First let me address the elephant in the room. Yes, I know Edgar Wright, the director of comedy classics like Shaun of the Dead and Hot Fuzz, was supposed to direct Marvel's Ant Man but he left due to creative differences. However, Marvel still decided to use some of Wright's original script for the movie and even gave him writing credits. Odds are in a few years Wright's original script and ideas may find there way online but for now I am reviewing what Ant Man I saw in theaters, the Peyton Reed directed version. For what its worth, I thought it was pretty good.
I wouldn't say its up to par as other Marvel films like Guardians of the Galaxy or Winter Soldier but still it is enjoyable for all audiences. I enjoyed Paul Rudd's performance as thief turned hero Scott Lang as well as Michael Douglas's performance as Hank Pym, the original Ant Man for all you non comic book readers. In fact, most of the actors do a pretty good job in this movie. However there is the black sheep that is Michael Pena's character, Luis. I have read many reviews that thought Pena's character resembled more of a stereotype than an actual person and the same was said about the rest of Scott's heist crew. I however found both Pena's and the rest of the crews acting to be quite enjoyable, even though I could see some ethnic stereotype oozing out. But its nothing too offensive so don't worry PC people of today. Now onto the plot.
The basic plot of the story is that Scott Lang is a thief who wants to do good because he needs money to pay for child support so he can see his daughter again. He comes across the Ant Man suit during a theft from there ends up being trained by the original Ant Man, Hank Pym, so that he can enter a research facility to steal the Yellow Jacket suit made by Pym's former associate Darren Cross, played by Corey Stoll. However, Hank's daughter Hope believes that she should be in the suit but her father won't let her because he is afraid he'll lose her like he did her mother. From there its your basic Marvel super hero story. Good guy fights bad guy, lessons are learned, pasts revealed, a Stan Lee cameo, and Avengers build up.
One can really tell where the Wright script is being used and where the revised version is being used. I can't help feeling that Wright wanted to make it more of a comedy action film like Hot Fuzz while Marvel wanted a super hero heist movie. Marvel also felt like this is just the precursor to the Civil War movie that comes in 2016, the same year Batman and Superman are supposed too duke it out for the first time on screen. That being said there are a lot of Avengers references in this movie, including a cameo by one of them as well as their new base. But the cameo was worth because it gave us a cool scene and some connection to future films. There is also a subtle hint of a certain swinging and wall crawling super hero that is set to debut in the MCU soon. These were probably added on once Marvel got the rights to said character.
One thing I did enjoy about the movie was the Ant Man suit. Whenever there was a shrinking scene it looked damn impressive. You can really tell Marvel had to wait until the technology was right to make this movie. The fight scenes that feature the Ant Man suit are some of the most fun fights in super hero movies with things shrinking a growing quickly. Thankfully scale gags were used very little in this movie which is a good thing as I would have grown tired of them.
Ant Man is a great movie for the Marvel cannon. It's a fun movie that builds up something bigger in the near future. Mind you however that there is some serious tone issues. The film tries to mix Wright's script with the Marvel script and it makes for some odd tone issues. But if you can look past those I'm sure you can enjoy the film.
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