Review of Ant-Man (2015) by Dcedmonds — 16 Jul 2015

"Ant-Man" 10 Scale Rating: 7.0 (Good) ...

The Good: As usual, Marvel did well in the casting department. Rudd delivers as a thief with a heart of gold, thrust into the world of super heroes. Corey Stoll was solid with what he had to work with, while Evangeline Lilly sulked through a large portion of the film before finally loosening up and turning in a decent performance. Micheal Douglas steals the show as Scott Lang's mentor, Hank Pym. The film also has a handful of cameos that will make fans of the Marvel Cinematic Universe smile. It takes some time to get around to it, but when we finally see Ant-Man involved in full bore action, it is very well done. The fight between himself and random goons, as well as the final battle with the villainous Yellowjacket, are very creative. The heist itself might be the most entertaining part of the film, as well as the ties to the greater Marvel Universe.

The Bad: While the film is pretty good, it just didn't wow me. Some aspects of it were too straight-forward and overly formulaic. Stoll's Daren Cross (AKA Yellowjacket) was a one-note villain and sort of a cliche character that we had already seen many times before. His backstory was somewhat force fed to us and you didn't feel much for him, thus making his motivations fall flat. The villain's ultimate fate was also a pretty big letdown. I also didn't mind the humorous elements of the film, but did feel they were a little over-done. It felt a lot like they were making as many attempts as possible, to insure that something would stick. While the film was entertaining and fits well into the shared universe, it falls squarely in the bottom half of my list when it comes to MCU offerings.