Anthony's Film Review - Ant-Man (2015)

Marvel Studios has succeeded again, with the introduction of yet another memorable superhero...

Ant-Man is yet another movie that introduces a Marvel Comics superhero to the big screen. I'm not saying this as a knock on Marvel Studios. If anything, it is continuing to do what it has done well: tell new kinds of stories about new kinds of heroes. They never rehash an older Marvel Cinematic Universe movie and dress an existing hero in a different way. The result is that every new hero introduced into the MCU is unique. After all, Iron Man, the Incredible Hulk, Thor, and Captain America are so different from each other, just as the Guardians of the Galaxy are from the previous MCU main characters.

The first unique thing about Ant-Man is the superpowers involved. The Ant-Man suit has the ability to shrink itself and its wearer to the size of an insect and then expand back to original size, all at the will of the wearer. This amazing technology was developed by Dr. Hank Pym (Michael Douglas), but he kept it a secret knowing what could happen if it falls into the wrong hands. That doesn't stop Dr. Darren Cross (Corey Stoll), a scientist who was once Dr. Pym's assistant, from trying to replicate that technology and use it for militaristic purposes. Obviously, Cross is the antagonist (no pun intended with the prefix) of this movie.

The second unique thing about Ant-Man is the human character donning the suit. Instead of someone who is already admirable in the eyes of society, we have Scott Lang (Paul Rudd), a thief who has just finished serving a prison sentence but has some trouble keeping work because of judgments based on his criminal record. His situation is so bad that, unfortunately, he has no option but to go back to stealing valuable goods to survive. Therefore, he and his friends, including Luis (Michael Peña), plot a heist to loot a valuable safe in someone's basement. What Scott eventually finds inside will surprise him.

What we have here is an unlikely meeting between Scott and Dr. Pym, along with Pym's daughter Hope (Evangeline Lilly). Scott gets a detailed crash course into how the Ant-Man suit works, along with something else that will come in handy: communicating with ants. (One of the ants is named Ant-thony, which I appreciate, obviously.) Through a technology that translates human signals to ant signals, Scott learns to tell a colony of ants what to do. He can do this while in his normal size or when miniaturized. With these abilities, Scott can truly be Ant-Man.

The action is mainly limited to a few quick sequences throughout the film before the climactic sequence where most of the action is. Because Dr. Cross is on the verge of replicating the miniaturization technology and launching devastating military applications of it, Dr. Pym plots to have Scott as Ant-Man, plus a team of other allies, infiltrate the laboratory facility and put a stop to the scheme. But just when you think the action ends right there, the final action sequence actually occurs away from that place, in a location that is rather unexpected but makes the story quite brilliant and creative.

Besides a good story and exciting action, there is some other stuff you may enjoy in Ant-Man. Another key element is humor. This is one of those movies, like Guardians of the Galaxy, where Marvel Studios goes for a little extra comedy alongside its trademark superhero action. The result is an enjoyable movie that brings even more smiles to the audience. As long as I'm talking about the comedy in Ant-Man, I want to give a shoutout to Michael Peña for providing the biggest laughs, whenever he is rapidly sharing a story and the characters in the flashback scene are lip-synched to Peña's quoting of those characters.

I have to admit. I wasn't interested in Ant-Man when it hit theaters in 2015 because there were too many Marvel movies already. But after a while, I decided to give it a shot, and I'm glad I did. This was quite a fun movie and more interesting than I thought. It has a nice mix of action, comedy, and plot creativity. It left me engaged throughout and satisfied at the end. With that, I guess there is no idea for a superhero movie that is too small (I can't resist the pun) for Marvel to tackle. Marvel Studios really does have a way of telling a good story.

Anthony's Rating:

For more information about Ant-Man, visit the Internet Movie Database.