Enjoyable! 7/10

Rating: 7/10 (6 December 2015)

Review: For a movie about a superhero ant, I actually didn't find it that bad. Michael Douglas plays Dr. Hank Pym who has a unique formula to shrink people and give them superhero strength but the company that he works for, wants to use his experiment for war, so he resigns and builds his own company to further his work. He takes on a protégé, Darren Cross (Corey Stoll), who votes Hank out of his own company with the help of his daughter, Hope van Dyne (Evangeline Lilly), who blames her father for her mothers death. Now that the company is under Darren's management, he carries on with Hanks work to try and create the perfect soldier but he's unable to shrink a human being. Hope soon finds out that Darren wants to do bad things with the formula, so she joins forces with her dad but she still works for Darren and she sends her father reports of Darren's progression. As Darren is coming closer to perfecting the formula, Hank has to find a subject to steal his work back from Darren so, with the help of his daughter, they set a trap to see who can break into his house. Scott Lang (Paul Rudd) plays a thief who is recently released from jail and lives with his close friend Luis (Michael Pena) who is also a thief. After getting the sack because of his history in jail, Scott hears about a job, from Luis and his new found friends, Dave (T.I.) and Kurt (David Dastmalchian), to rob a wealthy man whose away on business. When they finally manage to get into the massive safe, they only manage to find a suit, which disappoints the criminal crew but Scott still takes the suit and he tries it on when he gets home. He then shrinks to a ant size human but he's unable to control his new powers so Hank talks to him through the suit so he can control his movements. When he turns back to human form, he decides to put the suit back but the cops catch him and put him in jail. The cop whose leading the case, Paxton (Bobby Cannavale), just happens to be his ex-wives boyfriend so Scott knows that he's going to be spending serious time behind bars because he has just recently been released. Scott then gets a visit from a man who poses as his lawyer, Hank, and he gives him some clues about how to break out of jail. He then sneaks the suit into his jail cell and he manages to break free, with the help of some ants and Hank giving him instructions in his ear. When he wakes in Hanks house and he agrees to go through some training so he can control the suit and get into the mind of ants, who will be his handy helpers while he's in ant form. Anyway, Hope puts him through the physical training while Hank is putting together the perfect plan to steal back his work from Darren. Hank soon realises that there going to need some help to get into the heavily guarded building so Scott brings in his friends, Luis, Dave and Kurt, to retrieve Hanks work. Scott manages to get into the building through the water system and Luis poses as a security guard and takes out anyone whose going to disrupt the process. The only problem is that Darren has caught on to what there doing and while he's in the midst of selling the formula for a large amount of money, he captures the culprits and goes ahead with the deal. Ant-Man then uses his new powers and manages to escape and save his friends but Darren has built his own suit and goes toe to toe with Scott in a epic battle. Its quite a detailed storyline which covers many elements of the comic book hero and there are some references to the Avengers who obviously will join forces with Ant-Man at some point. I was a bit sceptical about Paul Rudd playing Ant-Man but he done a good job alongside Michael Douglas. There is enough material to keep the movie interesting but I don't think that we have seen Ant-Man's true powers yet. He has the ability to become a perfect Avenger because of his unique powers, so I think that the best is yet to come. With that aside, I liked Corey Stoll as the villain and Michael Pena and his crew did make me laugh. It wasn't in the same class as the first Iron Man but it's an enjoyable movie which has paved the way for a new type of super hero. Enjoyable!
Round-Up: Director, Peyton Reed, 51, done a great job with bringing this comic book hero to the big screen because it could have easily gone pear shaped. He covered a lot of elements, which could have easily split into 2 movies, and the clever ending with Captain America, shows that there are some interesting plans for Ant-Man. His previous titles include Bring It On, Down With Love, The Break-Up and Yes Man. Its not surprising that he brought a witty script to this project and I personally don't think that it would have worked if he tried to make a movie about a Ant-Man, seriously. I liked the Falcon scenes and when Scott used the ants to take on the baddies but the giant ant went a bit too far. Paul Rudd, a young looking 46 year-old, returns as Ant-Man in Captain America: Civil War, which is in post-production and Ant-Man and the Wasp is due to come out in 2018 so we haven't seen the last of this tiny but powerful super hero.
Budget: $130million Worldwide Gross: $520million
I recommend this movie to people who are into their action/adventure/sci-fi movies starring Paul Rudd, Michael Douglas, Evangeline Lilly, Corey Stoll and Michael Pena. 7/10