Antman - Review Thread

That's what I keep hearing, just more of the same.

This was such an awesome movie. Had a great time from beginning to end. And Rudd was great as Lang and Douglas was awesome as Pym and they had great chemistry together. The action scenes were done excellently and it was really just all around fun. No lie, I think IMO, this is the best Marvel movie yet. Yeah Avengers and Winter Soldier were great, but it this movie just never let up IMO, it had a great flow going throughout and didnt check my watch once. Saw it in 2D, I cant stand 3D. I want to see more of the

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Wow - I agree (had to happen sometime or another lol)

They probably have bigger plans for Antman in the future (pun intended) but we just don't know what it is yet.

I think this movie would have been better if they would have made Hank Pym Ant Man when he was younger as had im be the next hero after Cap and older Pym and Stark work together in Civil War. IN Ant Man 2 you introduce a new Ant Man.

With Antman, Marvel has decided to take the plunge into the truly ridiculous. At this point it seems like they're trying to see how far they can push it."Lets make a movie where the superhero shrinks and hangs out with ants!" And does their hubris payoff? Surprisingly yes.

Paul Rudd was a great casting choice for the lead of Antman as Scott Lang, the burglar chosen by legendary Marvel scientist Hank Pym to take up the Antman suit and stop his technology from going global. The story is pretty basic, lets face it. The reason this movie exists is because the hero Antman actually has a unique set of powers he haven't really seen yet in our current swath of comic book films: he can shrink down to insect size.

The key to success for a movie like this is whether they can take that premise and utilize it well. So do they? Absolutely. They went all out with the shrinking scenes, showing us a variety of different locations for him to be small in, like a bathtub, a night club, a pipeline, and a child's room. There's even a cool fight scene that takes place entirely inside a suitcase. These were the scenes that make this movie cool and sets it apart from the rest.

I do have to admit however that the CGI was a little iffy. The challenge here was to create these "giant" environments and to have many ants at the same scale as Scott himself. But honestly, the animation felt rushed and while there was detail, it seemed glossy and not entirely grounded. The ants especially. There's a scene where he gets really small that I liked and wished I was able to see things in more detail. Until the end of that scene where it became weirdly like 2001.

Antman is another notch in Marvel's repertoire, and one which I liked. Its not amazing; the villain is again rather bland and predictable, the story is a very basic "becoming a hero, stopping a global threat' variation. But the fun of this film is made up through the cool shrinking action scenes and the great humour throughout, provided mostly by Rudd and co-star Michael Pena. So somehow, Marvel pulled off this ridiculous premise and made another exciting entry in their filmography.

8/10

That's what I thought it was, but had trouble hearing it every time he said it.

Though Marvel has been very successful with their cinematic universe, they have not been above criticism. One of the most common criticisms is that Marvel’s films don’t really give the directors much room to breathe or express themselves creatively. Each film seems to have the same look, tone, and structure regardless of who’s behind the camera, giving the films an assembly line feel. There was however hope when it came to light that Edgar Wright would be co-writing and directing a film based on one of Marvel’s lesser known characters; Ant-Man. Wright is not only a good director, but he has a distinctive voice and visual style which permeates through all of his films. If anyone could give the Marvel Cinematic Universe a more unique outing, it was him. And then it was announced that Wright had left the project due to creative “differences” with Marvel. Though no one has officially announced the exact details, the jist of it seemed to be Marvel wanted to force Wright into doing things with Ant-Man he didn’t want to, so they fired him. To make matters worse, Marvel’s choice of replacement director was Peyton Reed, whose most noteworthy film is probably the early Kirsten Dunst vehicle Bring It On. Clearly this was not an auteur with something to say, but a workman who would comply with the studio’s wishes. Wright and Joe Cornish screenplay was also rewritten by frequent Will Ferrell collaborator Adam McKay. Even if all of these behind the scenes shenanigans didn’t leave a bad taste in my mouth, all the evidence pointed to Marvel making a broader, less interesting movie that would follow their formula. I did consider boycotting the film, but ultimately I’m a bit too invested into the MCU at this point and wanted to remain up to date in the continuity. Plus, nothing really interesting has come to my theater since Inside Out and I was kind of just itching to go see a movie.

Scott Lang (Paul Rudd) is a former thief being released from prison as the story starts. Scott is determined not to fall back into a life of crime, instead wanting to be there for his young daughter. However his burglary skills attract the attention of Hank Pym (Michael Douglas), a scientist who invented a suit which can shrink to the size of an ant many years ago. Pym is kept his breakthrough a secret since its creation as he fears the damage his technology can cause. Pym’s former protégé, Darren Cross (Corey Stoll) is on the verge of discovering the secret on his own. Pym can’t have this, and so he entrusts Scott with his suit and powers in order to infiltrate Cross’ base and steal his technology. Scott rises to the challenge and attempts to become the Ant-Man.

The basic plotting here is pretty by the numbers and tired. We see a lot of common clichés here, like the flawed but still likable father trying to stay with his daughter in-spite of a divorce, the old mentor with the haunted past, and a character keeping a secret in order to “protect” a loved one. Not only does the film borrow general clichés, but the story structure is almost a remake of the first Iron Man. Let’s run through the beats: a corrupt business man aims to use technology created by the hero for evil, the superhero’s power is based on an advanced suit which the hero spends most of the run-time learning how to use, a secondary ally from the comics is teased for most of the runtime but never fully committed to, a flawed protagonist finds redemption in super heroism, and the film climaxes with the hero fighting the evil business man using a more destructive version of the suit. The similarities are glaringly obvious, and the plotline doesn’t work as well here for a few reasons. The writing is a lot less consistent here, and the current oversaturation of the superhero market certainly doesn’t help either. The redemption arc in particular falls flat here. While Iron Man actually dealt with Tony Stark coming to grips with his mistakes and learning the harm his weapons had caused, Ant-Man is afraid to commit to Scott being morally questionable. He may be a former convict, but the film is quick to explain that he was more of a Robin Hood who fought an evil corporation and was convicted for his efforts. Paul Rudd is also totally charming and likable throughout and never shows any darker streaks. It’s too safe, and it makes for an unsatisfying arc. None of the other relationships or storylines are as fundamentally flawed as Scott’s supposed arc, but they’re so clichéd that they don’t leave much of an impression.

In spite of how standard the plot is, this movie really couldn’t have been made before now, mainly due to the inherent silliness of the titular character. Like last year’s Guardians of the Galaxy, this is a movie based on a fairly obscure and very ridiculous comic book. It’s only now that superhero movies are so common that audiences are willing to accept something sillier. Also like Guardians, the film takes on a more comedic tone. That’s certainly the right approach for a movie like this, but it doesn’t really work. Some of the comedy early on actually struck me as fairly clever and well-executed, but the jokes become more broad and unfunny as they go. This is embodied in the character played by Michael Pena. When he first came on, he was genuinely very funny and a bright spot. But the larger his role became, the less sharp the writing got until by the end they were relying on just a silly voice to get some laughs. The casting here is also mixed. Paul Rudd and Michael Douglas are both pretty good, while Corey Stoll (usually a very good actor) is kind of terrible as the villain.

About the only thing I consistently enjoyed in the film were the action scenes, which made creative use of Ant-Man’s shrinking powers and his ability to control ants. Highlights include a fight with another MCU character, a shootout involving a city model, a fight in a falling suitcase, and the final showdown between Ant-Man and Corey Stoll’s Yellowjacket. I also liked how the film is not built around an epic final battle, but a relatively low-key heist. It’s one of the few things here which could be called a refreshing change of pace, though the heist itself wasn’t really as interesting as it should have been. Still, I was somewhat surprised with the creativity Peyton Reed showed in the action scenes and the special effects used to depict Ant-Man’s shrinking were pretty good too. These scenes may not have been transcendently awesome or anything, but they’re neat. On the other hand, my fears that this film would look exactly like all the other Marvel films were pretty much realized. In fact this is onemost pedestrian looking film of the MCU yet. Outside of some creative production design involving the scale of tiny objects, this has the same basic look established since Iron Man and it does nothing to shake it up.

Is Ant-Man a terrible movie? No, in fact I wouldn’t call it a bad one at all really. It’s certainly a watchable movie, with some creative action scenes and amusing moments, but at the end of the day it brings nothing new to the table in regards to story or character. It’s doubly frustrating because I think in Edgar Wright’s hands this might have been something special. Ant-Man’s abilities are unique and the film utilizes his powerset in interesting ways. If that were harnessed in a more interesting story, it could have really worked. As it stands, the movie is an easy enough watch, but one to be forgotten soon after. 2015 has been a pretty lackluster year for Marvel. Avengers: Age of Ultron, despite immense financial success, has generally been considered something of a letdown and inferior to not only the first Avengers, but 2014 Marvel efforts Captain America: The Winter Soldier and Guardians of the Galaxy. Now, Ant-Man has finished off “Phase Two” in a very bland manor. Here’s hoping the next phase starts better than this one ended.

C-

I get where PG Cooper is coming from, but the opposite is true. Iron Man was not a focused movie at all. If it wasn't for Robert Downey Jr, that movie would be shit and the whole Marvel universe would have collapsed before getting started. They spent so much time telling Tony Stark's origin that they had rush everything else and catch up to the main story. Ant-Man doesn't have this issue because there isn't much to say about Scott Lang. In 20 minutes, we know everything we need to know about him AND Hank AND his daughter AND the bad guy. So then the movie can focus on the main plot, which as you say, is a heist story. Ant-Man is the movie that Iron Man should have been, and if it had been released 5 years ago, people would have loved it. But that's the thing. It's 2015. Ant-Man should have aspired to be more. It's in a very awkward position. Judged on its own merits, it's a fun movie. Judged as part of the big picture, it almost feels throwaway. Although I do love that it filled in holes in the universe. We had Captain America in the 1940's and now we have Ant-Man in the 80's. I'm hoping that one day Marvel does a bunch of period piece superhero movies. The first Captain American is all we've gotten so far. It'll be interesting to see what they do in the 2020's.

I liked the part with the tiny man.