Ant-Man
(2015)
(SPOILERS) Ant-Man
is good fun, low stakes and likeable, but its definitely a lesser Marvel
effort. This has nothing to do with the scale of the superhero in question.
Rather, it’s the lack of zip director Peyton Reed injects into the proceedings.
There’s nothing much wrong here, and there are regular laugh-out loud moments (mostly
courtesy of Michael Peña) but the overriding sense is of a middling movie:
serviceable and for the most part unremarkable. Reed, replacing Edgar Wright
after his kind-of-not acrimonious parting of ways with the studio, has done a resolutely
competent pick-up job.
One only has to look at Joe Dante’s Innerspace to see how much fun can be had with the micro-world, and
when Reed gets on board with the prevized set pieces that were (probably) part
of Wright’s vision for the picture, there’s more than enough flair and exuberance
to ignite the proceedings. Elsewhere, however, his basic shooting style and
static approach to scenes makes Ant-Man drag
quite badly. This one of the few Marvel movie coming in under two hours, but it
feels longer.
And it really shouldn’t. When the other Marvel picture of
the summer suffers from bloat and first-degree third act fatigue, the differing
tack taken with Ant-Man ought to have
been a breath of fresh air. The plot is basic and the more robust for it; small
time burglar Scott Lang (Paul Rudd), freshly out of prison, is doing what he is
doing, to ensure he has access to his daughter. Hank Pym (Michael Douglas)
“hires” Scott to prevent the miniaturisation technology he developed from being
used for nefarious purposes. The picture is basically the planning of a heist, the
execution of which benefits from being contained and delineated in a manner that
could teach Marvel climaxes generally a thing or two from (one does wonder, though,
in this IT age, that the burgled building has zero disaster recovery and
everything important is apparently held on site).
Likewise, the subsequent big fight between hero and villain
(Corey Stoll’s Darren Cross in the guise of Yellowjacket – a cool virtual costume
you wouldn’t know was virtual) is appealingly personal, taking place in the
bedroom, and in particular across the train set, of Scott’s daughter (the cute without
being irritatingly so Abby Ryder Fortson). A string of inventive moments punctuate
the scene, as the picture plays with enlargement (first an ant, and then, most uproariously,
a Thomas the Tank Engine) and cosmic quantum trippiness as Scott shrinks to a
subatomic size (much as I enjoyed the fractal craziness here, I could have done
with the bit more emphasis on the brain frying; as with the majority of Ant-Man, it’s a touch too diluted to
really leave the viewer buzzing).
In getting to this point, Reed and Adam McKay’s rewrite of
Wright and Joe Cornish’s screenplay embraces numerous characters and elements
that should coalesce with a surfeit of zest, but end up overly and safely
arranged. Too often, Ant-Man
resembles a standardised, production-line piece of work; basically what you get
if you strip Wright out of the equation (which is, of course, why Marvel did
exactly that). Reed may do well enough with the jokes (but they don’t fly thick
and fast the way Shane Black pumps them out) but he lacks the visual chops of
even his least masterful Marvel predecessors (lets face it, most of their
movies aren’t in the most dynamic of hands); in terms of pace, this is most
similar to the disappointing first Captain
America. That it has more flair than Cap
is mainly down to the fun characters.
Luis (Peña), Kurt (David Dastmalchian) and Dave
(T.I.) are Scott’s criminal buddies and sidekicks, there to help bring off the
heist and offer the necessary comic relief. Most of this tends to the successfully
silly side, and Peña in particular is having a ball, but – the odd moment aside –
you’d be forgiven for thinking this was interchangeable any big studio broad
strokes US comedy. The exceptions are Luis’ “tip” montages, re-enactments of
incidents in which he voices each character we see (including, most amusingly,
Anthony Mackie’s Falcon); whether it is or not, this is exactly the kind of
thing we expect from Wright (most notably in his “What if we…?” fast-cut
speculative scenarios from Spaced
onwards).
Ant-Man is so very
safe and cosy, it really needed Wright’s zest to mould into something that
stood out. I mentioned Dante above, and his is a similar kind of thing; just
having an off kilter sensibility will by necessity warp an otherwise studio
picture into something more distinctive and idiosyncratic (an early promotional
video for military uses of miniaturisation provokes a smile, but doesn’t have
the barbs Dante or, say, Verhoeven would have brought to the material). The
Wright-cast Rudd is the embodiment of this; he’s agreeable, affable, and wholly
unassuming, which just about sums up Ant-Man.
Scott the absent father even has well-meaning ex (Judy Greer,
wasted again in a 2015 summer blockbuster following Jurassic World; I hope she got paid well) and her antagonist new
beau, cop Bobby Carnavale, to deal with; the picture’s sop nice that Carnavale
comes round to being best of chums with Scott by the end. It’s that kind of
movie. Which is fine, feel-good endings are fine; I just wish it played out
with a bit more verve. A great deal is made of Scott being a burglar not a robber;
he abhors violence. So it’s ironic that his graduation to the status of
superhero requires him to kill a man, and that he should be completely unfazed
by the act; in any another Marvel movie this would be par for the course but,
with the moral centre shifted closer to the everyday, tonally it’s a bit off.
The askew setting does pay dividends in terms of the
depiction of, and contrast with, the greater Marvel universe, however. Michael
Douglas is pretty great as Pym (the de-aging effects in the opening scene are first
rate too) and adds a bit of class to any scene he is in. There’s an abundance
of emotional clichés powering the picture, and Pym’s guilt over past failures
needs someone with Douglas chops to work.
Evangeline Lilly gets to be pissed off and little more, but
I’m looking forward to seeing her as the new Wasp (the “It’s about damn time” really shouldn’t be commended for “turning”
failure into triumph on the part of Marvel ignoring female superheroes, though;
they’ve still gone the best part of a decade without a female-led superhero
movie).
Stoll is thrown a lousy villain role with a daft motivation
(the suit’s affecting his mind! So that’s why he creepily shows up in Scott’s
daughter’s bedroom). It would be fun to have a villain in a Marvel movie who
could actually have some fun, who you loved to loathe (Loki nearly qualifies,
but he’s already become too much of a heartthrob). Unfortunately, that seems as far off as ever.
The closest we get to this kind of thing is Cross reducing a dissenting voice
to a puddle of mush in a gents, and testing the shrinking effect on a poor ickle
lamb, but they’re both better as visual gags than anything Stoll is able to
bring to the table.
The visuals are great when they arrive, of course, with some
pretty nifty macro-photography to enhance the backgrounds. The ants aren’t
photo-real, presumably because Marvel didn’t want audiences to flee theatres in
revulsion, but neither are they distractingly CG-looking. Mostly, one is wondering
how Wright might have done all this (better is the self-evident answer), but
the montage sequences with Scott learning how to use the suit and talk to the
ants do the job in predictable but pleasant fashion.
There’s a fight with
Falcon that tickles (Mackie’s a good sport, although let’s face it his
character needs the exposure) and leads to the final credits sequence setting
up Ant-Man’s appearance in Civil War
and as a possible Avenger. I can’t say I can remember anything about Christophe
Beck’s score.
Perhaps given the turbulent production history, we should be
grateful Ant-Man is as watchable as
it is. It can’t help but slightly disappoint though, landing on the Thor end of the spectrum of Marvel
pictures that can’ quite rise to the occasion. Thor doesn’t surprise me because he’s always seemed a bit of stodgy
deal (he works better in company), but Ant-Man
had the potential to surpass Guardians of
the Galaxy in the funny and inventive stakes if it had been treated sufficiently
sympathetically. Instead, it’s an adequate Marvel movie, which is probably why
it will end up with adequate rather than spectacular box office takings.
