I just returned from watching Ant-Man, I won't lie I went up with fairly high hopes, I knew Ant-Man was a relatively unknown character in the public eye, but I've already seen Marvel Studios work wonders, waking Captain America from the ice he fell in after his Silver Age revival, making Tom Hiddelsons Loki one of the most recognizable villains in cinema, and after they turned an almost enitrely unknown team, the Guardians of the Galaxy into a succsess, I was confident that they wouldn't fail to bring an unprecedented glory to Ant-Man.
I must admit that when I heard they were going the Scott Lang route I was disapointed, in the comics Hank Pym and Wasp are founding Avengers, and I was hoping the Movie would be more about that. However I now realize that such a movie would have likely come off as stale and dull to audiances.
Ant-Man is not a character who can be taken seriously, Marvel realized this when they decided to make a movie out of him. When I heard the movie would have a soft tone I was honestly concerned, by now the taste of Joss Whedons brand of comedy had grown stale in my mouth, and I feared that every 30 second intervul of this film would be interupted by a sardonic joke or sexually charged sarcassm.
Surprisingly I was not annoyed by The Ant-Mans brand of humor, probably because the comedy within this film does not come from the pain or mocking of others as it does in Iron-Man, instead it is derived from the pain of the titular characters, from their perspective, it is hilarious to watch but the situations are hardly exadgerated, we deal with the painful situations of Scott Lang, an Ex-con who struggles to find work after a few as he stresses it "non-violant crimes" and is harassed by the system which refuses to forgive him for his thefts, his friends who are trying to pull him back in and his ex-wife who refuses to let him see his daughter accompanied by an annoying cop who she married.
Admittedly the ex-wife/estranged daughter routine has to be one of the more cliched parts of the film, I've seen an angry ex-wife with authority over visitation wifes yelling at everyone from Mrs Doubtfire to Santa Claus, the writers seem so aware that this is a cliche that they almost seem to skim over these scenes as quickly as possible, and his daughter is the ex machina justificaion for why he is pulling his stunts as Ant-Man, fortunately the director/writers were aware of enough of the cliche to ease things a bit. His little girl is thank god, not a resentful little brat, and is actually very much on Paul Ruds side consistently through the whole movie, just an adorable kid before he got his powers, during and after all of this strengthening Ant-Mans justifications to pull off the heist.
The movies strength is at its begining when Ant-Man gets out of prison, in fact I think a pretty good normal movie with no superpowers could be managed from the humor and situations this guy is going through, they do it right with a good 20-30 minutes of character development alternating between Hank Pym and Paul Rudd. They show a bit of Hank Pyms time as a superhero between the time of Captain America and Iron man, with seemingly forced cameo apperance of Caps GF Peggy Carter.
Alot of Pyms story, his motivations the cliched father-daughter estrangement and the central villan Yellow Jacket are admittedly as someone pointed out to me somewhat weak, I like that Pym used to be a Superhero but the whole "Forced out of my company and my ideas are being stolen" reminds me of every other saturday morning cartoon and Tron legacy, which isn't a far off comparison because in both movies you have an old guy forced out off his company being persecuted by a protege with the romance interest being a daughter like figure to the elder character all taking place in microscopic settings, I'll admit there are notable differences but the point is the primary plot and the justifications for Paul Rudd taking up the mantel of the Ant-Man are thin.
The fight scenes are very good, with entertaining action taking place across multiple areas with the camera occasionally shifting focus to reveal just how trivial their fights appear at life-scale, especially satisfying (note minor spoiler here) is Ant-Mans fight with The Falcon which I think was brillaint, towards the end of the movie however the fighting gets a bit caught up in the weak central plot and confussing things do happen, but that aside this movie did prove that his powers may not be conventional but the Ant Man is no joke.
But where this movie shines is not its special effects or plot but in my oppinion it is the spirit of this film, and that spirit comes from their characters and excellent character development sequences. Paul Rudds reactions and Luis GuzMan are what make this movie fun, the other members of the cast the Pyms I shouldn't undersell Hank Pym is essential and well played despite his poor development and his daughter is a total badass though her arogance does annoy me she is very much like her mother and how I'd think The Wasp should be, it is a shame that she did not dawn the costume in this film and fight side by side with Ant-Man as Marvel is in much need of diversity among their character and a quick moving character with powerful blasts like the Wasps would add a powerful female character to Marvels roster, alas hopefully we'll see her in a future film but I do remember from the comics and the beloved EMH series that Wasp was a tiny fast powerhouse, the glass cannon of the team if you will who wasn't that easy to hit.
Spider-Man references aside, this movie was a pleasure to watch and just as fun to pick apart, this film easily stands next films like Guardians of The Galaxy and Winter Soilder as one of Marvels upset films which stand as a testiment against the nay sayyers who claim MCU Studios as reached its peak.
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