ANT-MAN

Paul Rudd, one of my favourite comedy male actor from "The Object of My Affection" from yesteryears, played the lead Scott Lang in this new Marvel comic movie Ant-Man. He has always played a non-leading actor role and this movie should be a big break for him to be more than just a second fiddle.

The other main cast includes Michael Douglas as Dr Hank Pym, Evageline Lilly as Pym's daughter Hope Van Dyne and Corey Stoll as Darren Cross. Dr Pym, a leading scientist from S.H.I.E.L.D. resigned in 1989 from the corporation when he found out that they were replicating his shrinking technology in the form of an Ant-Man suit, which he believed would cause mayhem if it fell into the wrong hands. When Darren, a former protege of Dr Pym's, invited him to a preview of his yet to be perfected new technological product the yellow jacket in the present day, a mortified Dr Pym decided to take the next step to prevent the completion of the yellow jacket.

Pym spied on a criminal Scott for some time, tested him and decided he was the best candidate to wear his Ant-Man suit. Scott, who was recently released from prison and was trying to make ends meet so that he can provide child support to his wife in order to secure visitation rights to see his daughter, was finally convinced to help Pym for the sake of his daughter. Hope, who was dating Darren and was also spying on him for Pym, joined in to train Scott to be ready to don the shrinking suit and lead the legion of ants to fight alongside him.

The movie was light-hearted; there were many comedic moments and was action-packed enough to entertain the audience. It gave new meaning to the name Anthony or Antony. There was also mention of Tony Stark and a brief cameo of Sam Wilson or the Falcon, when the Ant-Man attempted to borrow, or steal, a device from the Avenger's headquarters.

As with all other Marvel comic movies, the audience is rewarded if they stay back until after the post-credits. In this movie, there are 2 easter egg segments where they were treated to a preview of the upcoming movies; one on the female wasp and the other on Steve Roger's Captain America and Bucky Barnes' Winter Soldier.

Scott in the Ant-Man suit

the evil Yellow Jacket

Dr Pym explaining to Scott

a bewildered Scott when he learnt his successful break-in was a setup

Hope

an injured Scott

TRANSCENDENCE

This is one of the rare movies starring Johnny Depp with his original looks without any dramatic makeup. I almost forgot how talented he could be and how he actually look like. The other actors include Morgan Freeman, Rebecca Hall, Cillian Murphy, Paul Bettany and Kate Mara.

A brilliant researcher in Artificial Intelligence Dr Will Caster was shot and poisoned by a radioactive laced bullet fired by AI-protesters. His wife Evelyn tried to save what was left of his consciousness by uploading it onto an AI program he was working on, despite objections from Max, their friend and fellow researcher, who feared the perils of an artificial intelligence borne out of a human consciousness. Evelyn managed to resurrect Will's consciousness onto the processors which housed the program, and it craved for more knowledge from the internet. After successfully connecting Will to the internet, she escaped with the now liberated Will, who existed everywhere in the digital form, and set up a nano-technology facility in a suburban area which soon grew and expanded into a mega-power plant.

With the nano-technology, the equipment within the plant appeared to restore life to all living things such as dying plants and to heal the aged, sick etc and made them more powerful, but in actual fact, Will's consciousness took over their bodies, controlled them to do his bidding and tried to build an AI army in an attempt to save the world. By then, the AI resistant force and the FBI etc banded together to send a special force team to take down Will, Evelyn and the plant.

Frankly, this is not the first time I have seen such nano-technology, which actually appeared in the G.I. Joe movies previously. Whether the nano-technology is a saviour or destroyer of mankind was open to interpretation at the end of the movie.

Dr Will, Evelyn and Max

Joseph, FBI agent Donald and Evelyn viewing Will's consciousness on screen

Bree, who started the resistant forces