Ant-Man
Published 2015-12-11
Heroes don't get any bigger
Film info
- Director
- Year / Run time 2015 · 1hr 57m
- Series Marvel Cinematic Universe (12 of 36)
- Genres Adventure, Action, Science Fiction
- Cast
The next evolution of the Marvel Cinematic Universe brings a founding member of The Avengers to the big screen for the first time with Marvel Studios’ Ant-Man. Armed with the astonishing ability to shrink in scale but increase in strength, master thief Scott Lang must embrace his inner hero and help his mentor, Dr. Hank Pym, protect the secret behind his spectacular Ant-Man suit from a new generation of towering threats. Against seemingly insurmountable obstacles, Pym and Lang must plan and pull off a heist that will save the world.
Live Blog
| Time | Comment |
|---|---|
| 0:36 | Gosh, straight in with the film! |
| 5:08 | Baskin Robbins is way pink! |
| 10:15 | It’s never good when someone asks you “How’s your face?” no matter what they mean. |
| 15:44 | “He didn’t get an invitation, but he came anyway.” |
| 18:20 | House of Cards guy makes for a good baddie. Typecast as greedy though! |
| 25:17 | Is it really that easy to break into a finger scanner? So brilliant! |
| 28:51 | Not the lamb! |
| 31:08 | Honey, I shrunk Paul Rudd. |
| 33:26 | “I didn’t steal anything, I was returning something I stole. Oh.” |
| 42:39 | Weirdly wasn’t expecting quite so many ants in this, despite the title. |
| 45:47 | Okay, didn’t hate him until he flicked the tiny lamb. |
| 46:47 | Love all the Avengers references. “Dropping cities out of the sky.” |
| 50:52 | Don’t talk to Lilly about plane crashes, eeek! |
| 1:04:10 | Ant versus Falcon is quite a wonder to behold. |
| 1:10:42 | “Well, I could say I let you let me.” |
| 1:14:32 | He’s whistling. |
| 1:20:16 | Never have a comedy car horn, it only ever spells trouble. |
| 1:29:52 | Giant tank keychain is amazing! |
| 1:36:38 | I mean, the Thomas thing is genius but it does sort of take away from the drama. |
| 1:45:55 | They kept the giant ant? That’s the scariest pet ever. |
Thoughts
I wanted to love this, because I'm a huge Paul Rudd fan, and Marvel has rarely let us down to date. I just couldn't quite get on board with it, though. It seemed like a great cast assembled, but they never quite gelled together in a way that the other groups have.
There were a lot of good things about the film, a few funny moments, some nice action sequences, and some clever ideas. But I had three pretty significant issues with the whole thing.
Firstly, it was clear that Darren Cross was the bad guy, it wasn't nice what he was doing to the lambs, and the people, and all that stuff. However, it wasn't until he introduced Hydra that it was actually clear he was going to do bad things with the suit. And so up until that point, I was a bit ambivalent about the whole "stop the bad guy" thing. It seemed like a lot of fuss for someone who, compared to other Marvel villains and their schemes, hadn't really done much.
Secondly, I couldn't get on board with the slave army of ants. I'm sure I'm taking it too seriously, but to mind control an entire army of living breathing beings into doing your bidding - particularly when that bidding puts them directly in harms way - well, I just didn't like it. They're just ants, I guess, but it still didn't sit well with me.
Finally, because of the whole shrinking and growing thing, I found the fight scenes really hard to follow. Some of the stuff at the end, with Thomas and the other toys, was a lot of fun, but when it was just man on man, I was easily confused.
So, not the worst film by a long shot, but really didn't live up to what I was hoping for.
Rating: 3 / 5
Revisited - Apr 2021
Mmm, to be honest, on this rewatch, I found this movie to be pretty boring. Paul Rudd is obviously a highlight, and he does a great job with what he's given, but the rest of it just seems so out of place with regards to the rest of the Marvel Cinematic Universe. The stakes seem so low compared to recent efforts, and yeah, the slave army of ants is still kinda upsetting.
Rating: 3 / 5
