Ant-Man Review

Ant-Man

 

 Ant-Man, directed by Peyton Reed, is the newest addition to the Marvel Cinematic Universe. Ant-Man stars Paul Rudd, Michael Douglas, Evangeline Lilly and Corey Stoll. Scott Lang (Paul Rudd) is a cat burglar that one day breaks into Hank Pym's (Michael Douglas) house and finds a suit that can manipulate the space between atoms which shrinks the wearer into the size of an ant and makes him stronger, since an ant can carry 5,000 times it's weight. Hank Pym, the original Ant-Man, with the help of his daughter Hope van Dyne (Evangeline Lilly), then becomes Scott Lang's mentor and plans a heist that stops Darren Cross (Corey Stoll) from mass producing a similar suit called the Yellowjacket that also lets the user shrink in size and also gives the user super strength, in which he is the one who tests it out first.

 

 Now, I will tell you that I was very worried about this film because of all the changes it went through. Originally Edgar Wright was supposed to take charge of this movie by directing and writing it. He apparently left the project because of creative differences with Marvel Studios about the writing, thus handing the torch over to Peyton Reed. Changes were made to the script, some minor and some major.

 I walked out of the theater and was THANKFULLY relieved that this film was much better than I expected.

 The thing I liked most about this movie was the creativity put into the scenes when Ant-Man shrunk. There is a part where he goes sub-atomic, which is explained in the movie as another dimension in the spaces between atoms. Its basically where you shrink so much that you become non-existent. The way it was shown was so mind boggling that I literally turned to my friend and asked him if he was also tripping out. Another big reason this film exceeded my expectations was the shrinking itself. I had never read an Ant-Man comic book and I didn't know what the fight scenes were going to look like with him shrinking all the time. My confusion faded away when I saw Ant-Man kicking butt. The best fight scenes were by far the scenes with Yellowjacket.

 Speaking of humorous, Scott Lang's friends, who also help with the heist, are very funny. Luis (Michael Peña), Kurt (David Dastmalchian), and Dave (T.I.) brought comedy into the mix which is not unusual for a Marvel movie but this one made me laugh the most out of all of them. 

 

 There were two main issues I had with the movie:

1. I felt like the acting during some of the scenes where special effects were used was kind of cartoony.

2. The main villain, Darren Cross (himself without the suit) was not very good.

 Some of the times when Scott Lang was shrinking I felt he wasn't expressing his emotions very realistically. I get that the idea of shrinking at that size is unrealistic but if that WERE to happen I would assume that the reaction would be much stronger than that of the movie. I don't know whether or not the actors did some of their voices in the studio for the moments that there are special effects but it's clear at those moments they did.

 The other fault was the villain. Not the Yellowjacket suit, which was really cool, but Darren Cross, who runs Pym Technology in place of the retired Hank Pym. He was that stereotypical villain that wants to create some sort of object to sell to the military to make lots of money. He didn't even have a character arch. He was evil throughout the whole movie. He really wasn't interesting at all and I would say one of the worst villains of the Marvel Cinematic Universe. Let me make this clear: I AM TALKING ABOUT DARREN CROSS, NOT YELLOWJACKET.

  All in all, I enjoyed the hell out of this movie. I'm not just saying that because I'm a fan of Marvel but I genuinely mean it. This is a great summer blockbuster and one you should definitely check out in theaters.

Pro

• The shrinking was very creative
• Sub-atomic level!
• Funniest Marvel movie yet
• Action/Fight scenes
• The Yellowjacket suit

Con

• Darren Cross
• Some acting in the special effects scenes

4/5

Watch the trailer here

Ant-Man is in theaters now