Ant Man opens in a flashback scene to 1989 where Hank Pym, played by Michael Douglas, resigns from Shield because they want to recreate his Pym particle/shrinking technology. And aged Peggy Carter appears in this scene, as does John Slattery playing Howard Stark, who he also played in Iron Man 2.
Cut to the present, Pym is retired, having long ago picked a successor to run his tech business. However, his successor Darren Cross is working on a breakthrough in Pym tech, and plans to sell it to the military.
Meanwhile, Scott Lang, a sort of thief with a heart of gold character, has just been released from jail and wants to see his young daughter and be a part of her life. Still down on his luck, he gets roped into a plan by Pym to steal the new tech from Cross.
Ant Man is billed as a heist movie, but it gets slowed down by a long training sequence in which Lang learns to fight, control the suit, and use Pym’s other ability. Pym developed a way via electronics to communicate with ants. This is one thing I never liked about comics, how they use science. Talking to ants and shrinking molecules are two totally different branches of science. At least he didn’t also create Ultron, as he did in the comics. In this movie universe Tony Stark created Ultron, which makes much more sense.
Anyway once Lang learns about the three kinds of ants and how to fight and how to use the suit the heist begins. First there’s a scene where he steals something from the new Avengers training center, as seen in Age of Ultron. Ant Man ends up fighting another Avenger in this scene, and then we get to the final heist.
Refreshingly the stakes here are not global, as they tend to be in superhero movies. The stakes are more personal, and through the inherent ridiculousness of the basic concept, it manages to pull of a story about family and redemption. We get some interesting tidbits about the fate of Pym’s wife, and are introduced to some other concepts that are sure to play out in future films.
The heist stuff is effective, and Lang has a good supporting cast. However, as much as this is billed as a heist film, the Avengers scene and the last scene are settled more via action/combat than whether or not he gets away. The conceit of shrinking and growing objects is used well in the action scenes, Pym’s use of his tank keychain is sure to be a crowd favorite.
Last year there was a lot of talk about how Guardians of the Galaxy was a big risk for Marvel. In retrospect I don’t think it was such a risk. Sure it was unknown characters, but so was Iron Man, and Guardians was basically Marvel’s take on Star Wars. Ant Man, with it’s off the wall concept, is a much bigger risk. While enjoyable, it would have been more effective as the heist film it promised to be.
There are both mid credit and post credit scenes. In closing, Ant Man is the one movie with as much potential for prequels as it has for sequels, and I’d have to say I’d be much more curious to see a prequel.
Hard Coal Studios 