Surprisingly enjoyable

Rating: 8/10 (9 December 2015)

I have to say that I did not have great hopes for this movie. However, I found it surprisingly enjoyable. As can be expected from a Marvel super hero movie it is not the most intelligent plot around but instead rather heavy on special effects.
Having said that the plot is not bad given the context. I have never read any of the Ant-Man comics so I had no idea what to expect. The little expectation I had was of some guy turning into some ant like creature smashing things left right and center. So it was somewhat of a surprise to me when I found out that the guy was actually shrinking himself to ant size. Actually I went a bit "what the f" when I first realized this and felt that this was going to be boring.
However, in the end, I felt it worked out quite well. If it would have just been about some guy shrinking himself then it would indeed have been somewhat boring but the added coolness of this guy being able to command armies of bad-ass ants really helped stave of the boredom.
As I wrote above it is a Marvel super hero movie so it is heavy on special effects and, personally, I felt they where quite okay. There is of course quite a bit of action in the movie as well as a bit of humour. I quite liked the parts where the Ant-Man and his nemesis slugged it out in a children's room and a giant size Thomas the Tank Engine was thrown through the roof and into the garden. Maybe I liked it because Thomas the Tank Engine is a TV show that my kids liked to watch when they were smaller. There where of course a few of the usual Hollywood silly, brain-dead stunts like the tank scene. It could have been so cool but it was really ruined by the total lack of intelligence in the stunt following the cool revelation.
I really liked Michael Douglas as Dr. Hank Pym as well as Evangeline Lilly as Hope Van Dyne. I was not too impressed by Paul Rudd but on the while I guess he was not too bad. It is a bit of a shame though that when Hollywood feels they need to throw in a bit of family drama they always have to throw in a divorce. It is rather depressing for us that have lived through such a tragedy after all.
Bottom line, this was a surprisingly enjoyable movie. Far better than quite a few of the super hero movies that Marvel/Hollywood have produced like for instance the abysmal Spiderman movies although that is of course a personal opinion.