Overall: A-Cast: B+
Plot: B+
Special Effects/Stunts: A+
Similarity to Comic: A
Director: Peyton Reed
Comic Company: Marvel
Stars: Paul Rudd, Michael Douglas. Evangeline Lilly
Rating: PG-13
See the IMDB page
See the Rotten Tomatoes page
I don't know if I've ever been more apprehensive about a superhero movie. If ever Marvel had an opportunity to fail and ruin their entire 'Avengers' legacy this movie was it. Despite all the pressure and the danger, they managed to create one of the most charming and entertaining movies in their universe.
The Good: I think this supporting cast in particular is one of the best in the Marvel movies. Yellowjacket, Hank Pym, and Wasp were played absolutely perfectly by their respective actors. There was character development, relationship building, and tension between almost all of the characters throughout the film, which is always the foundation of good storytelling.
The plot is fantastic. Even though they're telling the story of Scott Lang and not Hank Pym (we'll get to that later) the story is fun, captivating, and has the perfect amount of action. The special effects were amazing, my particular favorite was the fight scene inside of the briefcase, and how they kept the humor up by having intense scenes of action and then zooming the frame out and showing how little is actually happening to our human sized eyes.
The Bad: Paul Rudd. I don't know why but I cannot handle this guy in anything except comedies. And while this movie is very funny, it doesn't quite qualify as a comedy. I couldn't take him seriously as a thief, a hero, a college graduate, a felon, or anything else in this movie. I believed he was a dad, and that he would do anything for his daughter which is essentially what this movie is really about, but aside from that he just didn't fit the role. I would have preferred an unknown actor or someone with more of an action background.
Despite the great action sequences, special effects, and plot line, one can't help thinking that this movie is just a really really good vision of a kind of ridiculous character that might not belong in the Marvel universe let alone the Avengers. Can you really put Ant-Man up there with the great heroes like Spider-Man, Iron Man, and the Hulk? I don't think so, and the fact they're trying to play him off as that is almost as silly as the character himself.
The Interesting: I don't really understand why they chose to tell the story of Scott Lang and not the original Ant-Man Hank Pym. I think the writers at Marvel Studios surely could have found a story line that links the timeline between Pym and the modern Avengers. Viewers already aren't very familiar with the original Ant-Man, so why confuse them more by actually telling the story of Ant-Man's successor?
If the Yellowjacket suit is such a great weapon, why do they have to shrink it? Can't they just mass produce a bunch of them for the same amount of money they spent on shrinking the one and have an army of flying high tech soldier suits that's just as effective? And wouldn't a tiny suit be easy to smash if it was discovered. Seems to me a larger army of big Yellowjackets makes more sense than one tiny one, maybe that's just me.
Conclusion: After bracing myself for a horribly drawn out and painful end to Marvel's big screen dominance, I was surprised and impressed by the tiny Ant-Man's ability to hold his own, despite a possible mis-cast of the lead actor. Bravo.
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