ANT-MAN THE REVIEW

Seeing Ant-Man was a mistake. Not how you think. Initially, I went to catch seats to Paper Towns. I have no actual explanation for this, it was a Saturday, I was bored, let’s just move on okay? I didn’t see it, there were no seats to the movie so my friend and I chose Ant-Man as a secondary choice. It may be stand to be one of the best coincidences I’ve ever been a part of.  The situation brings me back to around the same time last year when I snuck into Guardians of the Galaxy with zero expectations because of the whole talking tree and raccoon in space thing. But the other parallel it draws is the pleasant surprise and appreciation it gave me. I’m starting to feel like I’m a magnet to Marvel movies, and I do not mind it. Marvel’s Ant-Man wasn’t made for any specific age, whether you learned to walk a day ago or plan on cashing in your 401K Ant-Man is here for you. The cinematic blend of spectacular effects, crowd-pleasing comedy, and stellar performances makes this film to be a well-rounded superhero film that anyone can enjoy.

Now that I’ve buttered up whatever idea you had not the film, let’s delve into The Good, The Bad, and aspects worth the mention.

The Good

| Plot |

Although Ant-Man did not quite hit the bulls-eye concerning it’s plot, the flow of the movie still remained at ease. The portrayal throughout the movie of establishing who Lang was and how he encountered the suit was a fitting story line that was told rather well.

Ant-Man was set up as a vigilante heist rather than a mission to save the universe resembling its sister movie Avengers. Although it was a mission to save the world, the focus of the film stayed within the city. However, Ant-Man frayed from destroying hundreds of skyscrapers and homes thus killing thousands of people Transformers style. Just the right amount of “dropping cities out of the sky” to scratch your reality neglecting hearts. Due to the fact that Ant-Man was delivered as an ‘all ages’ film it strayed from the explicitly gory and murder-y scenes that Man of Steel is famous for not bring enough care to, but Avengers is prayed for acknowledging.

Another great aspect for my sake concerning the plot was the dynamic of the relationship between Scott, Hope Pym, and Dr. Hank Pym. It is established that they aren’t this big happy family, that yes, Scott is expendable and that is why Dr. Hank chose him to execute the heist. Scott and Dr. Hank don’t establish this father-son relationship that movies usually yield to. They are simply, unorthodox business partners.

An aspect of the plot that I appreciate even more is the art of staying away from the ever so typical female supporting actress and male lead actor romantics. Burning through all the films that I’ve seen the plot structure that if a guy and girl in the top hierarchy of the plot have to have this spawn romance seems nearly inevitable in every movie. Ant-Man doesn’t make that decision. The entire movie was sprinkled with awkward sexual tension and unnecessary hormonal influx nudging a moral imperative to the audience to want them together. Nope, the only true display of affection between Scott and Hope (Evangeline Lily) was one kiss in the conclusion of the movie. The placement of the scene towards the end left little room for unnecessary romance in a completely non-romantic situation of saving the world from a wasp that defies the Law of Conservation of Mass. I don’t mind it. I really don’t and you will see why it’s an amazing foreshadowing to the incredible end credits clip at the end of this post.

In addition to all of those points, the implementation of an antagonist, Yellow Jacket, made for an amazing balance its good guys versus bad guys. You felt like you were supposed to be against Yellow Jacket, but he just looked so cool what to you want from me?

| Effects |

On the topics of effect  most definitely hits the mark eloquently.  What I love about Ant-Man and it’s individuality in effects is that the protagonist fo the movie goes from the size of a literal insect with the ability to hide under a blade of grass to a full sized man in his mid-30’s. Incredible. The techniques of scaling Ant-Man from a backyard to  hitting a Mayweather on security guards. There isn’t much else to say other than Ant-Man hits the bulls-eye in its visual effects department.

I mean, wow. The skill this film possesses in not only in differentiating itself due to the constant change in mass of Scott Lang, but its technique in serving hyper-realistic action scenes.

| Characters |

Two words. Michel Peña. Ant-man could have thrown away all of it’s effects in addition  every other character in this film and only left Micheal Peña’s character Luis to stand, just spurting whatever on his mind and it would’ve been a cinematic masterpiece on its own.

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Peña was the insanely hilarious comic relief in this film that you never wanted to cut away from. Te combination of his overzealous story telling, energy, and painfully stereotypical accent that delivered an amazing performance. Micheal Peña’s performance and character surprisingly eclipsed Paul Rudd with ease. It is easy to say that Michael Peña’s performance was the bets part of the Ant-Man.

In addition to Peña, Pau Rudd’s delivery of comedy maintained the light-hearted nature of the film webbed in topics like the daunting possibility of The Microverse/Quantum Realm.

“A dimension that can be reached from the Earth dimension by compressing one’s own mass to a certain point, thereby forcing it through an artificially created nexus into the other universe.”

His performance was spectacular in all senses of script delivery, and comedy but Peña stands to eclipse over him.  The rest of their rat pack of felons including T.I., the sassy outgoing secondary comic relief who ends up being smarter than you think, and David Dastmalchian who plays your heavily stereotypical wise Russian with an accent thicker than molasses.




The roles each character played in Ant-Man especially in the vigilante rat pack all supported each other comically that set for a great equilibrium of serious circumstances and comedic relief.

|| The Bad ||

| Plot |

Unfortunately, Ant-Man wasn’t 100% flawless. In concern with the plot, my primary issue lied within the lack of definitive rising action leading to the climax. I felt like the movie dragged itself out a bit concerning Lang discovering the suit, training, then the heist. The construction of the rising actions could have been much smoother and more concise but instead the creators are Ant-Man felt it was necessary to stretch the film out more than it needed to be. Overall, Ant-Man was a well-executed plot but it hits a few bumps along the way.

Characters

Halfway through the film , I could already identify the faults of Ant-Man. The concentration of stereotypes. We can all sit in the theater pretending like it’s not the hundredth time we’ve seen a white guy as the lead actor and protagonist of the film, in addition to an adrenaline pumped Latino with an incredibly thick accent dressed as a “cholo“, along with the sassy black guy with ‘funny’ one liners.

Don’t get me wrong, I am completely here for the diversity in this film, but the lack of character differentiation from other films is unsettling. Ant-Man pretty much solidified many young kids, teens, and adults perceptions on different ethnicity by standing by stereotypes. This is something that needs to change in the film industry. Even though the Marvel cinematic universe has done a pretty good job at keeping diversity alive, I feel like Ant-Man neglected to on the right side of that line through the whole film.

On the contrary, the film does feature Mexican stereotypes going wine tasting and viewing fine art, so that’s a thing too. And the heist gang are very skilled at what they do, it just so happens what they are doing is illegal, many people have different opinions on this aspect fo the film. In no way do I believe it was malicious, just ignorant. Yeah, Luis was hilarious through the movie and his accent may have exemplified his comedic delivery, however Peña’s performance would have been just as ripe without the whole “cholo with other cholo friends” background. The overall moral of he story is that essentially people can change their ways, and that thier past doesn’t make who they are otday.On the bright side, seeing T.I. as a character with more than a couple of lines and has the future to become Night Thrasher with his own feature film, awesomeness. 

| Worth The Mentions |

Ant-Man does a stellar job at combining comedy with effects. By that I mean, in the scene where Ant-Man and Yellow Jacket are dueling in Scott Lang’s daughter’s room through the little play set.

The way that the scenes at one point would narrow in on essentially two ant fighting to the death X-Men Days of Future Past style, but when the camera pans out to the entire room, their fighting is a miniscule as can be to where the scoring with make the tossing of a Thomas the train toy look like Magneto at the end of X-men DOFP. Then pan out to show us that in reality it is a child’s plastic toy being tossed. Hilarious.

| FREAKING STAN LEE CAMEO |

In the very conclusion of the Ant-Man, Micheal Peña’s character Luis goes into another one of his amazing fast paced overzealous stories.

In this story he is describing another mission for Scott Lang and the crew to go on, in Luis fashion he acts out the conversation between all of his connections and in the midst of the conversation STAN FREAKING LEE akA the comic book god makes the only cameo any Marvel movie will ever need. I nearly choke don my popcorn, gasping for air as comic book muggle of a friend gives me the weirdest look. That single cameo pretty much made my life.

| Marvel Cinematic Universe Easter Egg Galore |

Another AWESOME attribute to Ant-Man is the allusion and easter eggs through the film. We can first mention the incredibly comedic fight scene between Ant-Man and Falcon (Anthony Mackie)  on Avengers HQ property. How much more meta can we get?

In addition to that, according to marvelupdates1 we had an Agent Carter cameo in the beginning f the film , that I am sure many people including I missed. That’s pretty cool, enough crossover to go around for everyone.

Tracking back to the Avenger cross over,  there were mentions several times throughout the film. Scott in the middle of figuring out how to stop Daren Cross (antagonist) from destroying the world says, “why don’t we just call the Avengers” but Dr. Pym was not too keen of that. However, in Luis’ last fast paced story he refers to a conversation Falcon was having with a writer (who happens to be the amazing Youtuber Anna Akana). Falcon speaks on a possible assembling of new heroes stating how they got a guy, “He Jumps, He Swings, He Climbs Walls”, then referring to Ant-man “need a guy who shrinks”. 

My vocabulary has been dwindled down to only use “awesome” as a way to express my excitement for all of the Marvel meta.

| End of Credits Scene |

If you are one of the people who looked up Ant-Man info before  the movie, you are 1. a brave soul in a world where people throw spoilers around like Tom Brady in the fall and 2. you stayed after the credits and didn’t get up and leave like me, an idiot.

I had a feeling something was at the end of the credits because I most definitely made that mistake on leaving early after X-Men DOFP, but I stayed for the first end of credit scene for Ant-man.

The first post credit scene, in summary, was Dr. Pym and his daughter Hope in his basement, in where Dr. Pym exposes the Wasp suit him and his wife were working one before she passed into the subatomic universe. The prototype has been collecting dust, but it seems that the recent shifts and events in their relationship has motivated him to share the Wasp suit with Hope and venture on a project to construct for her, which Ms. and Dr. Pym were doing all along.

This is a foreshadowing to the a very likely second Ant-Man film, Mr. and Ms. Smith style??? hmmm???

|| FINAL THOUGHTS||

Ultimately Ant-Man was a really good movie for anyone to see. You do not have to a comic book nerd to enjoy all 1 hour and 57 minutes of this action packed skillfully comedic superhero movie. The concept of Ant-Man originally in comic book sense is authentic and unique in its own way by adding the factor of a man being able to shape shift between ant and full-grown man all containing the same amount of power. Peyton Reed (who directed Bring It On weird, right?) did an amazing job at executing a crowd pleasing Marvel film for everyone to enjoy, so he can add that to his resume.  All in all, Ant-Man wasn’t this trailblazing cinematic masterpiece, nor was it a bad movie, it balances right between. It was a good movie. 

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It wasn’t a bad movie, it wasn’t a great movie, it was a solid good movie. 

It isn’t a must see, but if you happen to be at the theatre it’s worth checking out. Personally, my rule for determining an AMAZING  movie is whether I think I can watch it again. If I was so incredibly blown away from a film, I can’t just go watch it again, I have to cherish the impact it has lingering in my mind. i still can’t watch Guardians of the Galaxy or both of the X-Men first class films, because I love them oh so much. Same goes for television, I can’t just go and randomly watch The Walking Dead/Breaking Bad episodes ever again, just that sweet.

I give it 3 yin yangs 🙂

☯☯☯

Grade: B

Opening Weeked #1 w/ earnings of $57,225,526

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