Review of Ant-Man (2015) by Brohug — 19 Jul 2015

Pretty tepid effort. Looks like the Marvel catalog pillaging by the studios is starting to expose the weaker source material. There is nothing innovative about the story or characters in this comic book outing. Evangeline Lilly is actually painful to watch in many scenes. Michael Douglas looks and sounds like Gordon Gecko hiding out from the IRS. Finally, Paul Rudd's smug charm should be pretty good in this sort of comic-con summer fare but it feels like he's struggling, even slightly disinterested. One positive: might be nice to see Michael Peña do more comedic material; at least he seemed to be enjoying himself.

This tired plot device of each film referencing other Marvel touchstones like the Avengers, Hydra, Stark Industries, etc. only works if those other films are successes in their own right. Not sure how many Ant-Man quips we will hear from Captain America.