Preface

• This is gonna sound super obscure, but this movie reminded me of the planning scene from Guardians of the Galaxy (where they’re planning out the final attack) mixed with Sam Raimi’s first Spider-Man.
• Yeah… That!

Premise

• So Ant-Man is the newest Marvel movie about the relatively unknown Marvel superhero Ant-Man.
• In this movie, Scott Lang is this criminal who got thrown in prison for burglarizing a couple places, but ultimately he’s a good guy who means well.
• And Hank Pym, the original Ant-Man, has been scouting Scott to be his Ant-Man successor and to ultimately take down this organization that’s been exploiting Pym’s work.
• And ultimately it blends humor with action with Marvel references and has these great characters that make the movie flow.

Cast and Characters

• The cast and characters are what propel this movie forward.
• Even though the script and directing is good, the actors sell these characters.
• I remember when Ant-Man casting rumors were going around and I had originally heard it was between Paul Rudd and Joseph Gordon-Levitt as finalists for the role. I though JGL would’ve been awesome in a Marvel movie more so, but Paul Rudd was perfectly cast.
• Paul Rudd had the comedic timing, but he had the charm and relatability for you to care about him as more than just a funny guy. And he’s a guy I can’t wait to see more in the Marvel Universe going forward.
• But my favorite part of this movie was Michael Douglas as Hank Pym. Wow.
• I mean, he isn’t hauntingly phenomenal or anything but Michael Douglas brings to life everything I could imagine Hank Pym is about.
• He owned the character, he had his quips but he was smart and he was emotional and he was my favorite part of this movie by far.
• Evangeline Lilly was in the movie as Hank Pym’s daughter and at first she comes off as a bit of a cliché. But as the movie goes on, you grow to like her just as much as you like Scott and Hank. They’re a great trio, and I like seeing people work together, and these three worked together really well.
• Michael Peña is in the movie too, and his comedic relief was just absurdly good.
• I’ll say this, not every single one of his jokes hit, but 9 out of 10 in my theater had everyone’s guts busting.
• He had such an insignificant role, but he turned it into one of the movie’s best parts.
• Corey Stoll is an actor that I’m a big fan of, and I’ve liked pretty much anything I’ve seen him in, but I wasn’t so much of a fan of his in this role.
• I could appreciate what the character of Darren Cross/Yellowjacket was going for, but it was a pretty cliché character and even though Corey Stoll was acting well, they didn’t round out his character too much.
• Ultimately, the characters made this movie flow and even though Corey Stoll’s villain of Cross was off a little bit, he still worked well for the movie.

Script

• Okay, now the script to this movie was strong too but it started off a bit scattered.
• They had a solid opening sequence, but then the movie realized that it was a very odd mix of things and couldn’t set them all up fluently.
• Granted, the movie executes all of its subplots and storylines perfectly, but the setup to them felt scattered and those first 15-25 minutes were a little off in my eyes, just while the movie was trying to find its feet.
• When it did find its feet though, it worked.
• I loved that a lot of this movie was planning and training because I like seeing people think and I really like seeing people train.
• Scott Lang is our unlikely hero and it’s awesome seeing him be molded into this Ant-Man, so I’m glad the script was a bit more contained and focused on his character development and his interactions with Hank and Hope.
• And the story moves along really well too, this movie is just under 2 hours. It felt to me like 2 hours and 15 minutes but either way it never felt too long.
• Because this movie has a lot of comedy, a lot of drama, a lot of action, and a lot of character-building that are all juggled really well by the writers.
• There are a couple dramatic moments that comedy is injected into and you wish they hadn’t shoehorned a joke in there, but I’d say 85% percent of the time, the comedy is done really effectively.
• But these characters interact really well with each, the script moves along well and it’s easy to follow, and overall everything is balanced really well. Part of which is due to the directing.

Direction

• So it’s funny.
• I actually heard a LONG time ago that Edgar Wright was writing and directing Ant-Man, and that was before I knew a lot about Marvel, and that was before I was even super into movies.
• So when I heard that Edgar Wright was off the project, I got a bit worried for this movie.
• And when they announced Peyton Reed was his replacement, I’m like, “who?”
• Peyton Reed had previously directed Dodgeball, which was okay, and Bring It On, which I haven’t seen…
• However, I heard recently that Peyton Reed was actually the runner-up to James Gunn to direct Guardians of the Galaxy.
• And luckily, Peyton Reed pulled this movie off REALLY well.
• He was a big part of that juggling I referenced in the script, not to mention the fantastic action that he directed so well.
• And there were these great Marvel bits throughout the movie, fun references that I won’t spoil.
• Everything in this movie was just ultimately so well executed and props to Peyton Reed because he did a really great job at turning what could have a disaster (an Ant-Man movie, c’mon?) into a really enjoyable and super fun movie.

In Conclusion

• In Conclusion guys, Ant-Man was an absurdly fun movie that had lots of great laughs, super fun characters, ridiculously good action, and was executed so well.
• It’s a movie called “Ant-Man” and it was the best version of what I imagine an Ant-Man movie could be.
• The first 15 minutes were a little rough and the villain was a little underdone, but overall I can COMPLETELY recommend this movie.
• I will say Ant-Man is Awesome, and Worth Seeing Multiple Times!
• The mid-credits scene to this movie was pretty cool, but that post-credits scene is one of the best I have ever seen. I may do a review just on that…

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So guys, those are my thoughts on Ant-Man! What are your thoughts on this movie if you’ve seen it yet? Let me know in the comments down below, and as always, thanks for reading guys.