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

UNDERWORLD: AWAKENING

This latest film of four released every 3 years since 2003, continues to star the very beautiful leather-clad Kate Beckinsale who reprised her role as a vampire. She woke up from cryogenic preservation and escaped from a laboratory where she was imprisoned for twelve whole years.


The world she woke up to is different from what she remembered although some things didn't change much. The perpetual war between the vampires and werewolves, known as lycans, was still ongoing and heating up. To fill the time void of twelve years, she had to embark on this solo journey to find her other half, literally a half werewolf and half vampire played previously by Scott Speedman in the earlier movies, whom was separated from her just a day in her memory before they were captured in an operation by the humans to purge mankind of the vampires and lycans. There was a surprise lying in wait for her after her escape from the lab.


This is definitely a different vampire movie from the overly romantic and sappy Twilight series and I enjoyed the action movie only because of the forever youthful looking, kick-ass no-nonsense Selene, or should I say Kate, who looks ever the same as I remembered her. The other memorable face I remembered is probably Theo James, who may or may not have the potential to make it bigger in Hollywood.