Go to the ant, thou sluggard...

Rating: 8/10 (29 May 2016)

I know Ant-Man well. I remember when he first started out in the comic book TALES TO ASTONISH, before he began popping pills to alternate between being Ant-Man and Giant Man. Much like Iron Man, Ant Man was a comic book hero not quite popular enough to merit manning an entire comic book by himself. He would share TALES TO ASTONISH with other super heroes who would come and go.
The surprise is how well Iron Man and Ant-Man lend themselves to cinema. Iron Man is a perfect representative of the digital age which may yet indeed foster upon us mechanical men of all kinds and sizes. Iron Man lends himself to interesting CGI effects much more easily than almost any of the other characters with the exception of Thor and the realm of Asgard.
Ant-Man is another matter entirely. An original member of the Avengers primarily as Giant Man, it was hard for me to imagine viable directions for his character to go. When the Hulk left the Avengers and later fought them to a standstill along with the Fantastic Four, it was Ant-Man and his squadrons of ants who put a stop to all the mayhem and carnage once and for all. It was admittedly a novel twist, how the smallest and supposedly least significant of creatures could stop a thundering behemoth who was the strongest thing walking the Earth; i.e., The Incredible Hulk.
This film improves upon the Ant-Man myth in a number of ways. First of all, this film has the look and feel of the original comic book sans all that 'dark edge' stuff that is really designed to satisfy the sensibilities of adults who have hijacked the Comic Book medium for their own needs and agendas. This movie is an Action Comedy and feels and acts more kid friendly. Michael Douglas lends the gravitas of a great actor to the role of Hank Pym, who as the original Ant-Man becomes the mentor to the Ant-Man to be, Scott Lang, as played by Paul Rudd. Scott is no esteemed scientist, but rather a high-tech computer thief recently released from San Quentin. Therefore we have the High and the Low at work in this current adventure story.
While Ant-Man goes through all his shrinking and enlarging, the plot itself goes through convolutions and permutations on smaller and larger scales and gives a subtle nod to an earlier film called THE INCREDIBLE SHRINKING MAN. I found the homage to this film, as lighthearted as it was, something that gave this ANT-MAN just that extra layer of awe and wonder making Scott Lang's Hero's Journey much more evocative in its sophistication. Baby boomers like myself could feel included in the reach of its appeal, even as ANT-MAN began its mission of putting the COMIC back in the term Comic Book Superhero.
As in, this is for kids and adults...
That doesn't mean ANT-MAN comes across as camp particularly. It is a snappy, fast-paced adventure reminiscent of BACK TO THE FUTURE and whizzes in and out of the realms of relativistic physics and quantum mechanics with a knowing verve and assurance that gasps and chuckles at itself. The cinematographer Russell Carpenter is to be commended for the look and the feel of the piece as is the veritable army of an Art Department that gave this film its allure.
The quips and wise-cracking in the face of danger are all back and this Ant-Man is all that a Marvel Superhero should be. Corey Stoll as Darren Cross/Yellowjacket proves a particularly compelling multi-layered villain. Evangeline Lily is also attractive and exciting as the estranged daughter of Henry Pym, Hope Van Dyne, while Michael Pena and his boys bring up the rear and do street with the comic relief. So the cinema is proving to be a medium that can grant new life and viable evolution to even the most diminutive of heroes, just like it proved to be for one Dark Knight.