Ant-Man

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Written by KTP

Ant-Man:  How Marvel replaced the wife-beating and neurosis with a likeable lead and a good movie.

Henry Pym, the original Ant-Man, has one of the most complicated histories in the Marvel Universe. He's stepped into the roles of Ant-Man, Giant-Man, and Yellowjacket. He was prone to fits of depression and even hit his wife when she tried to convince him that creating an Avengers beating robot that only he could put down was fucking dumb. He's been suicidal, fooled around with a robot, created Ultron, has been kicked off the Avengers multiple times, and was told by a cosmic deity that he is “Scientist Supreme”. So instead of creating a film that explains the turbulent and complicated history of one of the most controversial Avengers, they chose to forget all that stupid shit and create a good movie instead.

That's a Megaforce-esque thumbs up. That's built into the Ant-Man suit. That gives it bonus points right off the bat.

The story follows Scott Lang (Paul Rudd) who is a likeable ex-con trying to stay straight and gain visitation rights to see his daughter. With employment options dwindling down to nothing, his chances to make up for child support by playing it safe are slowly dwindling away. He decides to team up with his friend Luis (Michael Pena) for what appears to be an easy score of a safe in some old man's house. As it turns out, this is the house of Henry Pym (Michael Douglas) who is the original Ant-Man, inventor of a shrinking formula, and head of Pym Industries. Pym Industries, you see, is about to undergo a takeover by Darren Cross (Corey Stoll) who is trying to create his own formula which he plans to couple with his militarized Yellowjacket suit and sell to the military. Pym is outright against this and hatches a plan, with the help of his daughter (Evangeline Lilly), to recruit Scott as their new Ant-Man and destroy Cross's work.

Yellowjack who was originally Hank Pym who was originally Ant-M.....fuck it never mind. Yellowjacket is the bad guy.

I fucking hate the whole ‘I knew what you were doing the whole time’ bullshit because it feels like lazy writing. You get this not once, but fucking twice. To be fair, the first time is not so bad. It's the second time that breaks the camel's back. Seriously! You have an entire writing team at Marvel that somehow managed to convince Hollywood that the Civil War was a good call. The least that they could do is come up with a plot that doesn't cheese its way to the action. Other than that, it's a fun movie and great change of pace from the superhero films we are used to. Rudd is the likeable, a little off from the center, hero that manages to stay grounded and relate-able. Really, the whole cast (Douglas, Lilly, Stoll, Pena) carries the script to the point you don't notice all of these irks in the plot. By the way, if you think Douglas has lost his touch and phoned this one in because it's a Marvel film, oh god are you wrong.

Michael Pena has a couple of scenes that steal the show even when he wears that dumb as fuck hat.

I have to say that making a movie about a guy that can talk to ants by shrinking to their size and still be enjoyable is a damn good accomplishment. The action constantly switches between the normal and tiny versions in the most hilarious ways. It's safe to say that it features the greatest toy train set fight anyone has ever seen. On a scale of one to Guardians of the Galaxy, it gets really high up there. For Marvel fans, or even those just wanting to see a fun action movie, Ant-Man is a must see.