Rated: PG-13
Running time: 117 Minutes
Click below to watch a movie trailer of Ant-Man from YouTube.
In Marvel Studio's Ant-Man, ex-burglar Paul Rudd is recruited by retired scientist Michael Douglas to be the super hero Ant-Man to stop rival scientist Corey Stoll from misusing Douglas's Ant-Man technology.
One of the original Avengers from The Avengers comic book, Ant-Man finally makes it to the Marvel Cinematic Universe as the twelfth installment of the MCU movies after being through years of development. Co-Written by Paul Rudd, Ant-Man is the last film of Marvel's Phase Two. Basically Ant-Man is a Marvel version of Honey, I Shrunk the Kids and The Rocketeer. In fact Ant-Man had been in development since the late 1980's when Ant-Man creator Stan Lee pitched the idea to New Line Entertainment - then owner of Marvel - but New Line found it too similar to Honey, I Shrunk the Kids.
In the movie, forty years ago, scientist Douglas develops the Pym particles which allows shrinking technology. Douglas buries that technology and resigns from SHIELD, when his misguided prodigy Stoll attempts to sell the technology to the government as a weapon for an army of soldiers that are the size of insects with superhuman strength - the ultimate secret weapon. When the Stoll of today continues to try to reinvent the technology to use as a weapons system for an army of soldiers, Douglas and his estranged executive daughter of his company Evangeline Lilly recruit ex-con burglar and divorced father Rudd to use his talents and the Ant-Man suit to redeem himself and stop Stoll in order to save the world for both of their daughters.
This movie is much more dramatic than what the currently airing trailers of which the media is airing now portrays. The movie trailers used in this review more closely represent what the style of the movie really is. It was great to see Rudd/Ant-Man going at it as a kick ass fighter with his shrinking technology and defeating security systems, which is what I wanted see in Rudd to be doing for an Ant-Man movie. Lilly is also amazing as the one who trains Rudd/Ant-Man. Most of the comic relief comes from Rudd's buddy Michael Pena and Pena's crew David Dastmalchian and Tip "T.I." Harris - and Pena's crew do not have a large part in this movie. The movie mostly concerns Douglas, Rudd, Lilly and Stoll.
It was also great to see the cameo from Garrett Morris who played Ant-Man at a party in a Saturday Night Live skit. It would have been great if the Morris cameo was at a party as well, in order to have more of a tribute to the SNL skit, maybe a cameo in a party with Stan Lee. For Stan Lee fans, Lee's cameo is at the end of the movie, so you can concentrate mostly on watching the movie until then. It was also great to see cameos of Hayley Atwell as Agent Peggy Carter and John Slattery as inventor Howard Stark, as well as a young CGI'd Micheal Douglas during the 1989 sequence.
It was cool to have the song It's a Small World being used in the film, considering the theme of Ant-Man and the movie being owned by Walt Disney Studios. Curiously, the song It's a Small World does not have a Disney Corporation copyright, and is the only Disney entity outside of Oswald the Lucky Rabbit not to have a Disney copyright. I also liked the story themes of Mentor/Pupil and Father/Daughter that were used in the film, making the movie even more of a family film. I admit to tearing up a little a couple of times during the Father/Daughter scenes, with Douglas and Lilly and with Rudd's daughter Abby Ryder Fortson and the love that they obviously had for each other.
With the introduction of the science of Pym particles, Ant-Man brings the subatomic quantum realm - the Microverse - into the Marvel Cinematic Universe. There are additional ties to the MCU with the continuous referrals to The Avengers. Actually, the movie feels very much like the original Iron Man movie on a small scale (no pun intended). It is amazing to me to realize how many technological suits there are in the MCU.
I wish there was more personality to the ants, but as Douglas says, Do you know how many ants there are? Even for the one ant Rudd seemed to be connect to, a personality would have been nice. Personality for the ants would have made the ants more anthropomorphic, especially when Rudd controls the ants to do his bidding. As it was, I felt Rudd's relationship with the ants appeared to be more of a master/slave relationship otherwise.
The film was shot in the 1.85 format to give a greater appreciation of the vertical aspects of the Ant-Man scenes that can not be appreciated in the traditional 2.35 aspect ratio movie format. The movie also made extensive use of macro photography to show things from Ant-Man's point of view.
It was great to see during the end credits Special Thanks to Marvel comic book artists John Buscema, John Byrne, and Gene Colan.
There is a mid credits scene and an after credits scene. It is curious to note that in my theater, most of the audience stayed all the way through to the end credits. People are getting hip to Marvel's end credits, which is a film-goer's bonus. Personally I enjoy listening to the music of the end credits as well as reading the various film departments and names.
Ant-Man will return.
Click below to watch another movie trailer of Ant-Man from YouTube.
Click below to watch a final trailer of Ant-Man from YouTube.
Rated PG-13 for violence and language. Running time: 117 Minutes.
Pancho
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