap's right hand man in the MCU.  The movie also setup Hope van Dyne to be the Wasp in the next Ant-Man movie.  Sadly, it's still a couple years away.

 

All in all, a terrific movie.  Again, Marvel took what I thought of as a marginal character and created an awesome movie.  Highly recommended.