I get the general impression that it was… pretty good and worth seeing in theaters, if not at Iron Man levels. Which may be a bit of a relief – Marvel would start getting scary if it could turn anything into a $300 million domestic knockout, after all. Still, I want a dang Squirrel Girl movie.
4 thoughts on “…So, how was Ant-Man?”
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Very good. Much like “Guardians of the Galaxy”, it 1) benefitted from low-ish expectations (speaking personally), largely because it 2) had high quantities of both Shameless Heart and Failing to Take Itself Too Seriously. It kept the fanboy red meat coming and had lots of Whedon-esque self-deprecation, subversions of tropes, and calling-itself-out. IMPORTANT NOTE: There’s a mid-credits scene, the last line of which is very meta (given fanboy/girl criticisms of the MCU), PLUS a post-credits scene (kinda meh, if you’ve been following the schedule of Marvel Movies Yet to Come, but still welcome).
Ditto on the very good. Not as good as Guardians, but I’m much more likely to rewatch it than I would, say, the Thor sequel.
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But it’s not perfect. I’ve got major issues with the macguffin. But even though it’s a plot point that shows up in the first 15 minutes, it’s still a plot point and thus I’ll keep quiet. Still quite enjoyable and rewatchable though.
It was worth my money. It’s no Guardians, but it’s pretty much a solid B or B-minus movie, with some elements of B-plus work. Great humor, especially as you get further into the movie, and a good mix of that humor with the action elements in a way that doesn’t underserve either. While most of it stays true to the origin-story formula (specifically the Scott Lang origin story, as Hank Pym has already had his time in the suit), it throws in a lot of callbacks to the other elements of the universe, and has a couple of sequences designed to continue the events of “Age of Ultron.” At this point, any superheroes coming into their own are doing so in a world that already has a bunch of other guys/gals like them, and I was pleased that Marvel recognized this and used it.
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I’ll be honest, though,. and say I do worry about how much the wider universe now gets to intrude into these movies. You know how, with a lot of sci-fi/fantasy TV series, they start off with a lot of stand-alone episodes (Buffy Season 1), and then they start blending in more arcs and mythology material, which makes things better, but they take maybe a season to get the mix just right (Buffy Season 2), and then the show is killer awesome for a while (Buffy Seasons 3-4), but after that the arcs start taking over and the mythology really drives everything (Buffy Season 5), and eventually the show just disappears up its own rectum (Buffy Seasons 6-7)? That phenomenon?
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Well, if you apply that same pattern to this huge movie universe, I’m not sure if we’re now about to enter Buffy Season 3 or Buffy Season 5. If you catch my drift.
It basically is a retelling of the Iron Man story except in an Ant-Man suit. While Tony Stark’s adventures are in the air Ant-Man’s adventures on the ground. But they did a good job really giving a nice perspective of the world of the tiny. And the scenes were he is running along with his army of ants are mesmerizing. Plus, the ending actually makes it worthwhile to see it in 3d IMAX like I did. But it’s really just your basic superhero versus evil corporate supervillian story line that kind of makes it paint-by-numbers-esque, “I’ll build the most powerful weapon and has ALL THE MONEY; MUAHAHAH”. Just don’t go into it expecting a revolutionary plot and it’s a enjoyable popcorn flick.