J-Bang Reviews Present: Ant-Man

Before it was released on July 17th, Ant-Man was being predicted as Marvel Studios' first flop, simply because of how ridiculous and unrealistic the title character's skill set was. I mean at first glance, a hero who has the power to shrink and control ants does sound a little ludacris, but such a synopsis didn't stop me from seeing it on opening day. 117 minutes later, I found myself gasping for air because I laughed too much and too hard from watching this film. To put it in layman's terms, Ant-Man is one of the funniest movies Marvel has produced since Guardians of the Galaxy. Besides its upbeat humor though, Ant-Man does manage to tell a compelling and entertaining story while depending on character motivations and actor performances instead of special effects (Although the Visual Effects were pretty rad too)

Ant-Man is still a superhero movie, but it is a heist film at heart. Hank Pym (Michael Douglas) recruits common thief, Scott Lang (Paul Rudd) to help him steal a militarized replica of the Ant-Man suit called "The Yellow Jacket," before it can get sold to warmongers by Pym's former protégé, Darren Cross (Corey Stoll). As the story progresses, it feels like the main theme of the story is redemption. Whether it's Scott trying to redeem himself of his past crimes, or Hank trying to redeem himself of his past failures, every characters' intentions have a clear and understandable motive.   

And speaking of characters, everyone mostly fits into their roles. Michael Pena's Luis is a surprising show-stealer while Paul Rudd, Michael Douglas and Evangeline Lilly continue to give out the great performances you expect from them. Hell, even the ants have been given such good personality traits, that it even makes the most annoying of insects likable. The action is spread out gracefully, and fun to watch transpire on screen.

The only problems Ant-Man has are relatively small (no pun intended). The film, although perfectly spaced out, does feel somewhat short. Like out of all the Marvel movies that have come out since 2008, this feels like the shortest in terms of run time. (Which might be good for mainstream viewers) And the villain (Darren Cross/ Yellow Jacket) is problematic in a strange way. He's more sinister than he is evil. I can buy into his motivations before he puts on the Yellow Jacket suit, but after, he feels like he's suppose to put on the suit and become Yellow Jacket because the script demands a final showdown between the hero and the villain. Granted, the final battle is pretty entertaining and tastefully different from other superhero movies.

 

Other than it's minor problems, Ant-Man is a hilarious, good time at the theaters. Ant-Man gets a J-Bang score of 4 out of 5.