Initial Review by Phil

I love awards season movies, but too often so many of those movies take themselves so seriously that when they shine a light on something in society or remind us of the awful things in this world.  Think about recent Best Picture winners & nominees.  Seriously, do you ever want to watch 12 Years a Slave again?  The Martian skates a very delicate line – it puts our protagonist in the direst of situations, and generally that means we get something either bleak or cheesy.  Somehow, that doesn’t happen here.  The Martian turns out to be a hopeful, emotional, thrilling look into the indomitability of the human spirit in the face of impossible odds.

Over its 134 minute runtime, there are essentially two stories going on here with the same purpose – Mark’s survival.  Story one is Mark on Mars, story two is NASA debating how to get him home.  It’s a relatively simple structure that kept me engaged in the action and free of confusion.  Too many awards season movies can get marred in multiple branching stories that ultimately go not very far (I’m looking at you American Hustle), but that’s not the case here.  Characters drop in and out, each vital to the plot in their own way.  It’s an interest dichotomy in that we have two stories developing very differently; one is entirely plot driven, while the other is entirely character driven.  Interwoven between the two stories are recurring themes involving the importance of communication and solving impossible tasks by taking them one step at a time.  It’s surprisingly practical advice for a movie about surviving on Mars.

The stronger of the two stories is Mark’s survival on Mars.  It is imperative that the audience is always rooting for Mark, and Matt Damon was perfectly cast in that role.  I don’t know if many other A-List guys could have pulled off this role.  Damon has always had a penchant at playing characters that are likeable, and that’s what Mark is.  However, you can’t draw an audience in with just being a great guy; you also have to believe he could pull off this impossible feat.  Damon gives Mark just enough of a hint of self-assuredness that it doesn’t come off quite like full-blown arrogance, but enough that he’s confident in his abilities to pull this off.  We spend a lot of time alone with Mark, and I have to admit I was emotionally connected when major events occurred.  It damn-near got a little dusty in that theater a couple times.

Meanwhile, we have everything going on with NASA figuring out how to get Mark home.  There is little character development here, and I think that’s fine.  We have a handful of archetypes with clear motivations and reasons for any actions they have.  There are a couple semi-convenient occurrences along the way that might trouble some strict logicians out there, but I ultimately turned a blind eye to them.  (Only one convenience really made me blink, but it doesn’t affect my overall grade.)  Some character behaviors are also a bit tough to understand at first blush, but then you remember that we’re talking about NASA and everyone here has an IQ over 150, so when an idea does appear crazy smart, well, it’s because everyone involved is crazy smart.

Technically speaking, everything looked fantastic.  Ridley Scott has always made great sci-fi worlds, and here we have no exception.  Now is the point where I admit Scott is one of my favorite directors out there, and I was worried that we had seen our last good Ridley Scott movie.  I was very happy to be wrong about that. 
 
The Martian is a great movie that should be experienced while it’s in theaters.  It’s a technical spectacle that was emotionally gripping and touched on themes that are applicable to anyone despite the setting they are presented in.  Some of the stuff in NASA is a little bit on the meh side though, as several characters and interactions felt to archetypal.  Unfortunately, this isn’t the type of performance that the Oscars fawn over, but Damon absolutely deserves some sort of consideration for a great performance.  The Martian is a solid A.

Heist movies used to be a dime a dozen, but they just don’t come along much anymore.  I especially love the build-up of most heist movies – the meeting of the characters, the planning of the elaborate impossible heist, and then the glorious payoff.  Ant-Man follows this formula and adds a Marvel spin to it, resulting in a wholly satisfying single story that isn’t hampered by the weight of the universe it is set in.

One of Ant-Man’s greatest strengths is in “stark” contrast to the rest of the MCU (see what I did there?), and that is its plot and characters.  Unlike our other MCU movie this summer, Avengers: Age of Ultron, Ant-Man focuses on a simpler story and fewer characters.  If you’ve seen the trailers for Ant-Man, you already know the story – Scott Lang, as Ant-Man, needs to break into a place and steal some shit.  And that’s it.  That’s the whole story.  There are no random subplots involving Thor in a cave or The Hulk coming to terms with himself.  The plot does not feel like window-dressing to navigate the audience from one setpiece to another (a major flaw in both Age of Ultron and Guardians of the Galaxy).  As far as characters, we get four main characters, three comedic sidekicks, and four plot device characters, and that’s it.  Yep, a Marvel movie where you only need to learn a few names.  How refreshing!

The other thing Ant-Man deftly avoids is bogging itself down in the origin minutiae.  Several superhero movies have been tanked by their origin obsession – I’m looking in your direction, Fantastic Four.  We get a solid amount of origin setup, maybe 20-30 minutes.  The bulk of it is worked into the heist planning, so it at least feels like we’re doing this for a reason.  Too many superhero movies show the characters gaining powers and learning to harness them with no pressing motivation (Spider-Man, Fantastic Four again come to mind), but Lang has a reason to become Ant-Man and a pressing motivation is present.

Onto the characters themselves, where the three protagonists, Scott Lang, Hank Pym, and Hope Van Dyne, are well-casted and well realized.  Rudd isn’t necessarily asked to do much outside of his wheelhouse, but I at least bought his growth as a character and he is certainly well-cast for the role.  Rudd is certainly playing a version of himself that you’ve seen before, so if you like his schtick, you’ll be pleased here.  Douglas gets a bit more to work with as Pym, and I enjoyed his performance.  Douglas gets several great lines where he gets to pull out his snarky side that he executes to perfection.  Evangeline Lilly as Hope Van Dyne plays the “Ice Queen” role well, but that’s a prototypical role you can either take or leave.  The three of them play off each other well, especially Rudd, who is always good for a quick goofy line when all are involved.  There’s a particular powerful growth scene that Rudd pretty much steals with a goofy one-liner that I enjoyed.  I enjoyed all three characters, and all three are given growth arcs that are ultimately paid off in satisfying ways.  My only major character gripe is the villain, Darren Cross, who is played by Corey Stoll.  Stoll is fine in the role, but Cross is essentially a repurposed Obidiah Stane, who was the villain in the original Iron Man played by Jeff Bridges.  For a series of movies that have had solid and crazy villains, Cross feels lazily developed.

Ant-Man manages to blow away many of the issues weighing down other MCU movies and creates a fun heist story without getting bogged down in the minutiae.  Paul Rudd deserved a better opening weekend than freaking Thor, but I think the early reviews hurt the movie rather than helped.  My only gripes are the lazy villain and [SPOILERS BELOW], so Ant-Man gets an A- from me.

OK SPOILER TIME.  DO NOT READ UNTIL YOU’VE SEEN THE MOVIE.

 I don’t know why Edgar Wright left the movie, but I wonder if it has to do with the ending.  The movie does do a solid enough job setting up that Scott could solve Hank’s ultimate problem of going subatomic, but Scott solving it, then forgetting how, felt like a huge cheat.  There was enough setup to make Scott expendable with the Wasp reveal in the mid-credits scene, and it would have been ballsy for Marvel to actually kill off one of its superheroes rather than cheat its way out of the situation.  I know that it’s a superhero movie, so the character winning and surviving is the genre and all, but Scott recognizing he is expendable and sacrificing himself to save his daughter would have been refreshing and cool twist.  He better do something bad-ass in Civil War to justify his existence now.

Review by Phil.

Review by Sean

How does the burden of expectations effect one's enjoyment of a film?  Is it possible to look past a movies failure to reach the lofty expectations thrust upon it and still be a good movie or does that failure result in an altogether negative experience?
These are the questions that need answered to review Inside Out.


Spoilers ahead.

First, it is understandable why the critics love this movie, it really is full of heart and explores our emotional makeup more than any other movie of this or most genres.  While the idea of exploring the characters that make up emotional thoughts and decisions has already been done in the raunchy Fox comedy of the 90s Hermans Head, Inside Out deals more with the effects our emotional memories have on our growth.

And now for the spoilers.
Inside Out revolves around 5 core emotions Joy, Sadness, Disgust, Anger, and Fear within a 12 year old girl named Riley.  These emotions work in a mission control within Riley's brain and help her determine her attitude and drive how she feels about things around her.  Each experience creates a memory defined by one of these emotions. Joy (Amy Poehler) is the captain of the ship, she's the first around from birth (our little bundle of joy) and has driven
the majority of these memories. The other emotions yield to her and despite their own nature they want Riley to be happy.  Occasionally major life events develop "core memories" which are the driving force of Riley's personality. When the movie begins Riley has 5 core memories and they are all Joy's and create "Goofball Island Friendship Island Hockey Island Family Island and Honesty Island"
When Riley's family moves from Minnesota to San Francisco the story gets going. Of course a young girl moving across country is going to have some obstacles emotionally and our story is set in motion when Riley is introducing herself to her new class and Sadness (Phyllis Smith) touches one of Joy's memories turning it sad. This leads to Riley crying in class about moving and develops the very first sad Core Memory.  Joy panics and attempts to dispose of the sad core memory and in doing so knocks her own joyous core memories out and next thing you know her personality islands no longer have power and Joy and Sadness get sucked out of Mission Control and out into Riley's long term memory.  This immediately turns Riley into an emo shell and Disgust (Mindy Kaling) Fear (Bill Hader) and Anger (Lewis Black) to run the show. They each take turns trying to make Riley happy and doing what Joy would do before failing miserably as Riley gets more and more unhappy before eventually deciding it would be best to run away back to Minnesota.
The real story is Joy and Sadness and their return to Mission Control.  They encounter of course meet new characters along the way and run into obstacles trying to catch the "Train of Thought" back to Mission Control.  The most important of these is long lost imaginary friend Bing Bong who wanders Riley's long term memory and hoards all of his best moments in hopes of not being forgotten forever. The most entertaining characters are the pair whose jobs are to get rid of faded memories- names of the presidents?- keep Washington Lincoln and the fat one get rid of the rest. These two love an old crappy gum commercial jingle and for fun send it up to Mission Control which is why dumb things always get stuck in our heads. They send this up 4 or 5 times throughout the movie and it works every time.
Inside Out attempts to bring us both our laughs and our tears through Joy and Sadness' journey back to Mission Control, their interactions with the characters of Imagination-land and Joy's ultimate realization that Sadness is a vital part of Riley's emotional makeup and not just a screw up as the ultimate payoff for the film is the direction Pixar decided to go and is the direction of maximum emotional effect which is exactly why the critics love it.
I'm here to say they're all wrong. They could have gotten to the same end result without sending Joy and Sadness on their journey and left all 5 in Mission Control. The most entertaining parts of the movie were when all 5 of the emotions were together making decisions and driving Riley. By spending so much time inside Riley's head Riley and her life is an afterthought.  2nd best part was when they would give glimpses into the insides of other characters heads. Dad thinking about hockey during family dinner and panicking when he realizes mom wants him you talk. Mom thinking about the sexy latin helicopter pilot she could've had instead of Dad every time we interact with someone else it works. Unfortunately we get this only 2 or 3 times in the movie then again as the credits roll.  The best of which is inside the cats mind.

By choosing the path of maximum of emotion the chose the minimum entertainment. I think they could have ended with the same emotional result in a much entertaining movie simply by spending more time in the world and leaving the 5 main characters together.

Between failing to reach the expectations of being A- best Pixar ever and B-simply just a Pixar movie. Inside Out is ultimately a disappointment.  Off the top of my head I prefer all 3 Toy Storys, Finding Nemo, Ratatouille, Up, Wall-E and probably a few more if I looked them up.
Leave me in the Rotten Camp
C