Dumb but reasonably entertaining

Rating: 6/10 (9 May 2016)

One of the problems with many superhero movies is there seems to be a philosophy from the producers that as long as you hit the clichés - evil mastermind, likable-but-flawed hero, a little conflict, a little comedy relief - then you don't need to worry about whether anything makes sense, or whether the characters are more than paper cutouts.
Ant-Man is a classic example of group-think, special-effects driven Hollywood entertainment. The villain does inexplicably horrible things - kill a guy for raising mild objections to his plan, experiment on cute lambs instead of mice (even though this would be prohibitively expensive) - and yet isn't played as a true sadist. A family conflict is exacerbated by senselessly not offering the perfectly reasonable explanation until late in the movie (an explanation refuted in a coda). The choice of a hero is weirdly arbitrary (considering the film's requirements, a gymnast would have been a better choice).
It's not as bad as 2002's Spider-man - the story and characters roughly make sense, at least - but everything is lazy and by-the-book.
The movie also has some rather unfortunate "comedy relief" in the form of a trio of borderline inept criminals. The weakness of the humor is surprising in a movie directed not by a director who has previously specialized in comedy; with the director and star, it's surprising how mildly comic this film is, although it does have its humorous moments, mainly involving the ants.
The special effects are decent. Not great, but perfectly serviceable.
The action is pretty good. Once again, not great, but there are some solid scenes and a nicely paced ending.
Neither the best nor the worst of the Marvel superhero films, Ant-Man is perfectly watchable. And that's about it.