Ant-Man English Movie
This initial lineup that had been announced by Marvel as the team behind the solo feature film for the world's tiniest superhero seemed to be an excitingly offbeat one by its standards, before an upheaval in the writing and directing departments due to "creative differences" between Wright and the almighty, assembly lineup machinery that is Marvel. So, Wright and Cornish were out and Marvel installed a more yes-man, agreeable and susceptible fellow as director and tinkered with the script, with the final credits reading something like this:
Don't get me wrong, Rudd and his Anchorman director McKay are capable writers, and it would be unfair (but not impossible) to judge which version of Ant-Man would've been better, since Wright never even got around to starting filming it. But even if Wright's film wouldn't have turned out to be significantly better (which, as a big admirer of his work, my bet is it would've been), one thing is for certain: his tale of redemption of "burglar"-turned-superhero Scott Lang would've certainly been the film with a lot more flair and personality.
To make a successful and enthralling summer blockbuster out of a concept like Ant-Man's, who increases in strength as he decreases in size, the film needed to be audacious and wacky and absurd yet full of heart.
In its current state, Peyton Reed's Ant-Man is a consistent but timid entertainer that looks and feels fresh not because of Peyton's handling of the material and the character, but the choice of superhero and his superpowers.
The idea of a world-savior whose chief power is to miniaturize himself to the size of ants and the kind of things that would pose a threat to him in his shrunken state -- getting stepped on by a normal-sized person, a miniature toy train, an ordinary metallic key tossed in the air -- presents a world of extremely fun, highly ironic possibilities, some of which are explored in the film, but many of them aren't.
In almost every solo superhero origin film (Marvel's first since Captain America in 2011), the training and the realization that our main guy was made for this usually takes up much of the time. Here, Scott Lang changes size at the wrong time, gets beaten to the ground by a woman, is attacked by overfriendly ants and even gets into a duel with an Avenger (The Falcon played by Anthony Mackie, since he's the least prominent and most easily available Avenger).
But with Ant-Man, the self-realization and incubation period takes up TOO MUCH of the time, almost the entire length of the film. And with that, the film ends up being nothing more than an origin and heist film (the heist being that of a rival superhero suit that's been weaponized by a mad scientist to be used for mass destruction by HYDRA). When the entire film and the safety of the world rests on nothing more than a heist in the climax for which you train for the remaining duration of the film, you can hardly call that a high-stakes, nerve-wracking showdown. Little kids racing their toy cars make for a more tense spectacle.
Add to that the fact that it's hard to make audiences root for someone who could be in mortal danger from an overflowing sink or a rattrap. Lang just being handed the superhero power suit without him really earning it goes against his character, and the inventor of the suit Hank Pym lacking any other personality or traits or motivations apart from the most cliche ones makes him an uninteresting character. Same goes for Hope, the serious-on-the-outside daughter of Hank Pym, and Hank's former protege/currently megalomaniacal scientist Darren Cross, who's hellbent on replicating his mentor's power suit to devious results.
What keeps the film tiding by though -- and entertainingly, if I might add -- is that Ant-Man isn't your regular superhero. He doesn't have a dark past, he isn't a freak of nature born with supernatural powers. He doesn't fly in a suit, he is airborne riding a flying ant. He doesn't break down doors and walls, he jumps through keyholes. He doesn't beat the hell out of a flying adversary, he shrinks himself and enters their jetpack to destroy it from inside. He doesn't make a dramatic entrance at a villain's den, he does it stealthily through the drainage pipes. He doesn't use specially designed blaster weapons, he uses his increased strength from shrinking to punch and kick goons.
More importantly, his fight against evil doesn't result in the deaths of thousands of faceless citizens who're inside those buildings that the Avengers end up smashing to smithereens in their large scale action pieces, because he is one of those faceless people at heart. In other words, he's nothing like any superhero you've come across in either the Marvel Cinematic Universe or the DC one. He's a one of a kind, likable and charming fellow, played by the one of a kind, likable and charming Paul Rudd.
Rudd plays Lang as more of a nervous sorta guy, who's constantly talking to himself and anyone else who'll listen while performing stunts. His running commentary is usually equipped with deadpan one-liners and ironical quips, and Rudd is a master of that craft. He grins and charms and self-deprecates his way to victory, and despite the film's and the character's shortcomings, Rudd makes it possible for you to be happy about it.
The rest of the cast, like Rudd, is made of people who were least likely to be cast in a superhero flick, including Michael Douglas, Corey Stoll and Michael Pena. While Douglas as Pym is positive enough and Stoll as Cross is negative enough to keep things chugging along, its Pena who wonderfully compliments Rudd as a co-thief who comes to Lang's aid when needed. Pena is in top form, having fun with his mumbling character and cracking you up with his tall tales and his unsolicited comments, and he livens up proceedings every time he's on screen. Evangeline Lilly is gorgeous as Lang's love interest, but doesn't delivery any histrionics.
As many women would tell you, size matters but so does what you do with it. In that sense, neither is adoptive director Peyton Reed as skillful a storyteller nor is Marvel as libertarian a machinery to let some of Ant-Man's small but big ideas shine through absurdist humor. Rudd and Pena do manage to overcome some of the film's narrative slumps though, making this superhero outing an underwhelming but enjoyable one.
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