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NON SPOILER REVIEW:
Basically, Ant Man is about Scott Lang, an ex burglar who is trying to turn his life around. Scott gets recruited by Hank Pym and his daughter Hope Van Dyne to steal the Yellow Jacket suit. The movie is action packed, heart warming, and hilarious, and the two end credit scenes are fabulous. Ant Man is definitely a set up for Civil War, but as a stand alone it has the strength of an ant. It sounds dumb, but it's wonderful.
My rating: 9/10
AND NOW FOR SPOILERS. YOU HAVE BEEN WARNED LEAVE.
Plot:
Ant Man is basically an espionage super hero movie. It's a really nice change of feel from the other movies in the Marvel cinematic universe, especially since they've all been sequels and such lately.
The pacing was very nice. We get to know Scott and his back story and motivations while getting sneaks at the surrounding threat. Scott's inner turmoil to live a decent life and to support his daughter cleverly fuels the plot so that we get insight into his character without losing screen time. This mixing effect saves screen time without cutting out important things. The writers constantly use this handy trick to develop Scott while advancing the plot.
This also makes Scott a relatable character. In all simplicity he's just a Dad trying to turn his messed up life around so he can provide for his daughter. Most of the story is about Scott struggling to come to terms with this crazy experience and become the person that Cassie believes him to be, and it's pretty beautiful.
Of course, since it is Hank Pym and the situations he throws Scott into that allows Scott to come into himself we get a ton of fun action sequences before the final battle. When Scott first tries on the suit, when he escapes the police station, and the Falcon's cameo.
Onto the final show down. I love this part. I love how Scott's friends are incorporated into it, and how they get to become better people too. I absolutely loved the spy feel, and how advanced their plan was. It was fairly obvious that the bald guy would stop them from stealing the suit, but that just made us root for Scott more! The helicopter scene was so intense, and the final showdown in Cassie's room? Sobbing in the corner.
While it was fairly obvious with the set up that Scott would have to make the same sacrifice as Janet, I was okay with it because, like Hank, I see the fact that Scott escaped as an opportunity to bring the original Wasp back. That being said, I do think it was a smart choice to make a new generation, and I'll get to that soon.
Special Effects:
This will be short. Honestly, I know nothing about special effects. All I can say is it looked really realistic and pretty darn cool.
Emotional plot/characters:
I loved the father daughter redemption parallel between Scott and Hank, our two fathers in the movie. It was very sweet and gave a lot of substance to the movie. The relationships in the movie were just fabulous. Every single one resulted in character growth. Scott and Hope learn from each other, Scott and Hank learn from each other, Hank and Hope, Scott and Cassie, Scott and Cassie's mom's new fiance, Hank and his old protege. Ant Man definitely has a strong family element, and that is why it was so fabulous.
Humor:
It was just perfect. A+. Scott's best friend was gold.
Comic adaptation:
While Yellow Jacket is actually Hank Pym, and Hope is kind of a villain, and and Hank was a founding Avenger with his wife, these changes made sense in my mind, and here's why I think we needed a new generation.
A) Age of Ultron
Ultron is a really big part of Hank's story line. He created him, and in the Avengers 90s run I've been reading it is revealed that Ultron was originally created using scans of Hank's own brain. A huge part of pre 2000's Hank was his mental instability and his guilt over Ultron's crimes. However, the first time he created Ultron Hank was brain washed into forgetting it. It is possible that since he worked with Stark that Tony Stark much later found the abandoned project and revamped it. However even of this were so, Ultron would not have done as much damage in Bank's MCU timeline vs his comic book timeline to make him feel as horrible.
B) Yellow Jacket
Previously mentioned and also hinted in the movie, in the comics Yellow Jacket is created by a chemical accident that gives Hank a serious case of temporary schizophrenia. This in addition to his repressed guilt about Ultron makes Hank go crazy and take on the identity of Yellow Jacket. Through a dark twist of events Hank does recover, but not without causing a lot of trouble and wrecking his marriage with Janet.
Because of these very important parts to Hank Pym's character, I assume that Marvel decided to immediately jump to Scott Lang so that they could have a change in tone. Think about it. Other than Guardians of the Galaxy most of Marvel's movies have been pretty dark. Add the fact that whoops we accidentally gave Ultron to Tony, and you've got a good enough reason to make the story about someone else.
Marvel could still hint at Hank's mental instability (and they did), and make Yellow Jacket a product of mental instability, but by making Yellow Jacket someone other than Hank they could skip out on all of the darkness and confusion.
By confusion I mean that I feel it would be much harder to pack a movie with Hank/Yellow Jacket into the same timeframe without having to make a sequel (which may opt him out for Civil war). By darkness I mean that between Tony Stark, Loki, the Winter Soldier and more, the MCU has enough darkness. The MCU is Disney and so they do like to make some of the movies more family friendly. It also makes a refreshing change of tone after AoU.
So yeah! Sorry if this is jumbled, I had a lot of thoughts. Tell me your opinions in the comments, and make sure to follow via email, tumblr,and blogger!
-Lizzie
Oh!
P.S. I also can't believe how bad I feel about stepping on ants now. ANTONY!!!!
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