The premise of this movie is rather ridiculous in my opinion. I mean, a superhero that shrinks and fights as an ant? Whenever I saw the posters I would giggle and size-shame the Tiny Super Soldier. But that’s even better because I expected I would relentlessly mock this movie and then it turned out to be so great.
So basically, Scott is a burglar (not a robber, because that involves threats which he’s not that fond of (which he points out several times for no apparent reason)), and a pretty hot one at that.
Man, even I start thinking it’s weird that I always have to point out whether a character is good-looking or not. On the other hand, if that’s how they make money, why shouldn’t I? Free country ‘n’ all.
Moving on. So, he wants to get away from crime life and he does until he’s fired by his sleazy manager (people always complain about stereotypes in movies but for side-characters I think it’s funny when they use stereotypes) and then he gets right back into crime life. He breaks into a vault that supposedly has tons of money in it or something but it turns out there’s only a weird suit in it, which he takes anyway.
Also, totally believable break-in method: re-creating a fingerprint with some tape and chemicals and then breaking down the vault door by freezing it, yeah… (it may be physically possible but it looked a little bit bullshitty to me. Didn’t take away from the fun, though.)
So, at home he puts on the suit (for some reason) and shrinks, yay! Up until that point I was still skeptical about the whole shrinking thing. And then they did that awesome tub scene. Man, the tub scene. Epic shots from the perspective of a – hey, who would’ve thought – an ant! The water starts a -flowing and you know it’s on a tiny scale but it looks amazing.
With that sequence they totally won me over. You had to see it on the big screen, though.
Then there’s also the great part of Marvel screenwriting, namely them not taking themselves too seriously. As you might remember there’s the emotional scene of daughter-father bonding and then Scott’s like: „Yeah, that’s awesome!“ Man, how great is that. I think superhero movies don’t necessarily have to be action-comedies all the time but Ant-Man is one and it’s great.
Then there’s the pretty basic plot of „we have to get this piece of science that I made back from somebody I used to work with because they’re evil and will kill everything“, so I see no point in dwelling on the story itself. It’s more important what they made out of it.
Every superhero action-movie needs the big final battle and when you have two ant-like brawlers then you’re in for an interesting fight. The moves are pretty generic by now, too – especially since fight sequences are usually shown in fast/shaky cam where you don’t notice anything specific anyway. But the setting was a terrific idea. Basically they fought on a model train landscape with toys ‘n’ stuff. Hilarious. It’s worth mentioning right about now that Scott had shrinking- and enlarging-disks available to him. So obviously, he flung them around, resulting in a huge ant and a huge Thomas the Tank Engine toy with enormous, creepy, rolling eyes. Before he enlarged the train though he heroically flung it around the room, where it landed on a windowsill, plopping down with the tiniest of noises. That was so clever! Seriously, if neither action nor superhero movies are your thing it’s worth to see this movie just to see how they resolved the various size-difference issues.
Then there’s the mandatory „the hero survives a situation he was told was unsurvivable“ and Scott miraculously and pretty obviously survived the quantum limbo (Interstellar, anyone?) even though I thought it was believable why he survived. It wasn’t a „I love [person] so much that the power of love will magically insert me back into real life“ but he actually used one of the enlargement-disks to escape his situation. So, the movie redeemed itself at that point but still, no emotional stakes there. Was a cool shot, though.
Then there’s the mandatory „protagonists who didn’t like each other kiss“ but to my surprise they made that an awesome scene, too, by just putting the heroes behind a door. Clever, clever, clever!
In the end all is well and the giant ant becomes the pet dog (the giant ant was an awesome plot device in general). I think the daughter is a little weird because she likes the gargantuan ant and a weird creepy bunny plushie that would leave me in tears when I was her age, but hey – to each their own.
So, in general this movie, quite surprisingly, was able to be creative in a lot of ways. I felt the same way about Guardians of the Galaxy. Both of those movies prove that you can’t just have a superhero, force him through the superhero plot formula and expect the movie to be good. Every director and screenwriter has to have a unique approach to every single movie. It doesn’t matter that they’re a part of a bigger thing; in the end those summer blockbusters have to be good enough as stand-alone movies as well. I guess that’s where Iron Man failed a little for me.
I think there are exceptions to this rule, of course. Like Lord of the Rings, for example. Although The Return of the King is the most popular of the three (apparently) but still every installment has it’s own beginning, middle and end. I think Nolan’s Batman trilogy is a good example of how parts of a series need to be good on their own. The three films are tightly linked to each other but every single one has it’s own structure and main plot, which is awesome. Sure, Batman Begins is mostly set-up in view of the trilogy but it has it’s own main plot and it’s a good prologue in my opinion. Then there’s the Dark Knight, which has been already praised so much that I don’t need to pile on (especially since I’m not sure the Dark Knight deserves this much critical acclaim, although it was a really good movie) and then there’s the Dark Knight Rises (which is my personal favourite out of the three), all of which have their own stories to tell and are as much brilliant movies alone as they are together as a trilogy.
I think Jeremy from CinemaSins made a brilliant point about a similar subject when he made this video about splitting a book-to-movie into two parts but it’s still relevant cause it all relates to plot structure. Man, do I sound patronizing. Although I’m not trying to be, seriously. I’ve learned about this whole structure-thingy not so long ago myself and I just find it fascinating when it turns out to be true based on real life examples.
Another, less technical, point I’d like to make is somewhat of a concern that I have involving those high-tech/sciencey movie plots. In all Iron Men, in Ant-Man and Batman a little, too, the weapon is always a science project which is intended to be used for good but eventually falls into the wrong hands and is used for evil (or barely used for evil because the main hero usually manages to step in at the right time). It’s like that in Guardians, too, with the tesseract and all, but that’s not as „real“ as the machines in those other movies so I’m gonna skip that.
Anyway, I’m not sure I’m even right with this; I just feel like technology can be construed as a bad thing based on those movies. I don’t assume people get their knowledge from movies but pop culture does play a part in building common sense (a big part I think) and therefore knowledge, too.
You know, technology isn’t inherently a bad thing. It’s neutral, like all science. It’s what people do with it that’s usually bad. Like dynamite. Or the atomic bomb. I would just hate for the world to think that progress in technology is bad. The more we know, the more potent things we’re able to develop and it might seem scary, yeah, but it’s still people we should be afraid of, not the particular technology.
Well, I wasn’t aware that this movie would produce so much different points to talk about. I think that’s enough for now, anyway. A bit all over the place – but that’s okay.
Outside Max 