Marvel's Ant-Man (2015) - Movie Review
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To say Ant-Man is a small-scale film is factually correct and also a terrible pun, but its the one way to describe it. As many critics have said, its very much the opposite in scale to that of Avengers: Age of Ultron earlier this year, focused more so on a smaller set of characters and a simple heist job.
The plot follows Scott Lang, who in a desperate attempt to get some money takes on job to rob inventor Hank Pym's safe, until he realizes that he has stolen nothing more than an old suit. Pym's suit, it is revealed, allows him to shrink to ant-size, and back in the 1980s was the super hero Ant-Man, averting Cold War disasters. Pym enlists Scott to help him when his former assistant Darren Cross re-creates the technology on a military suit called the Yellowjacket, and they both, with help from Hank's daughter Hope, plan to steal the suit before it gets in the hands of the evil organisation Hydra.
To say much more would probably ruin the film, although I am disappointed that the trailers revealed an appearance from a certain Avenger (not the only one I might add) in the film, as it does ruin one of the best and most hilarious scenes in the movie.
Despite the project being taken over by Peyton Reed and co, Edgar Wright's influence is still felt on the film, and the screenplay is as slick and tight as a typical Wright script. The film looks visually beautiful, and the visual FX look excellent. The score from Christophe Beck is very catchy, and there are some great uses of songs throughout as well. Ant-Man doesn't take itself too seriously, and the heist element is used very well in terms of the directorial style of some scenes. The shrinking effects constantly impress and the film even uses the sizing devices for various jokes throughout. The plot never really gets going until the 3rd act, as one might expect, but there's a lot of fun along the way and the characters are all very well-written and established so that when the final fireworks display take off, the audience knows who each and every character is, and why they're doing this.
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Overall, Ant-Man is a cracking film. I haven't really gone into its problems at all, but I will say that the villain Darren Cross isn't very good. He hasn't been sidelined to focus on the protagonists like in Guardians of the Galaxy, as the film constantly tries desperately to give him a character motivation to be evil in the first place, but it just doesn't work. His character isn't very well done, but you can tell the actor is trying in the role.
Ant-Man is very, very good though, and I'd probably call it one of the best films of the year so far. I know some were underwhelmed by it, but I felt that the small scale really worked in the film, and I had so much fun with Ant-Man that I feel it deserves a high rating.
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