Ask Hasselbalch | Through the Shattered Lens

Well apparently, it doesn’t matter what I watch. It can be softcore porn. It can be a Disney Channel movie. It can be a family entertainment cash-in film. It can even be a Danish kids superhero movie. Regardless, it will always include invisibility in it. I don’t know why, but it appears to be true.

Moving onward, back in July one of my first reviews here was for a Danish superhero movie called Antboy. Took me a few months to get back to it, but I’m now reviewing the sequel. Yes, his piss is still acidic. Honestly, they could have renamed this movie Antboy: Young Love Is A Bitch. The film opens up with Antboy stopping a robbery. Then they go to the movies.

For those of you who haven’t seen the first film. This is a superhero franchise that acknowledges the existence of other superheroes in comics and films. Also, look at the names of the two movies playing. Not since I watched The Amazing Wizard of Paws (2015) have I seen a director shameless plug one of his movies within another one of his movies. Only difference is that this movie is fun, whereas The Amazing Wizard of Paws is pretty bad.

That’s Antboy/Pelle (Oscar Dietz) on the right and his girlfriend Ida (Amalie Kruse Jensen) on the left. I really only put that screenshot there to make sure you notice the obvious size difference between the two actors. There are at least two times when this movie bumps up against a barrier. In the case of their size difference, it’s that they obviously didn’t have the money to convincingly have Antboy carry her near the end of the film. But they work around that nicely.

This is Antboy’s friend and sidekick Wilhelm (Samuel Ting Graf). Wilhelm has come up with a solution so that Antboy can stop destroying toilets every time he needs to pee. However, given that this isn’t child porn, they can’t actually show him use that thing. Honestly, they don’t answer how that works till the end of the movie. Until then, you wonder, does he pee into that little bit at the end of that capsule? The look on Antboy’s face when his friend shows it to him makes you think that.

This is Maria (Astrid Juncher-Benzon). Antboy rescues her on an ice rink from some hockey guys who were harassing her. To say she has a crush on Antboy is a drastic understatement considering the remainder of this film. Just take a look.

He doesn’t help things by saying he’s going to show up at a party as Antboy, but changes out of the costume, thus standing her up. To say she’s angry is also an understatement. Let’s introduce her dad.

That red thing he’s wearing is supposed to make him invisible, but it doesn’t. Well, it doesn’t work yet. After abandoning it, Maria finds it in the trash can and it sort of springs to life. I don’t remember if there was a reason or if it just happened. Now she gets to work transforming it into a full fledged uniform.

I’m sure that uniform isn’t supposed to remind us of Iron Man in slightest even though it’s power comes from a circular thing on it and it is all red.

That makes up the rest of this movie. Basically her trying to get even with Antboy, then going too far after her father ends up getting injured. At that point, she visits The Flea in prison and helps him. Not to break out, but to turn two twin boys into killing machines to go after Antboy.

If you don’t want the ending, then stop here, but it’s not much of a spoil anyways. You already know what that is, but here’s a screenshot to separate this from that.

In the end, when Antboy is on his last legs with the terrible twosome, he is able to get a change of heart out of her. A part of me wishes she had come around earlier, but considering the setup, I don’t think I would have bought it if it hadn’t come down to a life or death situation. All that needs to be said is that Antboy not only has an ally, but there are now two superheroes in the Antboy universe dishing out justice. She is the Red Fury.

I’m pretty sure that suit only gives her the power of invisibility, but you probably can’t convince this guy of that…

because she kicks the crap out of him. I’m just going to assume the suit helps her or that Danish women are just not to be messed with. Probably both.

Is it as good as the first? No, I don’t think so. But it’s still pretty fun, and I will definitely watch the third one, which is apparently set for 2016.

“How about Antman?
Antman? It’s already taken”

I came across this on Netflix a few months back, but since Ant-Man is out now, I thought it was time to watch it. It’s a Danish film and I would like to take a moment to be thankful that it is not Lars Von Trier. Anyways, this film follows the adventures of Pelle Nøhrmann (Oscar Dietz). One day after running away from bullies, he winds up in someone’s backyard. It’s there that a radioactive spider…I mean an ant crawls up onto his neck and bites him. Then we get that shot inside the brain from X-Men and so many other movies.

After passing out, Pelle goes home to bed. Then he has the bat dream…I mean the ant dream. That night he goes into the kitchen in a daze and eats a bunch of stuff. The next day powers begin to emerge.

You know the milk carton itself has expired when it sticks to your hand

No worries! That door needed to be replaced anyways.

But none of that stuff matters. Meet the greatest superpower of all time. His urine is acidic. Yes, he actually uses that later by peeing on a lock.

But Pelle isn’t alone. He has a friend named Wilhelm (Samuel Ting Graf) who is a comic book nerd. He helps Pelle to figure out his powers and design a suit. Now they just need some criminals. They decide to hang out in a parking garage which we all know are dens of sin. Sure enough, a woman has her purse snatched and Antboy comes to the rescue.

After this, one final piece of the Antboy setup comes to light. He ate all that stuff the first night because in order to maintain his powers, he must eat sugar. So, instead of batarangs in his utility belt, he carries sugar. Once he becomes well known enough he is approached by a girl whose sister has been kidnapped. She wants him to rescue her. Enter the villain of the film: The Flea. I’m guessing because The Tick was already taken. He was doing research that could have saved his mother, but it was cancelled by the company he was working for. That’s why he has kidnapped the daughter of the CEO, demands money and his resignation.

The Flea (Nicolas Bro)

Turns out that Antboy and The Flea have similar origins except that The Flea must drink blood. That’s why he carries containers of it on his back with a tube running into his neck.

It proceeds like you imagine it will from there. It’s a fun kids superhero movie and it’s short too. I do like that The Flea isn’t a complete joke. I also enjoyed the comic book panels it uses numerous times as well as directly referencing other superheroes. That makes the film not feel like it’s trying to exist in a vacuum. You know what I mean, those movies that have people do Internet searches, but magically don’t use Google or any other search engine in existence.

I enjoyed it and look forward to seeing the sequel.