Guardians of the Galaxy managed to blow everyone’s expectations and give Marvel Studios a win for adapting an obscure team. When Ant-Man was announced, many thought that this one would be the studio’s first misstep. I mean, the hero shrinks down to a size of an ant and communicates to them. It’s a sellable idea for a super hero, but it’s got to be done right. Director Edgar Wright was originally attached to it but left when Marvel changed its vision for it to be in the cinematic universe instead of being its own thing. So, let’s get down to it.
1. Heist
This one is different from the others that came before it. No pun intended, but it has a smaller stake in comparison with the last film that preceded it. I’ll get to that in a moment, but this movie is more about the two central characters: Hank Pym and Scott Lang. First we see Pym as he’s very protective of his formula where it can shrink anything. He becomes paranoid as he accuses SHIELD of replicating his shrinking agent.
Meanwhile, Scott is released from prison and he attempts to have a normal life in order to see his daughter Cassie. He gets word from his former cellmate and partners of another job to rob for cash. Scott relents but soon finds a suit. From there, Lang becomes part of an even bigger plot where he, Pym and his daughter Hope plan to steal a replicated suit from Hank’s protégé.
Nothing world ending in this movie, it’s a breather compared to an Avengers film. I think in one way, having something small compared to going big for a hero’s debut is one way to make it interesting. Especially having it be a heist centric film. For one thing, nothing is half baked when Scott and others are planning on stealing a specific thing. It’s established that Scott is smart and manages to use his intelligence to go about an obstacle.
Another thing is the use of Ant-Man’s abilities to make the heist more interesting. We see the training montage where Hank and Hope are teaching Lang on communicating with Ants and using the suit strategically. It’s neat seeing it play out since we see Scott fight but seeing Evangeline Lilly hit Paul Rudd for real was comedic. When she punches him, it was a legitimate punch where Rudd almost fell. A rare instance when a blooper makes it to a finished cut of a movie.
I might as well talk about how the action is played out for Ant-Man. We get an effect when Scott shrinks down, sort of like a comic book thing where his outline gets faded as he shrinks to a small level. We have the moment when he almost gets stepped on and just trying to survive. Most of the combat is effective by portraying that Scott is stronger when he’s small. So much so that when the final fight happens, it’s the most creative moments that involves Thomas the Tank Engine.
With any heist, there’s the supporting cast and they do a good job of being complimentary to Scott’s mission. Out of T.I. and David Dastmalchian, Michael Pena’s Luis steals the scene when it involves the trio. Just his way of explaining how he heard of a job or a favor is hilarious. Especially with how it’s played out since he’s narrating how he got the info. Intersperse with the other characters mouthing how Luis is delivering his lines.
2. Scott Lang
Out of all the heroes that we’ve seen, Scott is the most human among everyone that we’ve seen. Mind you, Peter Quill got abducted and is literally the only human in his team. What separates him and Scott is that Lang is a regular person. He has a good intellect but not one where he is a savant like Tony Stark where he can build anything. With Lang, he’s a former criminal that wants to change his life for his daughter. That’s the main goal for him throughout the movie is that he wants to see Cassie.
If there’s one angle that I noticed in the movie is that it has a fatherly angle to it. We see that Scott wants to see Cassie because he wants to be a part of her life. But gets chastised by her stepfather who happens to be a cop. This aspect is also shown when Hank is with Hope and there’s a subtle animosity since she insists on taking on the heist. We get an explanation as to why Hank is hesitant to let Hope do it.
All of it comes as we see the villain of the film. Corey Stoll plays Darren Cross who is a protégé of Hank. The knock on him is that he feels that Pym hasn’t shared his tech to Cross which makes him paranoid to develop a better serum. He certainly has that abandonment issue since he tries to make Hank proud with his tech but gets massive pushback that he’s using it for all the wrong reasons. Since he only shows up in this film, he sells being paranoid to the point that he gets suspicious of Hank’s ulterior motive.
I like Paul Rudd’s depiction of Scott Lang. He’s like a straight man when it comes to encountering Hank and being a part of something that is practically bigger than him. He plays it well to an extent where he’s aloof to basically just agreeing that he’s in a weird situation, His camaraderie with Hank is comedic sometimes and it leans into that father angle that I talked about earlier. More than anything, he’s pretty humble that he’s genuine with who he is.
3. Overall
Ant-Man is a good breather movie after a massive team up film. It ends Phase 2 on a good note, but teases for an interesting Phase 3.
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