The movie “Ant-Man and the Wasp” is a great improvement over the original Ant Man that was released in 2015. In this sequel, there is a very good story, although the science is outlandish, and there is some very smart writing and good humor throughout the film. Paul Rudd once again plays Ant-Man and Evangeline Lilly who plays the Wasp. Michael Douglass reprises his role as a scientist and after all these years if takes some adjustment to believe Douglass is a scientist. I thought all 3 actors were very good in their roles.

I liked the writing for this sequel because the science of people and objects transforming as tiny as a molecule or as large as a giant is never taken seriously. In many areas throughout this screenplay the dialogue is smart and very funny and there were some big laughs in the audience I was in. I thought the original Ant-Man was bad enough to perhaps end this franchise, but this second movie rescues Ant-Man and I expect more movies that hopefully are as good as this one over the next few years.

I highly recommend Ant-Man and the Wasp.

The logline for the new movie “First Reformed” goes something like this. “A man about to have a baby is extremely concerned about the environment and global warming, worried that in the year 2050, when his child is 33 years old the planet Earth may no longer be a viable place to live”. The man consults a priest, who himself is having major problems including his health. From this point the quality of this movie is overall very well done, receiving a 95% rating on Rotten Tomatoes.

The acting of the 3 main actors, Ethan Hawke, Amanda Seyfried and of all people Cedric the Entertainer in the first serious role I have ever seen him in – are all outstanding in their roles. The problems with this movie – like many movies that are made today is that in some instances, it is trying too hard to be different and because of this, some parts of the movie just do not make sense. This includes one scene that actually involves levitation – coming out of nowhere. This movie also has one of those endings that will confuse and infuriate many viewers, for me it was just OK, although part of the ending did not make sense. Somewhere along the line, people have to react and behave in ways that make sense to a normal person. In many cases when it comes to a good solid story idea, less is more.

This movie is very low budget and was made for only 2.5 million dollars and shot in 20 days. Its also rather dark and depressing when you consider the possible end of the world scenario’s discussed. Despite the 95% recommendation on Rotten Tomatoes I give First Reformed only a mild recommendation.

This is the 6th Purge movie in one of the worst long running movie franchises of all time. Apparently they all made enough money to justify another one and considering each movie is about the same thing “crime gets a holiday for one day”, its amazing that these bad movies get the audience they do. Even more amazing for me is that this movie has Marisa Tomei in this film and she plays a scientist who is studying the end results of letting crime have one day off. There is no better example of how difficult a field acting is when you see an actress who is the caliber of Tomei in a bad movie franchise. I can only guess that she did it as a favor for a friend or needed the money.

This is a bad movie about nothing but violence and like all the other movies in the franchise it should be skipped by everyone – including me, who only saw this garbage because of this blog. Hopefully they will make “The LAST Purge” very soon and put an end to this long list of bad movies.