Ant-Man, for those who aren’t in the know, was an early comic book from Marvel with his first outing going all the way back to 1962! Marvel’s latest offering produces some surprisingly big results.
Call me a fan boy but if you put the word “Marvel” in front of any movie title then I’m more than likely going to want to watch it. After spending years reading their comic books as a child and enjoying plenty of big Hollywood blockbusting movies that the now Disney owned studio has to offer it has to be said I’ve been looking forward to this one.
If you take the comic books at face value it was actually Dr Hank Pym (the original Ant-Man) who invented Ultron and not Tony Stark as the new movies would have you believe, which is why I believe Ant-Man to be one of the most underrated superheroes from the franchise. But with that minor gripe aside lets jump into the film…
Ant-Man – Played by Paul Rudd
The story follows the story of Dr Pym who is the original Ant-Man, played by the very charismatic Michael Douglas. He recruits the help of street-criminal Scott Lang (played by Paul Rudd) to, yes you’ve guessed it, save the world. The film starts in 1982 with the early members of S.H.I.E.L.D (Strategic Hazard Intervention Enforcement and Logistics Division, what a mouthful!) arguing with Dr Pym about a new type of particle that he has discovered, a particle to manipulate size perhaps?
Fast-forward to the present day and we meet Lang, a criminal who wants to turn his life around but struggles due to his criminal history. Lang eventually takes a job on a heist from which the bounty happens to be the Ant-Man suit. After trying it on (because let’s face it who wouldn’t?) and activating its powers he soon meets Dr Pym and his daughter Rose (played by Evangeline Lilly), who put him on the path to righteousness as Ant-Man.
In this epic of microscopic proportions Ant-Man is out to stop one of Dr Pym’s former protégé’s called Darren Cross (Corey Stoll), who is developing his own version of the suit called the Yellow Jacket. This suit does pretty much everything the Ant-Man suit can with the added benefit of having laser beams!
If you are an animal lover there are a few scenes in this movie that will have you wincing at the concept of animal testing gone wrong during the creation of the Yellow Jacket but what else do you expect from the bad guys? Needless to say no actual animals were harmed during the making of this movie, God bless CGI.
There’s some funny moments as Lang begins to grasp his new powers, one of which is command of his own army of ants. There’s also some hilarious attempts at fighting talk, proving that a huge amount of effort has gone into making this one of the most amusing as well as visually captivating movies to come out of Marvel. The ability to not take themselves too seriously is surely emphasised when Ant-Man goes toe-to-toe with one of The Avengers… no spoilers but it’s definitely one of my favourite scenes.
I think that the fantastic casting choices really shine in Ant-Man and it is genuinely funny. Of course the action scenes are incredibly impressive, offering a real twist on the usual big-screen, big action flicks we’ve come to expect from Marvel, they certainly play on the scale aspect with real success.
For me the plot is a little stale and somewhat predictable, of course it sets up future releases in true Marvel fashion but my recommendation is to stay until the very end – there are always spoilers and extra clips!
8/10
Author: Andrew, Weybridge store
