Ant-Man (***)
Directed by: Peyton Reed
Starring: Paul Rudd, Evangeline Lilly,
Corey Stoll, Michael Douglas, Bobby Cannavale, Michael Peña, Anthony Mackie,
Judy Greer
Seen: August 1st 2015
*** Out of ****
After the massive almost-excess of the
Avengers movies and the build-up to those movies with the other Marvel
Cinematic Universe (MCU) movies, Ant-Man does a commendable and entertaining
job of miniaturising things. Ant-Man has an added layer of comedy and old-school
comic book movie camp factor that, in conjunction with the new Marvel
seriousness and large-scale story, somehow works to deliver a tiny punch
carrying a lot of power. While Ant-Man in some ways feels like part of the old
batch of superhero movies before DC and MCU’s re-tooling of the genre with the
Dark Knight Trilogy and the MCU blockbusters, it also shows up those old movies
as the (mostly) imposters they were.
Ant-Man is a self-contained story
bookended by and injected with connection points to the larger MCU. It features
an entertaining fight between Ant-Man and a “lesser” Avengers/Captain America character
at a familiar venue, and the after credits sting promises Ant-Man’s inclusion
in Captain America: Civil War in 2016 with the obvious potential of him also
joining the Avengers for the Infinity Wars duo of movies due out in 2018 and
2019. The action scenes are great fun, with one fight in particular a small
scale fight presented from two perspectives; one feeling big and urgent, the
other seeming ridiculously underpowered and small.
Ant-Man works because of the humour added
by Paul Rudd as Scott Lang/Ant-Man and Michael Peña as Luis, Lang’s former
prison cell-mate. Peña is hilarious and he easily but graciously steals scenes in
his relatively limited screen-time. While the story is told tongue-in-cheek,
Corey Stoll as Darren Cross/Yellowjacket, and to a slightly lesser extent
Evangeline Lily as Hope van Dyne, the daughter of Hank Pym, play it straight.
Stoll especially is a clear-cut corporate type who becomes the villain, and he
has no time for shenanigans, no time… (Thank you Will Farrell). Michael Douglas
enjoys the tag-along ride as one of the early Avengers now completely on his
own trying to hide dangerous technology from a greedy world.
Ant-Man is a lot of fun, much more than
I expected it to be, and I welcome Paul Rudd and Evangeline Lily to the MCU. The
movie successfully injects a few new characters, stories, and ideas into the
MCU, and I’m curious to see where they take things from here.
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