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| Ant-Man (2015) |
Starting out, this movie does something previous MCU films have done that I've touched on in the past, where it's a second genre as well as being a superhero movie. I've mentioned before that these are the movies I consider the better of Marvel's lineup, since they change things up just enough to stay fresh. In this case, it's a heist movie, but one that involves a super-suit that can shrink people. You know what? I haven't seen that before. The heist movie melds with the superhero genre almost effortlessly, and it's interesting it hasn't been tried before. Being a heist movie, the stakes are relatively low, but in a good way. There's no 'destroy the world' plot, there's not a 'world domination' angle, there's no 'invasion' story. It's just stealing the Ant-Man technology from a company before they can mass produce it. These low stakes not only feed in to the heist movie perfectly, but really work for this movie's benefit regardless. Coming off the back of an Avengers movie, having something relatively small-scale is a nice palette cleanser. That said, the stakes are never so low that we don't care about what's going on. They find the perfect balance, which is something of a theme with this movie.
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| Paul Rudd as Ant-Man |
Because the way the film mixes comedy throughout is also a great balance. Not only do the majority of the jokes really land, which was always going to happen with Paul Rudd at the helm, but the jokes never really step on the heels of a more dramatic or emotional moment, which is something the MCU is accused of doing a lot. Here, they always wait just long enough for those moments to breathe before bringing back the levity. And I'm glad they do it. Because, for God's sake, if a movie called Ant-Man about a guy who can shrink and control ants took itself too seriously, that would be a huge detriment. Luckily, the movie knows what it is and what it wants to be, and it finds the right balance. Like I said, a lot of the comedy comes from Paul Rudd, who was the only choice to play Scott Lang. He crushes this performance, and he gets the comedy right, but he also really delivers in the more emotional scenes, like the ones that bring his daughter into it. He's also just so likeable, it's really easy to get on his side. Michael Douglas as Hank Pym, however, might have just stolen the show. In many ways, he's the direct opposite of Scott Lang. He's not that likeable on paper, he's a bit of a jerk, he's temperamental and easily annoyed, but Michael Douglas finds a way to bring those hidden layers of the character to the forefront, and his performance really sells you on him. I also love how, through him, we kind of subvert some of the typical origin story material that we've gotten before. We don't get the scenes of the suit being built or discovering the Pym particle, because it's already been done. We instead focus on Scott learning how it all works and how to use it, which is similar, but just different enough to keep it seeming fresh and new. And, now that I've brought it up, let me quickly address the Pym particle. Yes, the science of it doesn't make sense, yes, it's inconsistent in the movie, and yes, the explanation given for how it works is nonsense, but who cares? Pointing out how scientifically inaccurate Jurassic Park is doesn't kill that movie, so it doesn't matter here. Hank Pym gave Scott an explanation that wasn't the 100% truth of how the particle works but was the closest approximation to help Scott understand it. There. Let's move on.
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| Michael Douglas as Hank Pym |
Apart from Rudd and Douglas, the rest of the cast do a great job too. Evangeline Lilly is excellent as Hope van Dyne, and I love how layered her performance can be. There's a lot going on with the character that comes out over the course of the movie, but on a rewatch is entirely transparent from the start. It's a testament to Lilly's performance, and it's easy to see why she was given more of a focus in the MCU moving forward. Michael Pena is a comedic powerhouse, and steals the show from Rudd in a number of places. Luis is such an amazing character, and it's through him that we get to see more of what the full movie directed by Edgar Wright would likely have looked like, and that's a really clever way of disguising the varying tones of multiple directors. Funnel it all into one or two characters so the rest of the movie has the tone you want it to have while still having some spirit of the director who moved on. A lot of times, movies like this tend to either do a bad job of disguising the crew change or overcorrect, attempting to copy that director's style and failing. A good balance was struck here, which is something I've said several times in this review now, but it really is the best way to describe it. Also, a little unrelated but I'll bring it up here, Abby Ryder Fortson does an excellent job as Cassie Lang. It's still very impressive to me when a young child actor has this much to do in a movie like this and they don't get on my nerves. Fortson not only didn't get on my nerves, but actually really entertained me, and provided a few decent laughs all on her own. Kudos.
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| Abby Ryder Fortson as Cassie Lang |
And the villain? Yeah, I liked him. Corey Stoll does a great job in the role, and he can be really threatening when he needs to be. I like how he has all this tech and these effective weapons but his obsession with the Pym particle and Ant-Man blinds him from that. It's his fatal flaw, and it comes out through his relationship with Hank Pym, which is also really great to watch throughout. At the end of the day, does it come down to the hero fighting someone else with the same powers but slightly different? Yes, but I'm willing to overlook it since this is the first movie showing off powers like these, and there's no need to throw in a completely different villain so soon. Watching two people shrinking and growing while fighting the way they do is great to watch, and the action scenes in general are extremely entertaining here. They get a lot of mileage out of the powers Ant-Man has, and the way they use macro-photography to shoot the scenes with small Ant-Man is absolutely stunning to watch. I mentioned earlier that I haven't seen a movie like this before, and I'll reiterate that here: I haven't seen a movie like this before. And it goes deeper than what I expected. When I first heard of Ant-Man I thought 'Oh, a guy who can shrink. Okay.' But there's a lot more to him than that, and they really don't hold back here. In general, that's why I'm more willing to overlook the more inconsistent science stuff, because it makes for a more entertaining movie overall. The way they use the ants themselves is also really great. The scene where he makes the ants spin the penny is fantastic, and any time Ant-Man is working with the ants or running around in the anthills or flying Antony, I was enraptured.
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| Corey Stoll as Yellowjacket |
I think I like this movie a little more than I should, but I don't care; I love Ant-Man (2015). This might be an unpopular opinion, but it's my 2nd favourite movie of Marvel Phase 2, close behind Winter Soldier. Ant-Man himself is hands-down one of my favourite MCU characters, and I can't wait to see what they do with him next. 9.5/10.
Next, it's one of the big ones: Captain America: Civil War.
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