Ed's Review Dot Com

Ego Film Arts, The Film Farm,

Ryan Reynolds, Scott Speedman, Rosario Dawson

Cass (Alexia Fast) was 9 years old when she was riding home with her Dad Matthew (Ryan Reynolds). Matthew stopped at a little cafe to pick up a pie for a party and when he returned to the car, Cassandra was gone. She was captured by an evil ring of men who kidnapped children and held them captive while putting them on webcam so that members could watch the kids around the clock. Cassandra was held for 8 years. Now that she is grown, the clients have lost interest in her, but the captors use her to lure other girls to be captured. But though her parents have never lost hope, the police believe that somehow Matthew is behind her disappearance. The captors are playing a game however, leaving little clues that Cassandra is still alive. Since so much time has passed, and with no one to believe him anyway, it’s up to Matthew to sort out the truth on his own.

This is a suspenseful little film, and the frustration that Matthew feels is very deftly portrayed by Ryan Reynolds. He does a wonderful job in this film. Another standout is Rosario Dawson who plays a missing person’s detective who has a special bind to the missing children. The story is very smartly written, and though we also can tell that Ryan’s character is telling the truth, in true Hitchcock style (were they intentionally paying homage to him), every step of the way makes Matthew look guilty. This is a stolen child story, but with all the modern technology, it shows how the bad guys have a leg up on the police, and how frustrating it is trying to solve these cases. This was filmed in Canada and takes place in Niagara, so there are some harsh winter scenes. Ontario gets a lot of snow from the lakes, and winters are long and cold. This suits the film very well too, as most of it takes place in the winter. I felt this was a very good little mystery/suspense picture, and I enjoyed it very much. I can recommend this if you like a good thriller from time to time. Not a major motion picture, but well worth watching. Look for it.

EdG – EdsReview Dot Com – A Movie Review Blog

Marvel Studios,

Paul Rudd, Evangeline Lilly, Corey Stoll, Bobby Cannavale, Michael Peña, Judy Greer, T.I., David Dastmalchian, Wood Harris, Michael Douglas

Scott Lang (Paul Rudd) is just getting out of prison, and he misses his daughter. He’s determined to go straight, but he shortly finds that his ex-wife Maggie (Judy Greer) and her new guy, cop Paxton (Bobby Cannavale) and those who might give him a regular job, don’t get along very well with ex-cons. So out of desperation, Scott is convinced to try one last heist. But he’s been tricked into crossing paths with scientist Hank Pym (Michael Douglas) who needs his help to fight the guy who ran Dr. Pym from the company he founded and has tried to steal his technology that could turn a human into a tiny creature, the size of an ant. With inside help from his daughter Hope (Evangeline Lilly) he’s able to convince Scott to redeem himself by turning himself into Ant-Man and trying to save the world.

Marvel has surely been on a roll. There is no doubt they are hitting home run after home run. Ant-Man is certainly a risk for them, but one that paid off highly. First of all, what about the history? Dr. Pym was Ant-man along with his wife who was The Wasp. But now Pym is on the sidelines. How can they cover that up? Furthermore, with all the other highly successful characters in this franchise, bring the Ant-Man is a risk, and then assigning it to Paul Rudd to carry is ludicrous. Well, I don’t know if the magic of Stan Lee or if these Disney/Marvel guys are just that brilliant, but they certainly pulled it off. Now this is not really the best of all the new Marvel movies, but it’s a damn good one just the same. Paul Rudd has the right degree of nice guy mixed with screw-up, laced with a little bit of bad ass to handle this, and this is perhaps the best performance of his career. He did an excellent job. The story is really fresh and brand new. Now, granted, evil genius who takes over the corporation and tries to sell the weapons of world domination to the highest bidder isn’t new, but the battles and encounters between the good guys and the bad guys is really well done. Scott has a bumbling group of buddies who create a lot of comedy as well, led by Michael Peña who was simply fabulous in this film. The time flies as we have so much fun, and everyone is so well cast. The action is extremely well done, and the CGI is blended in so well that you can hardly recognize that it’s not really happening in front of your eyes. I was blessed to see this in Digital Extreme size (not quite Imax, but a good challenger), in 3-D. The 3-D was smooth and also seamless so that you could hardly notice it, but it really added to the enjoyment of the movie. All in all, this is a must see for the summer. It’s the best I have seen so far, although there is some stiff competition yet to come.

EdG – EdsReview Dot Com – A Movie Review Blog

Movie Rentals Releasing Tuesday July 21, 2015

• Kung Fu Killer
• Scooby Doo & Kiss: Rock & Roll Mystery
• Tangerines
• What We Do in the Shadows
• Wild Horses

Blumhouse Productions, Chapter One Films, Lionsgate,

Mark Duplass, Olivia Wilde, Donald Glover, Evan Peters, Sarah Bolger

Frank (Mark Duplass) and Zoe (Olivia Wilde) lead a team of researchers who have developed a formula that can bring the newly dead back to life, to allow medical teams to have more time to save someone’s life who dies on the table. They test it on a dog and it works. But they broke quite a few rules and are about to lose the rights to the discovery as well as the grant for their research. But the serum has an unexpected side effect that brings down the wrath of Satan on the team in this Horror film from Blumhouse and Lionsgate.

This is a pretty decent horror flick. Not exactly a zombie film, but in the same genre as a number of mad scientists who can bring folks back from the dead, all the way back to the original Frankenstein. It is about a 6 on the 1-10 scale where 10 is the most horrifying, and 1 is a mild kids movie. It has it’s moments, and it’s a relatively well done feature. Certainly the leads, Mark and Olivia, do a decent job of carrying the movie. Olivia especially makes a good transformation from her original character to the end of the film where everyone has lost it. The story has some rather rich (for this type of film) back story on why the things are happening which kind of caught me by surprise. It’s fast paced and quite suspenseful, and I have no problem with that. The only real complaint I have with the film is that it’s a bit derivative of so many other movies, and there wasn’t a really unique twist in this story. You could have predicted how it will go by looking at the cover. Still, I did enjoy it, so I think it’s worth a rental if you are into Horror films. I can mildly recommend this for fans of the genre.

EdG – EdsReview Dot Com – A Movie Review Blog

DNA Films, Film4,

Oscar Isaac, Alicia Vikander, Domhnall Gleeson

Caleb (Domhnall Gleeson) is a young programmer at the worlds most successful software company, and wins a contest to spend a week as the guest of the CEO of the company, Nathan (Oscar Isaac)’s home, a remote research facility on reachable by helicopter. But when Caleb arrives, he finds out it wasn’t random that he was chosen. Actually he was personally selected to participate in a high tech experiment to determine if Nathan was actually able to create a robot with artificial intelligence superior enough to pass as human. Caleb was well chosen for his exceptional ability, but things don’t go as expected and it turns into a suspenseful tale of a robot who thinks she’s human.

This film was out of the mainstream, but I think it did generate a fair amount of buzz while it was in the theater. It’s a cerebral sci-fi film with a great deal going for it. One of the keys was Alicia Vikander who plays Ava, the robot. The second is the special effects. The decision to use a mesh suit on Alicia was brilliant and it brought a reality to the movie because the CGI was so seamlessly mixed with the live action. Third is the very clever script. The whole thing keeps you guessing as to whether Nathan is a mad scientist, a nutcase, or a brilliant inventor. Until the ending you keep guessing what is going to happen. It is very thought provoking, quite exciting, very well acted by all participants, and very suspenseful. Each of the major characters is different, but you’ll find yourself rooting for all of them at some point or other. Indirectly it addresses the issue of the morality of what Nathan is up to, but the story is strong enough that it isn’t pushed in your face as you are so interested in the story. This is well told and the technical aspects are very well done. This is a really excellent little film that is on the fringes of the mainstream Hollywood thing that is very much worth seeking out. If you’s a science fiction fan, as I am, or just a fan of a good futuristic story, this is one that you don’t want to miss. I really enjoyed it and I highly recommend it.

EdG – EdsReview Dot Com – A Movie Review Blog