Review of Ant-Man (2015) by Electronick — 10 May 2016

Much like everyone else I was pretty doubtful about how this film would turn out. Even after the success of "Guardians of the Galaxy" I was expecting this film to bomb. Much to my surprise though it turned out to be a solid film.

It is not groundbreaking as the other films but it is good at what it does. I was nervous about this film since Hank Pym had always been one of my least favorite heroes but they made the smart move of him being a mentor figure and having the spotlight be on Scott Lang.

He is the typical reluctant hero with a criminal past and tries to redeem himself. He has a nice relationship with his daughter and has problems with his marriage due to his criminal past. The family is a big component of his character arc but there are still lasting consequences for his past.

Even when he saves his daughter he still is divorced and is still living away from his daughter. The relationship he has with Hank is the the typical hero mentor relationship which reminds me of a similar relationship that Mr.

Hun and Daniel from the Karate Kid remake had when the mentor learns from the student as well as the student learning from the mentor. His relationship with the future Wasp was also well done as they learn form each other as well as start to grow a fondness for the other.

I am interested in seeing how Ant Man would fit into the Avengers and I would love to see Wasp enter the fray in the future battles ahead. The action scenes are fun to watch because they give creative elements to other wise standard action sequences.

Unfortunately there are some problems that keeps this film from being only a good film to a great film. As well as the story line was told, it does rely heavily on cliches. The plot was well told and it did have some genuine surprises such as the time when Ant-Man shrunk so much that he was in another dimension which gives way to a visual spectacular visual set piece.

Aside from that though the majority of the story line revolves around the standard tropes of a heist movie. As well developed as the main heroes are, the villain is once again bland. Marvel really needs more villains that stand out aside from Kingpin, Ultron, Loki, and Iron Monger.

The side characters are really nothing more than stereotypes which includes a very problematic representation of Latinos in Lang's best friend. It is also strange that Wasp wasn't allowed to be part of the final battle even though it was heavily established that she was a better fighter than Lang.

Although I still think this is a good film I did dislike that one aspect of it. It is a good film that could have been a great film if it wasn't tied down by it's reliance on cliches and stereotypes.