ANT-MAN (2015)

Let's get one thing out of the way here; we need to stop with this stupid narrative about Marvel taking "risks." There has been this weird idea that every new Marvel film is somehow a risky proposition. Yet twelve films in, they've yet to release a complete dud that totally bombs at the box office. Even more, they've firmly asserted themselves as the brand name of Hollywood blockbusters. Even if you don't care about superhero movies, you can't escape it. You know when Marvel is putting out a film. And at this point, it's pretty much a given it will do well.

Please don't confuse making weird movies with making risky movies.

Ant-Man is a weird Marvel movie, but not for the reasons one might think. It isn't weird because of its basic plot and unusual powers. It's weird because in post-Avengers Hollywood, the scale has to just get bigger. The fate of the world always has to be on the line. You need bigger, faster, and louder action set pieces. You need to go all out.

Yet Ant-Man stands out by not doing that. Instead, it keeps the focus smaller and more intimate. It stays zoomed in on the characters and their arcs, not just meandering from action set piece to action set piece.  In many ways, this film is a lot more like the first Iron Man than the more recent Guardians of the Galaxy. You aren't overwhelmed by the loud noises and fast-moving shaky cam zeroed in on hard-to-distinguish CGI figurines all that often. Really, this film is weird because it falls into Marvel's Phase 2 despite feeling far more at home in Phase 1.

If The Avengers is a sports movie and Guardians of the Galaxy is sort of Marvel's version of The Dirty Dozen, then Ant-Man is their heist film. It pits a team of misfit thieves with the theoretically obsolete Dr. Hank Pym (Michael Douglas) and his daughter Hope van Dyne (Evangeline Lilly) together to steal Pym's secret suit and destroy Cross's research to prevent it from falling into the wrong hands. Oh yeah, and there are lots and lots of ants. They can't break in without them! It's goofy and ridiculous, but thoroughly entertaining and enjoyable.

Perhaps the most interesting part of the film is how they mix the old Ant-Man lore of Hank Pym with the newer history of Scott Lang (Paul Rudd). While Scott is the primary Ant-Man of this feature, by no means is Hank sitting on the sidelines. There's a slight tendency in these films to hire an older, more distinguished actor to come on set and just do a lot of talking or dispense a lot of wisdom or literally just stand there watching for no reason other than to say, "look who we cast!"  (see Robert Redford, Anthony Hopkins, and Glenn Close in Captain America: The Winter Soldier, Thor, and Guardians of the Galaxy respectively).

Here, Michael Douglas's Dr. Pym is every bit a part of the team. Sure, he functions as Scott's mentor, but he's also a part of the heist plan at the end. He's not reduced to the sidelines (well, at least not from the outset). Every team member brings something to the heist plan, including Hank. It's always nice to see them let these actors be a part of the action.

While Iron Man movies tend to go globetrotting and Thor movies go between the real and fantastical, Ant-Man stays at home. There are really only about five major locations in the movie, and two of them are Scott's home and Hank's home. This is greatly refreshing as it helps keep it feeling personal in scope. It also helps viewers really buy the parallel between Scott's trying to redeem himself for his daughter and Hank's trying to reconcile with his daughter. When all is said and done, Ant-Man is really a film about fatherhood.

Marvel still seems to struggle with villains, but Darren Cross is largely pushed to the side in the film. Instead of seeing much of his antics, the focus is more on Scott's training to become the Ant-Man. Villains aren't the only thing Marvel seems to struggle with. For all the great female characters they've pushed in the comics, they've largely failed to do much with them in the movies. Hope is a solid character, but stop me if you've heard this one: a totally capable woman who is intelligent and can take care of herself is pushed to the sidelines for "her protection," and oh yeah, she gets flustered the moment she sees the male hero's six pack abs. (Seriously, this is the third time they went out of their way to make this joke - Jane Foster in Thor, Agent Carter in Captain America: The First Avenger, and now this.)  Hope van Dyne fairs much, much, much better here than Jane Foster does in the Thor movies, and she's a bit more of a badass than Agent Carter from the first Cap film. By and large, she actually is handled pretty well, and she and Scott do develop more naturally than any other Marvel couple. Still, it's starting to get a bit repetitive.

The script, casting, acting, and action are the selling points of a film that - from a visual and film making perspective - are pretty generic and bland. There isn't much that sets it apart from anything else Marvel has done, which is probably why such a stylistic director like Edgar Wright inevitably left the project. The structure of the film is predictable and boring, but they make up for that with a funny, heartfelt script and some of the most interesting action sequences.

At the end of the day, Ant-Man came at the perfect time. It had been in the works for a long time, originally to be part of Marvel's Phase 1. It's good that it came out now though, because the smaller scope and more personal focus is exactly what the comic book superhero movie needs to break up the monotony of world-in-peril action-fest that it has become for the past few years.

Plus, for those of us of a certain age, it brings back memories of Honey I Shrunk the Kids, minus awesome sets (replaced here by CGI). While it looks like Ant-Man is poised to be one of Marvel's weaker efforts at the box office, it might actually be one of their stronger films in recent years. Certainly, it's one of the more enjoyable.