Ant-Man and the Wasp
Ant-Man was the surprise hit at the tail-end of Phase Two of the MCU, a fun, low-stakes adventure that let everyone cool down a bit after the cataclysmic events of Age of Ultron. The sequel does the same for the universe-shaking events of Infinity War, although this time it's actually set during the events of the previous film. It's satisfying that Scott Lang (Paul Rudd) has to deal with the consequences of his actions in Civil War. We meet him mere days before his house arrest is due to end, remotely co-running a security company with Michael Pena and his buds from the first film (the company is called X-Con, which is pretty nice). Hank Pym and Hope van Dyne (Michale Douglas and Evangline Lily) are on the run due to their technology's use in the crisis. For all this film has co-billing for Ant-Man and the Wasp, though, Lily doesn't get as much screentime as I'd hoped, although she gets to be impressively ass-kicking when she does. Hank Pym is more unlikeable than before, but that's totally in character for him in regards to the comics.
The villains are bit sketched-in, although Hannah John-Kamen does what she can to make her character, Ghost, both threatening and sympathetic. She has a cool concept behind her - existing out of phase and rapidly losing her hold on physical existence - that lends to some impressive visuals, but neither her character nor her abilities are ever really explored enough. Laurence Fishburne is as classy as ever as her mentor and saviour, the "anti-Pym" Bill Foster, aka Goliath. Apparently, Fishburne was desperate for an MCU role - clearly being Perry White in the DC films didn't cut it for a Marvel guy. Michelle Pfeiffer is as good as expected as Janet van Dyne, the original Wasp and Hope's mother, but by the nature of her fate in the quantum realm doesn't get that much screentime. Still, I think we can expect the quantum realm and Scott to have a significant role in the net Avengers film, as long as he can get out of that rather tricky post-credits situation.
Tremors: A Cold Day in Hell
So, this is the sixth film in the Tremors series, which is by any reasonable argument more than enough. I, however, eat these things up like a hungry graboid, so I picked it up the moment I saw it in HMV (and how often does anyone go to HMV these days? It must be a sign). As with all the films from the third onwards, Burt Gummer (Michael Gross) is the main star, accompanied now by his son Travis (Jamie Kennedy) who he first met in the fifth film, Bloodlines. This one is set in the Canadian Arctic, but still filmed in South Africa like the last one, which really doesn't work (although a few lines about global warming make for an amusing attempt to justify the complete lack of snow). There are some nice elements that add something to the story: Gummer is suffering PTSD from his experiences with the graboids, and is dying from a toxin released by a parasite that got into his system when he was swallowed by a graboid in the third film. This provides the characters with the extra difficult mission of trying to catch and milk a graboid for an antitoxin. I like that we have a female lead scientist again (Dr. Rita Sims, played by Tanya van Graan). A very nice addition is Valerie McKee, daughter of the first film's Val and Rhonda, who has taken inspiration from her parents' stories and become a graboid enthusiast. She's played by Jamie-Lee Money, who's incredibly cute and likeable and should come back if they insist on making a seventh film. It's pretty good fun, if a little too slow, and I'm not keen on the plot device of continually introducing attractive female minor characters and then horribly killing them off. And the constant South African accents are a bit off-putting in a film set in Canada.
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