With last year’s Guardians of the Galaxy, Marvel Studios proved they’re willing to take risks with lesser-known properties. So why is it that their long-in-development film, Ant-Man, feels so shallow? Directed only competently by Peyton Reed (he does what was required of him: He got the film made on time), Ant-Man showcases why Marvel’s formula is in serious need of innovation. There is no risk-taking, no attempt to subvert audience expectations or turn genre tropes on their heads. The film is further bogged down by its stale characters, hit-or-miss comedy, and a heist plot that is just going through the motions. Though the film takes way too long to get interesting, the third act is everything it should have been up to that point. But even that can’t overshadow the fact that Ant-Man is just too small to overcome such big obstacles.
After serving a three-year prison sentence, professional thief Scott Lang (Paul Rudd) gives up his criminal ways in an attempt to reconnect with his daughter. When he find it difficult to fit in to society due to his criminal record, he is lured back in to theft by taking on a burglary job in which he steals an old suit that has the ability to shrink its wearer down to the size of an ant. It turns out that the burglary was just an audition set up by Hank Pym (Michael Douglas), the suit’s creator, who enlists Scott to help him and his daughter Hope van Dyne (Evangeline Lilly) steal Hank’s own technology from his former protégé Darren Cross (Corey Stoll), who has his own nefarious plans for the tech. Scott must train to become the new Ant-Man in order to save the world.
The idea of turning Ant-Man into a heist film is a fantastic premise. Unfortunately, it’s the execution that falls flat. Defenders of Marvel will say the film is unique because it’s a heist film with a superhero at the center. That’s only partially true since the heist aspect is where the film most retreads familiar territory. Every single trope of a heist film you could think of is present here and there is no attempt to shake up the formula. Some would say that being innovative isn’t that important, but when there are so many other films out there of its kind, including much better ones, being original is critical. When the foundation of which your film was built upon is this perfunctory, you’re in trouble.
Though Marvel has so far been highly successful in adapting beloved heroes for the big screen, that isn’t the case here with Scott Lang, who is one of the most uninteresting main characters in a summer blockbuster in recent memory. While Paul Rudd gives the role his best, even a talented actor like him can’t invigorate his character because he has nothing to work with. Scott is just a nice guy who has no character arc. It also doesn’t help that there are several missed opportunities to make him a unique hero in the MCU. Instead of just having Scott being a low-life thief (like Peter Quill in Guardians of the Galaxy), the film sets him up as Robin Hood-type thief who steals from the rich and gives to the poor, so he’s now out of a redemption arc. The film briefly touches upon how difficult it is for Scott to reintegrate into society because his criminal past, but again, it’s only briefly touched upon and it’s just played for laughs instead giving insight into who Scott is as a character.
Marvel’s infamous lack of compelling villains in their films adds yet another one-dimension bad guy in Darren Cross. The film tries to make us sympathize with Cross by making it so Hank’s technology has warped his mind over the years, which is what is causing him to commit such violent acts. But it doesn’t work because his motivations are already so murky and his personality is practically non-existent, so when he eventually dons the Yellowjacket suit, nothing of value has been lost. Douglas and Lilly are given are too few moments to shine in the film, which is a shame because their rocky relationship is supposed to be the emotional core of the film. Instead it’s only used as an excuse to tell the audience why Scott is being tasked with becoming Ant-Man instead of Hope, who is clearly more capable than he is.
The film’s greatest sin is that it takes way too long to become the film it wants to be. The third act perfectly balances everything the first two acts struggled with. The humor is on point (the audience I saw the film with rarely ever reacted to any jokes in acts one and two, unless they were from the film’s scene-stealer Michael Pena), the action sequences are incredibly creative and visually entertaining (Edgar Wright was the film’s original director and the action scenes felt like they were directed by him), and in a way which I won’t spoil here, visually teases a future Marvel film that works within the context of the film, as opposed to an earlier scene that brings the plot to screeching halt in order to set up Captain America: Civil War.
It’s just a shame that the film leading up to that wonderful third act isn’t that entertaining or meaningful. Peyton Reed is at the mercy of whatever notes Marvel wants addressed and the remnants of Edgar Wright’s film. Neither vision works well together and they both muddle each other to the point where there neither comes out victorious. What we get is a Marvel film without the risk-taking and an Edgar Wright film without his signature personality. I’m sure as the years go by we’ll hear more about what Wright had in mind for the film. Whether that version was truly superior, we’ll never know. But this version of Ant-Man wasn’t worth waiting years for.
Final Rating: 6 out of 10.