If the rumors are true, Game of Thrones author George R.R. Martin is finally finishing up Winds of Winter, the sixth book in the Song of Ice and Fire trilogy (in fact, he’s set to meet his publisher next month). With the completion date arriving, maybe he’s had a little more free time lately, so when he’s not engaging in a passive-aggressive war with Game of Thrones showrunners Dan Weiss and David Benioff or making a cameo in Sharknado 3, he’s making time to catch the latest Marvel flick, Ant-Man.
His assessment? He loved it. In fact, Ant-Man has become Martin’s second favorite Marvel film of all-time, as he writes on his blog.
“ANT-MAN has a proper balance of story, character, humor, and action, I think. A couple reviewers are calling it the best Marvel movie ever. I won’t go that far, but it’s right up there, maybe second only to the second Sam Raimi/ Tobey McGuire [sic] Spider-Man film, the one with Doc Ock.”
Woah, woah, woah! Second favorite ever? Better than The Avengers?
Yep.
He gives Ant-Man incredibly high praise.
There’s a lot of humor in this film, but it is not a farce, as I feared it might be. There’s a lot of action too, but not so much that it overwhelms the plot and characters, which was my problem with the last AVENGERS film… and the one before it, to think of it. A superhero movie needs a fair share of smashing and bashing and stuff blowing up, of course, but IMNSHO that stuff works best when it is happening to people we actually know and care about, and if you jam in too many characters and don’t take time to develop any of them properly, well…
He liked it better than the first Avengers and “a lot more than the second, more than either THOR,” and “more than the second and third IRON MAN.” Only the first Iron Man comes close to Ant-Man among modern Marvel movies, in his assessment.
Speaking of passive aggressive, there are two digs at Age of Ultron in one blog post? Is that George R.R. Martin giving Whedon’s latest the middle finger?
I think maybe he hasn’t seen Winter Soldier, because it’s obviously the best Marvel film.
That said, though he loved Ant-Man, he was bummed that the Wasp only made a brief appearance, but he was more critical overall of Marvel’s villain problem.
Where was the Wasp? We got a few glimpses, and a set up for the next film. But I wanted more Wasp, and I loved the old original Hank / Janet dynamic (before they got to the wife-beating stuff).”
“Also, while Yellowjacket makes a decent villain here (in the comics, of course, he was actually one of Hank’s later identities, after Giant-Man and Goliath), I am tired of this Marvel movie trope where the bad guy has the same powers as the hero. The Hulk fought the Abomination, who is just a bad Hulk. Spider-Man fights Venom, who is just a bad Spider-Man. Iron Man fights Ironmonger, a bad Iron Man. Yawn. I want more films where the hero and the villain have wildly different powers. That makes the action much more interesting.”
That’s a fair assessment, which is why I’m looking forward to Captain America battling it out with Iron Man in Civil War.
(Via Winds of Winter and George R.R. Martin)
