Zombies Ruin Everything

Stars: Paul Rudd, Michael Douglas, Evangeline Lilly, Corey Stoll, Michael Pena, Bobby Cannavale, Tip Harris, Judy Greer, David Dastmalchian

Rated PG-13 for Sci-fi action/violence, 103 minutes, Comedy/Sci-fi/Action

Compare to: Iron Man (2008) and some other superhero movie

While you could argue with results, it won’t stop Marvel. Captain America, Rocket Raccoon, and now Ant-Man. Right off I don’t mind telling you that this is one of the better Marvel adaptions though that doesn’t say much does it? It gets as good as Guardians of the Galaxy and it gets as bad as Thor: The Dark World.

A bit of action, a bit of comedy, a little bit of drama- Ant-Man has it all but does it have the right amounts in the right places? Millions of people who haven’t seen it yet are sure to agree! This is a MARVEL movie, after all! Ah, just playing.

Scott Lang is a tech genius and a brilliant thief….that is, if he hadn’t been caught and thrown in prison. But now that he’s out and in need of a job, legendary inventor Hank Pym needs Scott offers him something right up his alley. Only catch is it involves a super suit that allows the wearer to shrink down to the size of an ant- and control the little guys too. So begins the adventure of Ant-Man.

“So if we have you freak out about what’s going on at THIS point, we can have your montage training sequence out of the way EASILY in the first 45 minutes.”

I mean…You’ve got it at this point, right? Odd guy gets powers, has to learn to use them, montage, he learns them, stops bad guy. Marvel’s formula for success, works every time. Financially anyway.

Thematically? Eh, sure. This won’t be blowing your mind and making you rethink who your favorite superhero (OF ALL TIME) is, but it does have some cool stuff to see without it coming off like a sort of “Eh, yeah I GUESS that was cool.” But rather a legitimate impression that other films just aren’t going to be able to showcase. Sure, you never thought you wanted to see a guy shrink back and forth while fist fighting armed guards but the talking raccoon worked, right?

There are definite traces of the writer/former director Edgar Wright all throughout the script as well. Fast thinking/talking characters either making the most out of mundane situations or speeding through a just complicated enough goal to allow you to understand what’s going on and still enjoy the action. Then again, when are movies really so complicated anymore? Chances are, at worst, they’re convoluted. Ant-Man of course, isn’t a case of that as much as it is following the same formula as Iron Man or even Green Lantern. Which isn’t to say it’s as ‘blech’ as the latter.

The most thought-provoking movie about ants since A Bug’s Life.

The biggest issue may be the tone. There are the jokes and the serious moments. Then there are the times where I didn’t know if I was supposed to laugh or actually care about what was happening. At one point (Mild spoiler) the villain wants revenge on a disagreeing associate who wants to stop the bad guy’s research and made him look like a fool in front of the board! Gasp! Think what the guy does to Willem Dafoe in Spider-Man or what the guy does to Doctor Doom in Fantastic Four.

So the villain (A little lacking in the villain department) blasts this guy with some gun that’s meant to possibly shrink him. The man turns into a marble-sized glob of red snot and splats on the floor. I never thought I would type that sentence. The villain wipes him up with toilet paper, leaves a bit of a smear and flushes him down the toilet, deeming the gun an unfortunate failure.

At this point I nearly died laughing while the audience sat still and quiet making me wonder if it was supposed to be funny at all. And I still don’t know the answer. Other scenes had the audience nervously chuckling with comedy that hit the mark for some and missed it for others.

Point is, the tone of it all felt a bit confused while the overall product is something to appreciate.

Sprinkle size puns throughout

Positive: Good Summer movie, never boring, creative ideas.

Negative: Formulaic, Cool-looking but weak villain, occasionally confused tone.

Grade: B

Side note: There is something in the middle and at the end of the credits.

This entry was posted on 07/17/2015 at 1:24 am and is filed under Reviews! with tags ant man, marvel movies, movie review. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.