Movie Review: Ant-Man

All right, before I begin my review of Ant-Man I have to begin by stating my bias.

I'm a fan of Superhero movies.
I'm a fan of Paul Rudd.
I'm a father of daughters.

As this Superhero film starring Paul Rudd focuses quite strongly on the internal relationships between fathers and daughters, I was pretty much sold.

The movie has a great sense of humour about itself, works more as a heist movie, and kicks up the comedy quite nicely as compared to all the Sturm und Drang that comprised Avengers: Age of Ultron, and although it does tie in strongly to the earlier film, (Cameos, name dropping, and many references to both Tony Stark and his Father), I found the film stood quite nicely on its own, and here (mild spoilers) where three of my favourite bits.

1) Michael Douglas as Hank Pym circa 1989 - although only occurring in a scene for about three minutes, I was pretty blown away by how they got this seventy-year-old actor looking like he had recently finished filming Wallstreet (1987) - I know this has been done recently with both Schwarzenegger in the Terminator Franchise and Jeff Bridges in Tron Legacy, but seriously, this looked really good, and added a nice touch of historical context to the story.

2) The lack of massive-level destruction - although there was a lot I liked about Man of Steel (2013), watching an entire city get leveled in wave after wave of mechanized destruction, I'm feeling a little worn out on on the whole massive-level of destruction used in a lot of these films, whereas Ant-Man nicely side-steps this by playing the destruction on a much smaller (pun intended) level.

3) The use of a technique wherein a narrator speaks for everyone in a flashback - although Comedy Central's Drunk History has been using this technique for years, I first came across it in Max Landis' The Death and Return of Superman, which was both a wonderful way to spend fifteen minutes (which you can do here) shows just how effective this technique can be.

The movie is a lot of fun, and if you've been sitting on the fence about it, honestly, go check it out, it's a lot of fun and a different flavour than you may be expecting. I for one, am hoping for a sequel.