Basically all superhero films come to the same conclusion nowadays; big evil villain man is going to destroy the world unless you destroy half of a city to stop him. This may seem great on paper, the higher the stakes, the higher the investment of the audience, right? Except, the audience doesn't care about the world. The world is just a setting, plus, it's a setting that will almost certainly not get destroyed, because it never does. At least, not in superhero films.
Ant-Man is different. The world isn't at risk of being completely and utterly destroyed, the only thing at risk is the characters. Now at first glance that may appear less likely to invest the audience, as surely just a couple of people don't matter as much as the world? Well, not to the audience. The film, if it's a good one, will have taken time to develop these characters so that you actually care about them and, therefore, when they're lives are at risk, you're invested.
This is something Ant-Man understands better than any Marvel movie in recent years. Whenever there's an action scene, the only thing there to keep you invested is how much you care about the characters and fortunately, in Ant-Man, you do care about the characters. This is obviously partially down to the writing, but is mostly down to the excellent cast. Paul Rudd is perfect as Scott Lang, A.K.A Ant Man and Michael Douglas is brilliant as Hank Pym, but Michael Pena is the real star of the show as Scott's partner in crime, Luis, who ends up being possibly the funniest character in the entire film. The only really poor character is the villain, who, as usual, just wants revenge because somebody didn't believe in him or something dull like that, but that is kind of expected now of a Marvel film, as they're villains have (except for Loki and Ultron) never been particularly interesting.
It does help that Ant-Man happens to be surprisingly funny. Despite its rocky history (it was originally being written and directed by Edgar Wright, until he left the project and was replaced by Peyton Reed and the script heavily re-written), Ant-Man still manages to come out a very funny film and easily the funniest Marvel movie since Guardians of the Galaxy, if not ever. There are times when you can see traces of Wright's style poking out from underneath Reed's fairly standard directing, giving the film a feeling that isn't always super coherent, but it does still fit together surprisingly smoothly for a film which had four writers working on it at completely different times.
Reed's directing isn't bad by any means, it just isn't anything remarkable. At least, not until you get to the action scenes, which are excellent. They take brilliant advantage of Ant-Man's trademark ability, providing extremely dynamic and entertaining scenes that are easily the most original action scenes we've seen in a Marvel movie for quite some time.
I think original is a great way of describing Ant-Man as a whole. From the excellent performances, to its surprisingly funny script, the exciting action sequences and the refreshingly low stakes, Ant-Man is a welcome, if slightly uneven, break from the huge, over-the-top superhero films we're used to.
Ant-Man - Overall Score: 8/10
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