Just Another Superhero Cartoon

Rating: 5/10 (12 December 2015)

This movie exemplifies the entire problem with the glut of Superhero films these days -- they're basically extremely expensive cartoons. Which is fine, if you're five years old and still able to identify with an animated figure, suspend one's belief and go along for the ride. But as an adult, Ant-man, like most of the other Marvel vehicles in the last decade, just falls flat.
When 80 percent of the film -- and 100 percent of the action -- is CGI, there is absolutely no suspense, no sensation that the characters are truly at risk. It's the equivalent of watching a Roadrunner cartoon. Sure, it's funny. But it's no more than that. And a Roadrunner cartoon is only a couple minutes long. Not nearly two hours.
The only thing that can possibly make these CGI films work is the casting - a well-cast actor is still able to overcome the flatness of CGI (Hugh Jackman as Wolverine, Robert Downey in the first Iron Man). In the case of Ant-man, however, the cast just feels like a B-team. Paul Rudd's a far better schlubby sad-sack rom-com sidekick than superhero, and the rest of the cast, primarily TV actors, makes this film feel like a made-for-TV movie. (This was especially problematic in the case of Corey Stoll, who is best known for his role as a loser alcoholic - very hard to take him seriously as the villain!)
I found it particularly hilarious when the showed off Rudd's "new buff" body -- I sure hope that was CGI too, because he truly looked ridiculous.
But this is another huge problem with the Marvel films. They take themselves far too seriously. It would be a lot easy to sit back and enjoy the CGI if the films would laugh at themselves a bit more.