In Review: "Ant-Man"

What a pleasant surprise and charming addition to the Marvel world. I didn't expect to love it, but turns out I did.

The Story

Scott Lang (Paul Rudd) just got out of prison- like yesterday- for grand theft. But he wants to go straight, until his friend Luis (Michael Pena) tells him about this piece-of-cake job to break into this old man's house and get into this giant safe that he has in his basement. There just has to be something big in there. But instead of jewels or cash, Scott finds a funny looking suit with a steampunk-esque helmet. So he takes it home, tries it on... and shrinks to the size of an ant!

And he becomes Ant-Man! With the help of the original Ant-Man and the suit's creator Hank Pym (Michael Douglas) and Hope Pym, his daughter, (Evangeline Lilly), Scott must steal Darren Cross's creation of a copycat Ant-Man suit that could destroy the world if put into the wrong hands.

The Stars

Paul Rudd is not the superhero you have seen before. He's awkward at all the dramatic parts and out of shape whenever he has to do hero activities. He doesn't complain about it, mind you. His single goal is to be a hero for his daughter Cassie, making his mistakes totally lovable and his personality very realistic.

I love the fact that the movie is true to the comics with the inclusion of Hank Pym, played by Michael Douglas, who plays him perfectly. As a distant and distraught father, you just want to give him a big hug.

Michael Pena is another stand out in this movie. He doesn't get to be the funny guy (better known for his roles in "End of Watch" and "Shooter"), but now I only want to see him that way. He perfectly describes that friend that everyone has who can never get through a story without taking 10 minutes to do so.

The Message

The basic idea of the movie is the second chance. Scott is given a second chance after he gets out of jail to save the world. Hank is given a second chance to be a good dad to his daughter. But I think there is a more interesting topic to talk about in this movie.

The evolution father-daughter relationship. When a girl is growing up, one of the first men she gets to know is her father. When she looks at heroes, they are usually men (unfortunate but true). Almost immediately, they associate their father with a hero because he is the one who protects her from the monsters under her bed, from the bad boy she wants to go out with and all of the troubles of the world. (In a majority of cases anyway.) But when a girl grows up, she tends to stop seeing her dad that way. She either finds another man to put her world around or she doesn't want to be anyone's little girl anymore. And that just breaks the dads' hearts.

What I think this movie is trying to say is that there needs to be a balance when the girls grow up. Cassie is the first stage- The girl just wants to see her dad as the hero of her world. Now look at Hope. She wants to believe her dad is the hero. She wants to believe that her dad didn't cause her mother's death. But she can't because Hank is trying to protect Hope from the truth and choosing not to tell her. This makes Hope feel like a child- and she's not. She is a grown adult who has a right to know what happened to her mother. When Hank puts aside his fear of seeing Hope hurt, their relationship is healed- not perfect- but healed. He treated her like the adult she is and let her live her own life. And for that, he is her hero.

Overall

I really did not expect to like this movie as much as a did. It's hard to take comics like Ant-Man and (eventually) Aqua Man and turn them into films. These heroes, unlike others, are not realistic but closer to the fantasy realm- people can't shrink and talk to ants or swim with a mermaid tail and talk to sea creatures. They belong visually in the comic world because that's where we see those fantasies. But when we move to the medium of film, a medium that derives on making the imagined realistic and physical, we can fall into trouble. Heroes before Ant-Man have had special powers but they come in human forms. From the start, Ant-Man was going to look ridiculous standing next to Captain America and Thor. He's 2 centimeters tall! So the director rolled with the punch and made parts of the film ridiculous and laugh-out-loud funny, erasing all fears I had about the narrative and characters moving to a new medium.

I am also in love with the Avenger crossover that happened in the movie- my nerd brain went crazy for it. Stan Lee made all of these characters to live in the same world. I am so glad the movie world is honoring his creativity. I can't wait to see what happens with that.

There were some parts in the middle that lagged a bit and I don't think the villain was quite evil enough. Nor were his intentions to get back at a man who wronged him and make some money while he's doing it. I also still don't understand fully why it was a bad idea that have two Ant-Man suits. I think the reasoning behind not letting the semi-bad-guy have a suit could have been explained a little more.

Stay until the very end of the film when you see it in theaters, there are 2 special scenes/sneak peeks.

3 out of 4 Ants