Big Action On a Small Scale

Rating: 7/10 (18 July 2015)

Whilst he had to wait for all the Super Soldiers and aggressive raccoons to have their movies, it's finally Ant-mans chance to make it to the big screen. And in spite of the unfortunate departure of Edgar Wright along with a short production time, Ant-man is still able to continue the style and quality of the Marvel cinematic universe.
Scott Lang (Paul Rudd) is a con-man and master thief who has recently been released from prison. Impressed by his skills, Dr. Hank Pym (Michael Douglas) recruits him to become the next Ant-man. He needs him to pull off a heist to retrieve the Yellowjacket suit, a costume with the same abilities of the Ant-man costume, being developed by Daren Cross (Corey Stroll) who intends to sell it to villainous corporations such as Hydra. Motivated by his desire to see his daughter again, Scott accepts his second chance in life and sets out to carry out the heist.
Whilst they try to raise the stakes at points (Pym reminds us every so often of how the Yellowjacket suit could change the world as we know it) the real charm of the film is in how low-key it is compared to the rest of the Marvel films. It's not some epic battle where the fate of humanity is at stake. Instead it's just a cool heist movie and a nice change of pace from the usual large scale tone used in most Marvel movies.
This low key style leaves a lot more focus on the characters to keep the film entertaining and fortunately the actors were up to the task. Paul Rudd is a great addition to the Marvel Superhero roster by being cool, likable and grounding Scott as a human character through bringing the same comedic skill that we loved in films like the 40 Year Old Virgin (albeit with less "You know how I know you're gay" jokes). Douglas is also memorable as his mentor and the original Ant Man, being an interesting take on a retired superhero. Instead of just being old and brooding, he still has the same courage and wit he had in his prime. Plus we get a few cool flashback scenes seeing a younger Michael Douglas (made with very convincing CGI) working as the original Ant- man in his prime, which looked so cool that it made me eager to see Pym get his own movie at some point.
Whilst Yellowjacket did seem to follow all the weak Marvel tropes for villains (rushed back-story, lack of screen time etc.) he was still surprisingly entertaining in the film. Largely because of Corey Stoll who not only gives a great menacing presence, but also plays it so over the top that he brings charm to an otherwise charmless character. The only weak character was Bobby Cannavale as Scott's ex-wives new douchey boyfriend. Mostly because the douchey boyfriend character is one of the most worn out clichés in cinema and didn't seem to have any real purpose in the film other than weak comedy relief. Plus it seems a shame that the film spends so much time with him whilst we hardly get any scenes with his wife and daughter (Judy Greer and Abby Fortson respectively) who are far more important to the story and should have had more screen time. It's especially disappointing Fortson didn't get more screen time since the few scenes she was in were amongst the funniest moments in the film.
However the centrepiece of this film is the action sequences, which contain the most creative fight scenes that Disney's Marvel have had in a while. The size shifting dynamic added a whole new element to the fight scenes visually, taking the usual destruction of a standard blockbuster and placing it inside a children's bedroom. Plus the scenes feel like they have Edgar Wright's fingerprints all over it having clever wordplay and great visual gags making the fights hilarious.
Though that's not to say that the fight scenes are flawless. At times their decisions to have the battles be created entirely with CGI are fairly distracting as most of the backgrounds are blurred out in the miniature scenes. It never ruins the fights, but it can be distracting. And it would have looked a lot better if they had been more creative for some of the sequences and used actual sets for some of the miniature shots.
But at the end of the film the lingering thought did remain, would Edgar White's Ant-man had been better? Maybe it would have been more visually creative. Or maybe it much of Wright was still in the film and it wouldn't be much different. But ignoring what it could have been, the films still great at what it does. It packs in the laughs, has likable characters and does a decent origin story. However other than the fight sequences, there's nothing substantially different here that we haven't already seen from other superhero films.