Marvel Studios has brought an astounding amount of high–quality films to movie theaters worldwide. The most recent installment, "Ant-Man," adds to that growing list.
This film revolves around Scott Lang (Paul Rudd), a thief recently released from prison, who is trying his best to live an honest life. This (surprise!) doesn’t go so well, since he is still living with bad influences, and it is hard to find a job, which he finds out when his manager from Baskin-Robbins fires him because of his criminal history. Subsequently, he must resort to burglary, which inadvertently ropes him into a high-risk mission orchestrated by Hank Pym (Michael Douglas) and his daughter Hope (Evangeline Lilly). The objective: to steal a high-tech suit, which allows one to shrink in size (hence “Ant-Man”) from Darren Cross (Corey Stoll), who intends to mass produce it as a weapon.
This film, like the majority of the films produced by Marvel Studios, largely succeeds, but does fall flat during its nearly two-hour run time. The biggest problem stems from the integration of backstories into the main plot line. For instance, the storyline concerning Lang’s family and the explanation for the absence of Mrs. Pym seemed as if they were included at the last moment in order to add some sort of depth to the Lang and Hope characters. This succeeded, but they did not incorporate them well enough to achieve the full impact. Also, the whole concept of the “subatomic quantum realm” could have been explained better, because I spent the majority of the film confused as to what that actually was. The film’s creators were wildly successful with the casting of Gregg Tarkington as Dale, Lang’s Baskin-Robbins manager, who was exceedingly creepy.
The point at which this film becomes awesome is when the mission is actually executed. In this film, the audience isn’t given a band of heroes that consists of a green monster or extremely wealthy and intelligent scientist. Instead, we get one hero and an army of ants. Yep, ants. The film not only presents yet another unconventional hero, but also serves to educate the audience on the many different types of ants in existence (which was surprisingly interesting). Besides that, however, the special effects were amazing, especially when Lang and Cross fight in the cramped space of a briefcase. The success of the epic fight scenes are also helped with comedic elements, such as the scene where the toy Thomas the Tank Engine and a random ant were accidently made life size, and, of course, when Siri messed up and played the Cure’s “Plainsong” during the fight in the briefcase. The film’s epic action scenes really kept the audience on the edge of their seats—another home run for the Marvel Comics brand!
Though, I am still having a hard time getting Dale’s face out of my mind as he says, “Baskin-Robbins always finds out.” I would rate this film a 4.5/5.
