7 years and 12 films in, it’s ridiculous to think that
people are still doubting Marvel Studios even after all they have done in
creating the Marvel Cinematic Universe and bringing us into the Golden Age of
Superhero films. I’ve said it before and I’ll say it again, Marvel has yet to
make a ‘bad’ film and despite all of the talk from Marvel’s biggest critics about
how the studio is very strict in terms of forcing their directors to stick to
their creative demands, all of their productions have gone by pretty smoothly
save for the initial trouble over the search for a director for ‘Thor: The Dark
World’. But as for their newest film ‘Ant-Man’, this has easily been the studio’s
most difficult production yet. For you see, while ‘Ant-Man’ is now being
released as the final installment of Phase Two of the MCU (originally it was
going to be the first ‘Phase Three’ film but that honor will instead go to ‘Captain
America: Civil War’), it was actually one of the very first projects ever
developed for Marvel Studios back in 2006 before the first ‘Iron Man’ film was
even released. It was to be written and directed by Edgar Wright, who nowadays
is well known as the director behind some of the greatest comedies of the last
few years, namely the three films of the ‘Cornetto Trilogy’ in ‘Shaun of the
Dead’, ‘Hot Fuzz’, and ‘The World’s End’. Despite the need for some re-writes
in order for the film to fit better into the canon of the MCU, everything
seemed to be going well for Wright and Marvel Studios as the film began pre-production
with filming set to start in the Summer of 2014.
But then, in May of that year, a major bombshell was dropped
as it was announced that Wright would be leaving the project due to ‘creative differences’
with Marvel. And let me tell you folks, I have never seen a greater shift in
general perception towards any film quite like what occurred with ‘Ant-Man’.
Despite the fact that Marvel managed to move on from this fairly quickly and
get production back on track, with director Peyton Reed (‘Bring it On’, ‘Yes
Man’) taking over for Wright and Adam McKay and lead Paul Rudd both stepping in
to help work on the screenplay, Wright’s departure from the project had a
highly negative effect on the film in regards to the general reaction amongst
film fans across the internet. Now there were many people who were starting to
predict that the film would be a disaster, a first for Marvel Studios. It didn’t
help that Ant-Man is generally considered to be one of the more odd characters
in the Marvel Universe and keep in mind that this was all before ‘Guardians of
the Galaxy’ came out and proved that Marvel Studios was more than capable of
producing top-quality superhero films based around some of their lesser-known characters
(which for the record is pretty much what they’ve been doing since the
beginning). Well now that this film has finally come out, it’s safe to say that
all of that backlash towards this film solely due to Wright’s departure was completely
unfounded as ‘Ant-Man’ proves to be yet another fun and exciting installment of
this grand Cinematic Universe and arguably its most unique yet.
Paul Rudd stars as Scott Lang, an ex-con who struggles to
find a stable job after he is released from prison in the hopes of providing
child support for his daughter Cassie (Abby Ryder Fortson) after his ex-wife
Maggie (Judy Greer) re-marries. But because his criminal past continually
prevents him from finding a full-time job, Scott ultimately ends up taking on
another sting op with his ex-cellmate Luis (Michael Pena) and their new
partners Kurt (David Dastmalchian) and Dave (‘T.I.’). However, instead of a ‘proper
score’, Scott only ends up finding an ‘old motorcycle suit’ but soon learns
that this suit allows him to shrink down to the size of an insect. Scott is
then approached by the creator of the suit, scientist Hank Pym (Michael
Douglas), who offers him ‘a chance at redemption’. Scott learns that Hank had
developed this special technology through the use of subatomic particles but
hid it away from the world, even resigning from S.H.I.E.L.D. when he learned
that they were trying to replicate his technology, as he feared that it was too
dangerous. But when he learns that his former protégé, and current head of his
company, Darren Cross (Corey Stoll), is on the verge of developing his own form
of the Ant-Man technology in the form of the Yellowjacket suit, Hank, along
with his daughter Hope van Dyne (Evangeline Lilly) recruit Scott into their
plan to break into Pym Technologies and steal Cross’ technology before it is
unleashed upon the world.
By now you’ve probably heard a good chunk of the unfortunately
growing backlash against superhero films, with one major argument from these
critics being that they’re ‘all the same’. And sure in the grand scheme of things,
all of these films are fairly similar in terms of story structure and plot. But
I feel that these critics are ignoring the true ‘variety’ of these films in
terms of all of the unique characters that Marvel has brought to the
big-screen. Ant-Man is no exception as his powers of shrinking and the ability
to communicate with ants result in some very cool and unique action sequences,
including arguably one of the best finales in any MCU film to date… and it all
takes place in Scott’s daughter’s room. At the same time, Marvel once again
delivers yet another very fun and entertaining superhero film with everything
you can now come to expect from the MCU; excellent visuals (which in the case
of this film given Ant-Man’s abilities are very much on display), solid pacing,
exciting action sequences, and a screenplay full of hilarious bits of dialogue.
And after the bigger-scale exploits of ‘The Avengers: Age of Ultron’, ‘Ant-Man’
proves to be a nice change of pace as a much smaller-scaled superhero flick. Like
I’ve said in the past, I disagree with any of the complaints about why the
Avengers weren’t called in to deal with some of the incidents that took place
in these films or that films like this don’t really matter that much in the
grand scheme of the MCU because that’s not true. Not every superhero film needs
to be an ‘Avengers’ film. Solo-based superhero films can be just as exciting
and epic as team-based superhero films and thanks to Marvel’s reliance on the
former, their lead characters have been fleshed out very well because of that.
One of the other great things about the Marvel Cinematic
Universe is how they’ve been able to implement different film genres into their
films, from 1970s spy thrillers (‘Winter Soldier’) to ‘Star Wars’ esque sci-fi
epics (‘Guardians of the Galaxy’). In the case of ‘Ant-Man’, it’s a heist film
a la ‘Ocean’s Eleven’ and it’s executed very well. Without saying ANYTHING at
all about what this film may have been like under Edgar Wright, Peyton Reed
does an excellent job in Wright’s place as he does a great job at handling the
film’s humor and action sequences. It just goes to show that nowadays comedy directors
can do just as great, and arguably better, jobs than most action directors when
it comes to directing films like this. The same occurred last year with the
Russo brothers and James Gunn for their respective MCU films. But it’s not all
just about the action and visuals; this film also has a lot of heart as well,
namely in the two major father-daughter relationships in this particular story,
something that hasn’t really been explored that much in the MCU films. Of
course there’s the touching relationship between Scott and his daughter Cassie
which is the main driving force for Scott in his path of redemption. But the
major father-daughter relationship in the film is between Hope and Hank. It’s
established very early on that Hope could have easily taken on the mantle of ‘Ant-Man’
but the reasoning for Hank’s objection to this idea, which mainly stems from a
tragedy in their lives, makes the arc of their relationship all the more
powerful.
The character of Scott Lang could’ve been a rather tough
character to get right on-screen given his criminal background. But thanks to
the character’s motive of turning his life around for his daughter and the fact
that he’s a superhero without any actual powers compared to someone like Thor
or Captain America, he manages to be a very relatable lead and Paul Rudd does a
great job in exuding nothing but charisma in the role. Backing him up is
Evangeline Lilly, who’s also excellent as Hope Van Dyne. She may not get to do
much in terms of action compared to Rudd but that doesn’t mean her role in the
film is lessened because of that. Hope’s relationship with her father and the
arcs that both of them go through in the film more than make up for it. In
fact, I’ve heard that her role was actually expanded on after the whole Wright
incident. Speaking of Hank Pym, who better to play the role of the ‘original’
Ant-Man than a Hollywood legend like Michael Douglas? He works excellently
alongside Rudd and Lilly and brings a whole bunch of class to this fun
superhero adventure. And like with every MCU film, there’s definitely some
major scene-stealers in this film’s stellar ensemble cast. In this case, that
honor belongs to Scott Lang’s heist partners; David Dastmalchian, T.I., and
most notably, Michael Pena, who’s easily the biggest scene-stealer in the entire
film. Many of the film’s best comedic moments come from him and I also loved
how, in the scenes in which he is talking about how he came across key pieces
of information from his acquaintances, all of the characters in that scene talk
in his voice.
Now let’s move onto to the one major element of the Marvel
Cinematic Universe that always gets the worst rep from critics; the villains.
And based on reviews, it doesn’t seem like Darren Cross is going to buck this
trend. While I’m usually much more positive about most of the MCU villains than
the rest of the internet, unfortunately this is one instance where I’m
admittedly a bit more in line with the critics on this one. At the end of the
day, Cross is a fairly one-note villain. Heck, he’s not really in the film that
much to stand out anyway and he doesn’t even get into the Yellowjacket suit
until the film’s finale. But does that mean he’s a ‘terrible’ villain?
Actually, the answer is no. Despite his ‘one-note villain’ status, Corey Stoll
manages to carry a pretty darn intimidating and villainous presence that, if
anything, makes him a much memorable villain than someone like Malekith from ‘Thor:
The Dark World’. And that Yellowjacket suit is still a pretty damn cool visual.
It’s basically like a much more threatening version of the Iron Man suit.
Again, he may not be in the film that much but I’ve always felt that this hasn’t
ever been that big of an issue in the MCU films because it allows us to spend more
time with our main characters. Not every MCU villain has to be as good as Loki.
At this point in time, it is completely absurd to have any
shred of doubt in regards to Marvel Studios because time and time again they
have proven their critics wrong and have successfully pulled off projects that
many felt were major risks going in. ‘Ant-Man’ is no exception, especially
after the whole incident involving Edgar Wright’s departure from the project.
Yes it’s sad that Wright ultimately didn’t get the chance to direct this dream
project of his and it is even sadder when considering the fact that he spent
around eight years working on this film before he left. But while we ultimately
didn’t get to see Wright’s take on ‘Ant-Man’, that doesn’t mean that this film
is the disaster that some predicted it to be. It’s a MCU film; it’s fun, it’s
light-hearted, it’s entertaining, it’s got a great cast, and it’s got awesome
visuals and action sequences. It is exactly the kind of top-quality
entertainment that you can always expect from Marvel Studios. Is it the
absolute best MCU film to date? No, not really but that is by no means a bad thing
considering all of the other great superhero films that Marvel Studios has
produced since 2008. And with that, ‘Ant-Man’ concludes Phase Two of the Marvel
Cinematic Universe. Sure, there have been some controversy from time to time
but at the end of the day, I’d argue that Phase Two actually managed to outdo
Phase One and I can’t wait to see what’s in store for us with Phase Three.
Rating: 4.5/5
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