Ant-Man (Movie) Review

From the sounds of it, Ant-Man was set up to be one of the biggest movies of the summer, but to me it just felt small compared to some of the other Marvel blockbusters. Thankfully though, Ant-Man proves that size isn’t everything.

Understand when I say that the movie is small, that’s by no means a criticism. I didn’t expect it to be anywhere as big as Avengers 2 this year, or Guardians of the Galaxy last year; I’m saying that the danger felt nowhere as evident, but I’ll get back to that in a moment.

The plot of the movie follows a thief by the name of Scott Lang (played by Paul Rudd). He is harassed by his daughter’s step-father, and wife, played by Judy Greer; apparently Scott had been missing child support payments, and his daughter Cassie’s step dad isn’t afraid to let him hear about it when Scott goes to her birthday party. With the realization of the coming police sentence, on top of his (what seems to be) crushing debt, he decides the only way to make the payments is one good job.

The entire film has a “Heist Movie” vibe to it (which consequently, I have a bit of a weak spot for), that never really goes away, even during the movie’s climax. Speaking of the final climax, it really is one of the greatest fight scenes of any Marvel movie; not so much because of the fight itself, but the setting. The final battle between Ant-Man and Yellowjacket takes place on the back of a fast moving train, and issues some of the best cinematography I’ve seen in quite a while.

The musical score is good, if a bit forgettable; it really is overshadowed by the top notch acting and just about everything else in the movie.

Now, let’s talk about what you all (probably) came here for: Ant-Man himself. Probably one of the more entertaining parts of the movie, is when Dr. Hank Pym, portrayed by Michael Douglas (with the help of his daughter Hope) is training Scott to use the suit. Before I saw this movie, I thought Ant-Man was kind of lame. It wasn’t until after the film that I realized how useful and cool it could be to shrink and grow to be the size of an ant… well, it’d be useful for a thief, anyway.

I mentioned earlier some of the impressive cinematography during the main fight scene, but what I should have said is: “The cinematography (really liking that word today for some reason) during the entire movie is pretty dang good”….or something like that. Camera swirls at the right moments, the timing on switching the views between normal-size and ant-size during fights is great (often with pretty humorous results), and a pretty big sequence (which I won’t spoil) towards the end of the movie, had me pretty much jumping up and down from excitement. Also the more I think about it, the sadder it gets that I get so excited by camera angles.

Final Thoughts

Overall I think Ant-Man was very well done, greatly acted, and amazingly written.

However, I feel as though the overall plot felt small, and perhaps that’s what they were going for. If so, I commend you Marvel Studios; if not, I’m slightly disappointed. Looking back on it, the movie didn’t feel all that long either. It’s about the same length as most other Marvel movies, but the time flew by rather quickly.

I would definitely love to go see the movie again though, and I wouldn’t pass it up if I were you.