Randall Park

REVIEW: Always Be My Maybe (2019)

Best friends in their childhood, Sasha (Ali Wong) and Marcus (Randall Park) ended up drifting a part, even though everyone always thought they’d end up together. When they reconnect sixteen years later, maybe this is their second chance?

Always Be My Maybe is a romantic comedy that captures the best friends to lovers trope perfectly. The road going from best friends to lovers is never smooth thanks to the fear of ruining a friendship, the fear of opening up your heart, and just the general awkwardness of becoming more than friends with your best mate. Having the two leads have great chemistry and give great performances makes you feel for both of them in this scenario.

Sasha has become a celebrity chef, travelling across the country to open restaurants in different cities. It’s as she returns to her hometown of San Francisco to open her latest restaurant that she runs into Marcus. Marcus is almost the complete opposite of Sasha. He’s stayed in San Francisco, he works for his dad’s business and he still performs in the same band but never tries to take the band to the next level. It’s equal parts awkward and endearing, seeing the two of the reconnect and try to find some middle ground after so long a part and lives that have gone in different directions.

The supporting cast are great too. Michelle Buteau plays Veronica, Sasha’s friend and PA, and she probably has all the best lines, while there is Keanu Reeves playing an over the top version of Keanu Reeves – or at least what we think Keanu Reeves would be like – who steals every scene he’s in.

As a romantic comedy Always Be My Maybe is sometimes uniquely Asian-American. For instance, Sasha cooks Asian cuisine, and there’s lots of discussions of different dishes and her and Marcus’s parents encompass Asian stereotypes without them becoming one-dimensional characters. But Always Be My Maybe proves that love, fear, and aspirations are all universal while still being very funny.

Always Be My Maybe doesn’t reinvent the rom-com wheel but it’s sweet, funny and with its charming leads it’s near perfect. 4/5.

REVIEW: Ant-Man and the Wasp (2018)

Scott Lang (Paul Rudd) is under house arrest after the events of Captain America: Civil War but soon he’s roped into helping Hope Van Dyne (Evangeline Lily) and her father Hank (Michael Douglas) who are attempting to travel to the Quantum realm in the hope to find her mother still alive.

Ant-Man and the Wasp is a visually dynamic film. It has fun with the whole concept of people shrinking and growing, and to make things different compared to the first film, it also has cars and even buildings shrinking to tiny sizes. The fights are innovative, and having Hope become the Wasp is great as she has wings and blasters, making her fights just that bit different to Ant-Man’s.

After the intensity of Infinity War, Ant-Man and the Wasp is just a good action-comedy. Like the first Ant-Man film, Ant-Man and the Wasp has small-scale and personal stakes. Hope and Hank are desperate to find their lost mother and wife, Scott just wants to be a good dad to his daughter Cassie (Abby Ryder Fortson), and even the main villain Ghost (Hannah John-Kamen) doesn’t have world-domination intentions, and instead has a personal stake in the Quantum realm technology Hank Pym has created.

It’s the brilliant chemistry from its cast that makes Ant-Man and the Wasp so much fun and enjoyable. The banter between Scott, Hope and Hank is great and the way they all work together, however reluctantly to begin with, is fun to watch. Scott’s ex-criminal friends Luis (Michael Peña), Kurt (David Dastmalchian) and Dave (T.I.) bring the jokes, with Peña stealing just about every scene he’s in. There is almost an abundance of characters. FBI Agent Jimmy Woo (Randall Park) is almost constantly watching Scott, and businessman Sonny Burch (Walton Goggins) want the technology Hope and Hank have been building. There’s a lot of people after our main trio and one has to think that the film could’ve probably lost one antagonist and not lost much in the way of the actual plot.

Ant-Man and the Wasp isn’t ground-breaking but it’s fun. The many different types of familial relationships are what is at the films core and the action sequences are always entertaining. It’s just the sort of easy-watch summer superhero film you need after Infinity War. 4/5.