DIRECTOR: Peyton Reed
CAST: Michael Douglas, Paul Rudd, Evangeline Lilly, Corey Stoll, Michael Pena, Bobby Canavale and Judy Greer
CLASSIFICATION:10LV
RUNNING TIME:117 minutes
RATING:***½
Funny, engaging and entertaining, Marvel’s latest superhero movie is by far their most kid-friendly. While there is scary action galore, it comes in managable comprehensible bites and Paul Rudd’s Scott Lang/Ant-Man is a genial character.
This film – unlike Thor: The Dark World or Captain America: The Winter Soldier– does not carry the overt tones of menace, the major scenes of mayhem or heavily dramatic narratives which make those films unsuitable for children despite their love of the characters.
While Star-Lord and Iron Man are great favourites, they are both not exactly nice people, but Lang turns out to be good-hearted and motivated by a need to make his young daughter proud of him. Rudd doesn’t try to play his character as heroic, underplaying what he does in favour of why he does it – his character is trying to do the right thing, but circumstances keep on thwarting him.
This is an origins story meets passing the baton tale, as Douglas’s Dr Hank Pym enlists the help of would-be reformed thief Lang to don the suit which will shrink him down to the size of an ant.
While the story is situated in the Marvel Cinematic Universe thanks to various known characters who pop up (stay for the post-credit scene), this isn’t overstuffed with super- heroes like Avengers: Age of Ultron, it plays the storyline on as small a scale as the character suggests.
Pym is trying to stop a former protege from perfecting the shrinking technology, believing that Darren Cross (Stoll) will use it for nefarious purposes and, of course, he is proved right.
Pym has a difficult relationship with his own grown-up daughter Hope (Lilly), who believes she should be the one to don the suit seeing as she has a greater grasp on not only the tech, but making the ants do what she wants. Oh yes, the suit, helmet specifically, allows Ant-Man to control insects and a great deal of the story is bound up in Lang perfecting his technique.
This is as much a heist story as a super- hero story with things being stolen along the way and Lang enlisting the help of three of his friends for a complicated break-in. Pena, especially, adds a great touch of comedy to Rudd’s straight man.
Much of the action takes place on the micro scale, which is also part of what makes this film so kid-friendly – there is not as much wholesale destruction of property, life and limb as is displayed in other Marvel movies.
While Reed is credited as the director, Edgar Wright’s touch is still evident in the framing, dramatic camera angles and comedic link between visuals and sound, and he is given an executive producer credit.
Editing keeps up the pace and everything stays light and frothy, even when the bad guy goes for broke and all-out attacks Ant-Man. Even when events take a turn for the scary, the filmmakers keep it simple and tongue-in- cheek rather than dark and dramatic.
This is popcorn fun which fits into the MCU and finishes off phase 2. Though Ant-Man might not necessarily get his own sequel, the film suggests that he will be joining up with the Avengers soon.
If you liked Captain America: The First Avenger, you will like this.