he latest installment to the MARVEL CINEMATIC UNIVERSE (and you have to type that it all capital letters or you don’t mean it), “Ant-Man” hit theaters last week and on Tuesday afternoon I got to view it. The guy sitting next to me at the theater fell asleep but that probably had nothing to do with the movie. Spoilers ahead….kind of.
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Let me start off by saying that I am a huge Paul Rudd fan, he could be in a musical or a snuff film and I’d probably still enjoy it. But when I heard that Marvel was making an Ant-Man movie I was like why? It seemed like a pointless endeavor at the time but I have to say not only was the movie really good but it was one of the better Marvel origin movies to date. On to the actual movie, Rudd plays Scott Lang who I think is the second Ant-Man in the comics but I’m totally guessing. He’s a criminal who goes to jail, gets out, moves in with other criminals who want him to do more crime, but he’s trying to stay legit because he has a daughter. This ends quickly as he is fired by Baskin-Robbins, who should probably realize that it’s riskier to fire an ex-con than to hire an ex-con but sadly Lang’s revenge only consists of stealing a milkshake. After he loses his job he goes to his daughters birthday party, gives her a bizarre present and gets yelled at by his ex-wife and her new really annoying husband who looks and acts like a bad clone of Dan Lauria. Also side note Lang’s ex-wife is played by Judy Greer. Apparently 2015 was the year of Judy playing someones mother in the background of every major movie. Anyway, Michael Douglas (Hank Pym: The First Ant-Man) tricks Lang into breaking into his house so he can steal the Ant-Man suit because apparently when you spend twenty minutes breaking into someones house you’re going to steal a weird suit from them if nothing else is available. Oh yeah, and then after he steals the suit he immediately takes it home and tries it on…in the bathtub. Take that old guy with no money in your safe! I’m wearing your weird f*cking suit in the shower!
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Next time I want some money!
Michael Douglas wants Lang to steal the suit that his former protege and major league douchebag Darren Cross has been working on. Cross is a complete toolshed who is everything that’s wrong with America. He plans to kick Michael Douglas out of his own company, sell the shrinking suit to HYDRA (Because they’re doing some good things recently!) and probably have sex with Douglas’ daughter. When he’s not about to burst a vein in his skull, Cross spends his days liquefying sheep. I’m not even remotely joking about that. Cross is an awful villain but the Yellow Jacket suit is pretty awesome and the fight scenes between Ant-Man and him are pretty damn awesome even though he whines the whole time. In fact the entire climax of this film is amazing even though it was kind of poor planning to try and steal the Yellow Jacket suit on the night that it’s being unveiled. Like, couldn’t they have done it at 2 AM on a Thursday when no one was working?
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What I love most about this movie is how everything that could ruin it doesn’t. At first I was really bothered seeing Michael Pena in the film but his character kicked more and more ass as the film went on. I sort of hated the storyline of Lang and his daughter but it had a nice payoff at the end and Michael Douglas’ daughter is unnecessarily bitchy throughout the film but even she turns into a solid character. Oh and Anthony Mackie has a pretty hilarious cameo in the film as The Falcon because that’s the only Avenger that Marvel could afford for this film. Although someone else does show up in the post-credits scene but you’ll have to see it to find out who that is. (It’s Batman)
Overall this film was insanely enjoyable and stopped itself from being terrible on multiple occasions. If you can get past Bobby Cannavale’s character you should be fine.
Rating 8.5/10
