Watching Bad Movies: Ant-Man

In the comic books Hank Pym is the original Ant-Man. A no good scientist who tries to help the world by almost destroying it on multiple occasions and beats his wife. You can read about it here. Eventually Hank Pym has one of his old suits stolen by a man named Scott Lang who is attempting to save a kidnapped heart surgeon, not for glory but to save his daughter's life. He goes on to do almost nothing important as Ant-Man.

The story has Hank Pym hiding away his Pym Particles from the government and quitting his cushy military scientist job to start his own company because he didn't want the Pym Particle to be used for warfare. He goes on to create his own company and we fast forward to modern day. Hank Pym is being pushed out of his own company by his protege Darren Cross. Cross had found the Ant-Man notes buried and began researching project yellow jacket.

Meanwhile Scott Lang had just gotten out of prison and needed work because his ex-wife would not allow him to see his daughter without paying child support. That's cold blooded. After the ice cream parlor he's working at finds out he was Robin Hood, stealing from billionaires and giving to the poor, they fire him. They won't be named because they don't pay us. He is convinced to pull another heist on an old man, Hank Pym. He steals the suit because there is nothing else to steal.

Turns out Pym set up the heist because he needed someone to break in and destroy the Yellow Jacket project. Scott agrees. Meanwhile Cross attempts to sell Yellow Jacket to the United States military and they turn him down. Instead he sells to Hydra. The heist goes almost as planned until Cross finds out and is forced to put on the Yellow Jacket suit and battle Scott. However the chemicals used distort his mind. He takes off and holds Scott's daughter hostage for the final show down.

Ant-Man does some things right in the film. They use Scott Lang because he barely does anything in the comics. Ant-Man isn't a character I care about, but last I heard he was just installing alarm systems for heroes and being a good dad. The only time he really does the superhero thing is when Hank calls. Using him allowed them to keep the back story almost untouched. Hank is also old, not as old in the comics as he is in the movie, but still old compared to his comrades.

I'm not saying they were inspired by Superman vs Batman: Dawn of Justice bringing up Superman's damage to the city in Man of Steel as a plot point, but they did call out The Avengers for destroying every city they ever have a fight in no matter how minor. It was a nice change from them being praised non stop in every Marvel film. They also mentioned Spider-Man so that was cool.

Another great thing is the costume design. The Ant-Man costume looks a lot like the one Scott wears in the comics. The key different is the mask covers his entire face which is actually a good call. The full helmet is pretty cool especially because they didn't give it stupid antennae. Yellow Jacket also has a really cool suit. Way better than anything he wears in the comics. It gets across the point that he's a yellow jacket and not some guy who threw together a yellow and black costume at a thrift store. The shrinking effect is something else that is done really well. It doesn't just look like Scott running in front of a green screen and they even do the little outline the comics do when Ant-Man shrinks which is a pretty cool move. Acting overall is actually done pretty well, especially Paul Rudd and it's clear we're going to see him in some more Marvel films soon since Falcon goes looking for him.

It sounds like Ant-Man was a great movie, but no. It wasn't. For everyone of the small things that the movie did right it seemed to do five more wrong. I'm not just saying that because Ant-Man is a crappy hero that most people don't care about. I'm saying that because they created a bad movie and simply tried to ride the Marvel name as if people would eat up as great when the quality of movies released by Marvel has been dropping since Ironman 3. It's as if they didn't even try at some points in this movie.

After Guardians of The Galaxy Marvel realized you don't need to have a super serious movie to have a good movie. The problem with Ant-Man is they couldn't commit to any of the jokes. They tried to walk the line and they failed at it horribly. Obvious jokes fell flat. At one point in the film Scott is cornered by police and says "I'm not stealing anything, I'm returning something I stole," then he pauses for the obvious moment where the directors expected everyone to burst out in laughter. Do you know what happened? Nobody laughed and we sat in awkward silence for thirty seconds. This wasn't even the only time that happened. Sure there are funny moments like when Hank catches Scott kissing his daughter Hope and Scott lies. Hank tells Scott "you're full of shit" and Scot just admits it "yeah, I'm full of shit." Sadly the movie is way less funny that it thinks. Obvious jokes get no reaction but moments like that are hilarious. It's like the movie was already written and the jokes were forced in after for comedic relief and it's more annoying than funny.

The movie is also too long. There's forced drama added in for no reason at all. There's no need for the heist. It's Hank Pym's company, he was on the list for the party. He could have just put Scott in his pocket and walked in. Instead we need to plan the complicated 47 part heist. Why was Hank stopped at the door by security only to have them distracted long enough for him to stroll in then be greeted by another set of security guards with the party list, who checked and let him right through. Why was that scene even needed?

Speaking of forced why did Scott fall in love with Hope out of the blue? They forced it in because every Marvel movie needs some kind of romance. Up until the 70% mark of the film Scott was still in love with his ex-wife. Picking fights with her new husband, asking what he has that Scott doesn't, begging to know if she still loves him. Now he's suddenly in love with Edna from The Incredibles.

Yellow Jacket wasn't even a good villain. He was the good guy for majority of the film. He tried to shrink one guy who threatened him in a bathroom, sadly the guy died. Everything else he did was by the book. Found some old research in a company he was gifted, didn't steal it. Hank Pym could have helped develop the suit, instead Cross created the gas needed to shrink however, it was unstable. Hank knew this. He attempted to sell the suit to the US Military and Hydra at the same time, in the same room. Hydra agreed to purchase it and the military walked away. This wasn't some secret deal to help Hydra take over the world. The gas had already been affecting his mind throughout the film, because Hank wouldn't help him research it safely, or just give him the formula, but he didn't really go full on villain until they attacked him during the heist. Yellow Jacket got double crossed by Hydra and the heroes in this film. He's crazy because of events directly caused by Hank Pym, one of the heroes of this film.

The shrinking looks great, too bad the action scenes are stupid. Constant shifting in size for no real reason. At one point Scott jumps off of a balcony and shrinks. No, he doesn't hop on an ant and fly away. He lands on the carpet the floor below. He could have done that normal sized. The shrinking for the sake of shrinking is stupid. The scenes also lack sense. Why would you start shooting out of the window at a swarm of slow moving ants 5 feet away when you could just shut the window? That really happened.

Ant-Man is not a good film. There will be some people that enjoy it and that's okay. There will be some obvious fans who won't take off the Marvel colored shades to realize it's a bad fan. They'll see the Marvel name and applaud it. Paul Rudd is a great actor and Scott Lang is a cool character. Sadly that can't overcome the fact that the writing in this film is horrible. There's only so much cool costumes, good acting and special effects can cover. Marvel is making bad moves and coasting on their name now.

You can hear Darrell on the CP Time and Powerbomb Jutsu podcasts. He also plays classic arcade games on The Cabinet
Follow @OriginalKingD