Neither A Review Of “Quantumania” Nor “Ambulance”

So if you live here in the U.S., or you just know stuff, then you are likely aware that we recently celebrated Independence Day. This typically involves things that go boom, i.e., fireworks, ranging from people setting off firecrackers in the street to window-rattling municipal displays. Oh, and also, frightened pets.

It used to be the case that our dog Dennis would become a basket case during any period of loud noises, including booms from the nearby Marine base and, of course, fireworks. (He was not a fan of weirdos coming to the door on Halloween either.) His mantle has partially been taken up by Lulu, who also dislikes booms and loud noises and tends to hide in the bathroom or under my desk while such things are going on. This year, we tried her out on a new medication that goes on the dog’s gums, and it seemed to work pretty well for her; but we also try to mask the booms by watching something noisy on television* during the peak explosion period, which comprised the evenings of July 3rd and July 4th. Fortunately, I already had a couple of movies lined up that I had been wanting to watch anyway. (Shocker!)

First up was Ant-Man and the Wasp: Quantumania, which we watched on July 3rd. For those who are unfamiliar with it, Quantumania is about a time in London in 1964 when the working class youth broadly aligned themselves with one of two factions, who frequently fought each other: The Mods, who wore sharp suits, listened to current pop and soul music, took amphetamines, and rode scooters; and the Rockers, who rode powerful British motorcycles, wore black leather jackets and listened to 1950s rock’n’roll … Oh, wait, sorry, that’s the plot of Quadrophenia. The plot of Quantumania is that, uh, stuff gets small and blows up.

Now I had actually started watching Quantumania on my own some time earlier, but had stopped once they got to the Quantum Realm, which was full of strange creatures; my wife sometimes find movies filled with creatures to be interesting (cf. Spirited Away, Hellboy II: The Golden Army**, Vesper, and, of course, Avatar***) so I considered it not outside the realm of possibility that she would maybe want to watch it.**** As it turned out, she didn’t; she just wanted to make sure it was going to be noisy enough, and when I restarted it—during a relatively quiet scene in a restaurant—she had concerns.

Wife: “This movie doesn’t seem very loud.”
Me: “It’s a Marvel movie. Don’t worry, it will get a lot louder once they start fighting.”

In addition to not being very loud, this restaurant scene involved an appearance by someone my wife thought she recognized. You might recognize him too.

Wife: “Is that Bill Murray?”
Me: “Uh-huh.”
Wife: “Did they … did they make him up to look all grey and stuff?”
Me: “No, I’m pretty sure that’s just what Bill Murray looks like now.”

You know how it is. Aging happens to everybody, even movie stars. Except for Ant-Man himself, of course, Paul Rudd.

The other thing my wife noticed about this movie was one of the outfits:

Wife (who has no idea who any of these people are because none of them is Tony Stark): “She looks like a wasp.”
Me: “Yeah, this is Ant-Man and the Wasp, and she’s the Wasp.”
Wife: “I guess they did a good job on her costume then.”

Anyhow, needless to say, once the fighting started Quantumania got very noisy, and all was right with the world.

Next up, on the evening of July 4th, we had Ambulance:

Wife: “What is this about?”
Me: “A bank robbery goes bad and they have to escape in an ambulance.”
Wife: “Is there a person in the ambulance?”
Me: “I would assume so.”
Wife: “How noisy can a movie about an ambulance be?”
Me: “It was directed by Michael Bay.”
Wife: “Oh, okay. Michael Bay presents Explosions!!!”

In case you are wondering what she was talking about, here you go:

Anyway, in this case, I attempted to lure my wife into watching Ambulance via the presence of Jake Gyllenhaal, an actor she likes from such movies as Donnie Darko and (especially) Nightcrawler, in which he portrayed a most convincing slimeball crime reporter. However, his presence failed to cut any ice with her, and she didn’t pay attention to Ambulance at all, except for some of the swooping drone shots early on in the film:

Wife: “If you saw this on a big screen it would probably give you motion sickness.”
Me: “Probably.”

And, later on, once things started exploding:

Wife: “Now it seems like a Michael Bay movie.”

The purpose of these films was not to watch them, per se, but rather to provide lots of background noise for Lulu, and in that respect both movies were highly successful; but I can’t give them my normal rating of how long they took to put my wife to sleep, since she stayed awake through them so that she could monitor the dogs***** and dispense treats as needed. And also to run outside once or twice to look at the fireworks, which were visible in various places exploding above homes around the neighborhood.

Because on Independence Day, Michael Bay isn’t the only one who presents Explosions!!!

* I have a pretty potent subwoofer on the surround sound system, so I can make the television quite noisy when I want to.
** But not the original Hellboy, which she hated. A lot.
*** My wife liked Avatar more than I did; I found it (as well as its sequel) rather lacklustre. This is because I expect a lot from James Cameron, so when he puts out something merely adequate I get all disappointed and stuff.
**** After my wife was riveted by Pitch Black, I stopped trying to guess what movies she would and would not enjoy.
***** They both did well. Bean doesn’t care about loud noises at all, having heard worse things during his time as a street dog I guess (he does bark at them sometimes though), and Lulu pretty much slept through everything once her meds kicked in. As for the cats, they couldn’t have cared less, because what is happening outside the house is not important.