What's Good Is Great, But Could It Have Been Better?

Rating: 7/10 (27 July 2015)

The end of Marvel's "Phase 2", work began on an adaptation of "Ant-Man" in 2006 with Edgar Wright and Joe Cornish. Wright had unfortunately left the project in 2014, creative differences between him and Marvel has been cited as the reason (A shame as Joss Whedon of "Avengers" fame declared it "Not only the best script that Marvel had ever had, but the most Marvel script I'd read"). Director Peyton Reed was brought on to finish the project, along with more script work by Director Adam McKay and the films leading actor Paul Rudd. At the end of all this unfortunate mess Edgar Wright and Joe Cornish still share a co-writing credit, and while I loved the final movie and its many spectacular sequences I was in my seat wondering how much of Edgar Wright's unique visual flair survived, or what could have been.
Still I will not be rude anymore and give credit where credit is due, Peyton Reed absolutely nailed it. Marvel has managed to actually pull off a thrilling heist movie, and the comedy is a fine balancing act between dialogue and action sequences. Hank Pym (Michael Douglas), the 1st Ant-man has done well over the years keeping his kit away from those he does not deem worthy. Enter Scott Lang (Paul Rudd), a recently released convict planning to clean up his act for the sake of his daughter. Problems arise where he must return to crime for financial reasons and Hank finally sees potential in Scott as the next Ant-man, much to the dismay of Pym's daughter Hope (Evangeline Lilly). What follows is a daring plan against an old protégé Darren Cross (Corey Stoll), and with help like Luis (A hilarious performance from Michael Peña) how could things go wrong?
While unfortunately the plot unfolds with moments you have seen done to death in cinema history, the pro's far out way the con's. As a reader of the comic I would have loved to have seen the more arrogant and brutal depiction of Hank Pym that is usually given (Remember that this character accidentally created "Ultron" in the books), but Michael Douglas does a wonderful job and as soon as I saw him up on screen I remembered why the man has such a strong presence on camera. Paul Rudd finally gets a break with somewhat serious leading man material and he does splendid with it, I could not agree more with this casting decision. Evangeline Lilly did good as well, but the forced trauma between her character and Douglas's is such drivel I got tired of it pretty fast. It gave minimal depth to their characters, and don't tell me it was powerful stuff when it can be cleared up in a 2-3 minute "your Mother" scene every blockbuster seems to have. Stoll as the main villain suits the mood of the movie, but again is underdeveloped and evil just for the sake of chasing profit and spite against Pym (In writing all this down maybe they actually did more justice to Hank Pym than I give them credit for).
So after discussing casting, what redeems this movie for me is how creative all the action sequences truly get (No kidding, quite possibly the best I've ever seen from the Superhero genre). As soon as that suit powered on I was reminded of classics like "The Incredible Shrinking Man" (1957), and there was even a little "2001: A Space Odyssey" (1968) nostalgia for me. The CGI ants surprisingly look and move the right way what with the 10, 100's or 1,000's that eventually show up on screen, and after everything I've said the only serious disappointment I had is that Ant-man never got to grow super huge (I'm pretty sure that wasn't a budget thing, and I doubt someone at Marvel would've found it too "outlandish" given all the preceding events so far).
Final Verdict: Marvel continues to play the game well when it comes to popularising somewhat obscure characters, and every actor delivered on the action and comedy in a smart and clever way. Easily I look forward to seeing this character in his next appearance, and this could be the most fun and accessible movie Marvel has made yet. 7/10.