Some Movies to See This Weekend, July 17, 2015

Again, it's a fairly eclectic week at the movies. Each film represents a different genre, although each promises a good amount of comedy, too. Hopefully one is funnier than the others, given that it's made by comedians, but you get the idea. Let's take a look at what's awaiting us at the theater.

Ant-Man
Director: Peyton Reed
Writers: Edgar Wright, Joe Cornish, Adam McKay, Paul Rudd
Starring: Paul Rudd, Michael Douglas, Evangeline Lilly

Ant-Man, particularly this iteration of the character, is not one of Marvel's premier characters. The original Ant-Man in the comic books, Hank Pym (played as an elderly man here by Michael Douglas), literally grew up to be other characters with code names like Giant Man, Goliath, Yellow Jacket, and probably more I'm forgetting because who needs to research things they spent reading faithfully 20 years ago? Pym does some messed up stuff in the comic books, which is probably why the studio decided to go with a lesser known incarnation of the masked hero.

Anyway, the Scott Lang character Paul Rudd plays here is not the guy I read about in The Avengers as a kid. He's a thief who's in jail, but Pym needs him for some corporate espionage, so he bails and/or breaks him out. This makes Ant-Man the heist movie in Marvel's ongoing love affair with things outside the straightforward "superhero" genre (Captain America: The Winter Soldier was a spy thriller, Guardians of the Galaxy a space opera, etc.). The people involved are immensely talented, and while it's still a disappointment original director Edgar Wright (Shawn of the Dead, The World's End) left the project, there appears to be a good chunk of his zany voice left in its DNA.

Mr. Holmes
Director: Bill Condon
Writer: Jeffrey Hatcher
Starring: Ian McKellen, Laura Linney, Milo Parker

McKellen is Sherlock Holmes in his later days. That's enough for me. When you take into account the ideas of him losing his touch as an older man, being unable to solve -- and therefore unable to get over the fact that he can't solve -- a murder from years earlier, it makes for a complicated, fun thematic stew. Fingers crossed it'll amount to something other than a handsome lark through a Sherlock Holmes story.

Trainwreck
Director: Judd Apatow
Writer: Amy Schumer
Starring: Amy Schumer, Bill Hader, LeBron James

Amy Schumer currently occupies the role of "Funniest Person on the Planet" at the moment for me. She's crass but with a satirical bite, loud but sly. That she gets to write and star in her own movie is super great news. That she got Judd Apatow, director of some of the last decade's best comedies (especially The 40-Year-Old Virgin and Knocked Up), is even better news.

Schumer stars as a hard-drinking manizer who meets a sweet guy played by Bill Hader. Is it time to settle down or let the nice fella go? And LeBron James is there the whole time as the romantic comedy friend stock character! This is neat, everyone.