Marvel's Ant-Man

Finally went to the movies. It's been a while since I've gone out to the cinema. Possible spoilers.

Ant-Man is played by Paul Rudd and with-in the movie's history Michael Douglas. He is a Super-hero from the Avengers corner of the Marvel Universe. The movie itself was a fun experience. I'd compare it to The Guardians of The Galaxy or even more like DC Comics' (Why do we call it DC Comics if the "C" in DC stands for... comics?) Green Lantern. While the movie itself did good to show Scott Lang's (Paul Rudd) rise to Super-Hero Status, it did follow the slightly silly route.

Scott's friends, Luis (Michael Pena), Kurt (David Dastmalchian) and Dave (T.I.) did little to add to the movie. I did like Michael Pena as an actor. I particularly liked him in Shooter as well as Gracepoint. I have a feeling I've seen him in more than that, but those were good. In Ant-Man, it seemed that these three amigos were strictly comic-relief and provided about as much laughs that one good actor could have done on their own. I'm not really knocking them, just saying they were the kind of supporting roles that it didn't really make a difference whether they were in the movie or not. I'd probably place them a step above extras, just barely.

Hank Pym's daughter is Hope Van Dyne played by the lovely Evangeline Lilly who has to stand idly by as Scott pulls off the main act of the movie. I would have been fine with Ant-Man sharing the spot light with The Wasp, or as she is sometimes referred to in the Marvel Universe as Red Queen. I had seen the Red Queen's outfit before, but since I'd never read any of the older stories involving Ant-Man and Wasp I did not know they had a child or that she was The Red Queen. I just thought Wasp's outfit had changed through the years. Hope is an educated, strong, skilled, determined young woman who spends half the movie at odds with her father. Until she learns the truth of her mother's death. It is then that her character starts to mend the gap between father and daughter.

Though it was brief, I have to say I was extremely happy to see a flash back of Hank and Janet working side by side to save the day. It does explain why Janet is not around and also shows that Wasp is definitely apart of the universe and has every chance of making an appearance in later movies. I did find myself hoping against hope that Scott would find and bring back Janet Pym when he went sub-atomic.

Yellow-Jacket, who I knew as Hank Pym from The Initiative and Secret Invasion story lines was a villain in this movie. This yellow jacket was Darren Cross played by Cory Stoll. The actor is currently portraying a hero of sorts in the FX TV Series The Strain. In Ant-Man I would say that the villain was a little lacking. He kind of goes through the movie seeming naive then just casually mentions that he was on to everyone from the start. Even as he is fighting it just lacks energy. Even if everything he was doing was a result of the affects his yellow jacket particle was having on his mind it was still weak tea. 

ANTS! ANTS EVERYWHERE!!!! I know I was complaining a bit back there, but lets start talking about what this movie got right. It wasn't afraid to use a ton of ants. I was even liking the fact that they used different species of ants. And they were crucial components of pulling things off. The movie explained how the ants were communicated with. I liked that they talked about the ants as more of a creature you had to form a relationship with rather than mindless drones that would follow anything or anyone. He even had an ant that flew which Scott rode into battle with and gave a name to. As an audience member you even feel a bit of sorrow when Ant-ony falls during the final charge. I do feel the ants were giving their due respect and screen time in this film.

The Ant-Man suit! Very cool and well made!!!! Loved the helmet! I also like that you could see there was a person inside the helmet as you could clearly make out Scott's eyes. The initial experience of shrinking had just enough humor and wonder to keep it cool. Explaining about density causing increase in strength allowing Scott to keep his full size human strength even though he was the size of an insect. The effects they used during the fight scenes to show Ant-Man shrink and enlarge between maneuvers and punches were very cool.

Where are the Avengers? Apparently this needs to be explained to some people. If you've ever read an Avengers comic you've seen this saying, "There came a day, a day unlike any other, when Earth's mightiest heroes found themselves united against a common threat. On that day, the Avengers were born - to fight the foes no single super hero could withstand". That's what the Avengers are for. To fight a horde of invading aliens, to bring down Ultron. Not to stop a guy from selling tech to Hydra. That's all I'm going to say about that. But they do, do a good job of tying Ant-Man into everything else.

Which is a good lead into the next part. We see the old friends! Obviously there is no one else who could play Peggy Carter, at any age. Even though I didn't know she was in the movie it was no doubt if she made an appearance it would be played by Hayley Atwell. There have been two Howard Starks in the Marvel Cinematic Universe, a young and an old. I did like how the young Howard Stark from Captain America: The First Avenger reprise his role in the TV Series Agent Carter. Marvel made another smart choice and used the same older Howard Stark from Iron Man 2 in a scene for Ant-Man played by John Slattery.

All in all I liked this movie. It was pleasantly surprising how much I enjoyed it. Ant-Man wasn't a big box office smash, but I wasn't expecting that. For a 2nd stringer he was portrayed fairly well. The movie it self was just clean fun and at it's heart really just about a dad trying to do right by his child. There was minimal cussing which i love, because there are so many other descriptive words/phrases to be used by characters who have such high educations. There was an attractive female in a supporting role but the movie did't focus on her body all the time (yeah Transformers I'm talking about you). Story line was good. Actors did well. I'd recommend this to anyone just wanting to enjoy a movie. I'm sure I left something out, but its 1AM.