Ant-Man

Synopsis: Scott Lang (Paul Rudd) is a cat burglar just out of prison. His friend, Luis (Michael Pena), tells him of a potential new score. A rich old guy named Hank Pym (Michael Douglas) has a safe that must have something valuable inside. Desperate for money so he can pay his child support and get visitation rights to his daughter, he agrees. The score turns out to be a suit that lets him shrink to microscopic size and command ants. And it turns out that it was a recruitment test for something much bigger

I have to admit I went into this film with high hopes but low expectations. Ant-Man has walked a troubled path from script to screen. The original director, Edgar Wright (Scott Pilgrim, Hot Fuzz), stepped down at the 11th hour over creative differences, leaving the studio to quickly find someone new. They landed on Peyton Reed, a director known for rom-coms and television work, who at first blush seems like an unlikely candidate for a superhero heist flick. Turns out he was an excellent choice, with a solid command of the genre's visual language and an appetite for a more varied colour palette than most superhero films have these days. Compared to other recent instances of the genre it’s a warm-looking film and that suits its more low-key vibe.

The plot is fairly straightforward. An evil scientist named Darren Cross has managed to replicate a particle that lets you shrink stuff, technology stolen from his mentor, Hank. He’s going to weaponise it, so Hank recruits Scott to steal it before it can be put to bad use. Along the way Scott grows from being a criminal with a heart of gold into a real hero.

In truth, there’s next to no surprises in the how the plot unfolds but it’s presented in such an entertaining way that it doesn’t really matter. I can pinpoint the exact moment I decided I loved the film. There’s a fight between Scott and Darren that takes place inside a briefcase falling from a helicopter. Scott smacks into an iPhone just before Darren says he’s going to disintegrate him. Siri starts up and begins to play The Cure album, 'Disintegration'. A fight scene set to 'Plainsong', inside a briefcase, falling through the sky. How good is that?

The plot points may not be very surprising but the filmmakers present the various set-pieces in the most ridiculous yet clever ways.  There’s a fight in a child’s bedroom that will have you looking at Thomas the Tank Engine a bit differently, plus a raid on Avengers HQ that is a mix of slapstick and continuity bridging (this is a Marvel film, and they all link into each other these days).

Ant-Man is a really good-natured film, having enormous fun with its premise even if it isn’t reinventing the wheel on its plotting. Everyone seems to know the idea is to just have a good time, and the result is that we do too.

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