Good things come in small packages

Rating: 7/10 (4 August 2016)

Scott Lang (Paul Rudd) has recently been released from prison and vows to put his life of crime behind him in order to improve relations with his daughter. Despite his attempts to reform, Lang is lured back into a life of crime and burgles the home of millionaire Dr Hank Pym (Michael Douglas). However, Lang burgling Hank's home was no accident and was part of Hank's plan to offer Lang a shot at redemption; a plan which involves a daring heist where Lang is able to put his 'cat-burgling' skills to good use by stopping Hank's soon-to-be son-in-law Darren Cross (Corey Stoll) from unleashing one of Hank's creations (technology which Hank considered too dangerous to be used and therefore tried to keep it a secret) giving both Lang and Pym the chance to save the world.
Superhero films in general are always a bit hit-and-miss as far as I'm concerned, but with Ant-Man it's definitely an example of a superhero film that gets more wrong than right....
First and foremost the tone is generally correct and although it does have some mushy sentiment it mostly remains a fun ride (Michael Pena is the 'comic relief' character here and to his credit he is actually pretty funny). The film is also fairly well-paced and although it's close to two hours long it never feels padded out or laborious and the film generally flows well from scene to scene. Director Peyton Reed does a fairly solid job overall; the special effects are impressive, but more importantly Reed uses the special effects appropriately (they're mostly used for the audience to gain an insight into what it's like being Ant-Man so it never feels like Reed is showing off at any point).
The performances from the main players are good; Rudd has a natural charm about him and can make even the most pathetic of losers appear likable (which is exactly what he does here). Douglas is OK here, but I did feel that he was somewhat 'slumming it' a bit here (he's capable of much better). All other performances were adequate although as previously mentioned Pena's character and good acting raise the bar a little bit for this film (he's a diverse and very underrated actor).
The film isn't entirely perfect though;for example Cross' world-domination scheme is established at the beginning and appears to be an important part of the story, but then it seems to get pretty much ignored until right near the end - I appreciate that this was so that the audience could see Lang's training and development, but it probably would have been better if the film would have had a bit more balance between Cross' plotting and Lang's training - this isn't a big criticism as the training aspect was a lot of fun, but I just found the film structurally a little uneven.
On balance, Ant-Man is well worth your time as it is fast-paced film with a generally humorous tone and it provides the audience with a fairly novel concept. For me though it's the sense of fun and likability that Ant-Man brings that won me over in the end.