By now, we're all well aware of the controversy and behind-the-scenes issues associated with the production of
Ant-Man. Edgar Wright, the highly-lauded auteurist director with a cult following, had been attached to a proposed
Ant-Man film since before the Marvel Cinematic Universe had even become, well, a cinematic universe. This was his baby; his
pièce de résistance; the project he'd been
procrastinating working on for almost a
decade.
And then. . .he left.
After coming to the realization that his vision for the character no longer matched Kevin Feige and Marvel Studios' more. . .how shall we say it. . .
intertwined vision for
Ant-Man, one that would make him more easily integrated into the rest of the now-established universe (
no doubt helped by the fact that Feige went ahead and approved re-writes for significant portions of Joe Cornish and Wright's original script), there was an inevitable parting of ways between the two parties (
with plenty of blame on both sides, mind you) that suddenly left
Ant-Man in a state of flux.
After the underwhelming hiring of comedy director Peyton Reed to fill some massive shoes and make something coherent out of an apparent mess (
with some help in the writing department from Adam McKay and Paul Rudd himself), it seemed clear that Marvel had made a massive mistake and that an
Ant-Man movie simply no longer made sense. And who knows, maybe in a vacuum and as a standalone flick, Edgar Wright's uninterfered-with movie actually
would've been something genuinely special.
But after seeing the film, one thing is abundantly clear: In the MCU as we know it,
Ant-Man is definitive proof that Wright's departure was actually a blessing in disguise.
Those who were predicting this to be Marvel Studios' first major flop (
most likely after saying the same exact thing about last year's Guardians of the Galaxy) will have to keep looking for that elusive failure of a movie. In the meantime, let's take a look at how
Ant-Man managed to avoid that fate.
3) Making Ant-Man Accessible.
One of the most daunting obstacles to an
Ant-Man movie has always been the problem of:
Why does this movie even need to be made in the first place?
As the movie that jump-started the entire MCU, and featuring an extremely polarizing celebrity in the leading role,
Iron Man probably never faced that issue (
or at least, not to this extent). Questions could initially be raised about
Thor, I suppose, though that could easily be dismissed by saying that the character introduced a new cosmic perspective to the universe. The only other franchise that compares to this would have to be
Guardians of the Galaxy, but even that became a critical, box office, and pop culture darling last year in the assured hands of James Gunn.
We'll likely never know the precise amount of credit that's due to Edgar Wright's original idea or the Reed/McKay/Rudd re-writes, but the answer ultimately materialized as this: the concept of
Ant-Man would be made accessible to a wider audience by being fully realized as a passing-of-the-torch story with a heavy dose of heist elements, as well as a strong recurring theme about father-daughter relationships.
While the heist aspect was executed well enough (
though certainly not to the extent of being a genre-transcending standout along the lines of, say, Ocean's 11), the real strength of the film comes from the dualing focus on the mentor/mentee aspect, as well as on the father/daughter themes - two things that a hell of a lot of people can relate to.
Making
Ant-Man into a passing-of-the-torch story was what made it easier to invest in and be interested in Hank Pym, his troubled relationship with Hope, the entire premise of a hero that can shrink, and how that all connected with the ongoing storyline of Scott Lang getting out of jail and struggling to prove to his daughter and ex-wife that he could put his life of crime behind him and be there for them.
Unfortunately, it's debatable whether the mentor/mentee relationship was written all that well, specifically when it comes to the unseen past history between Hank Pym and the villainous Darren Cross. The lackluster effort in that department actually ends up hurting the film when it comes time to focus on Scott Lang earning Hank's attention, as we delve into their efforts to steal the Yellowjacket suit. The fact that Cross' personality, past, and motivations are muddied and unclear (
Hope, for instance, brings in new information about Cross potentially being driven insane by the Pym Particles completely out of nowhere and extremely late in the game, and it only brings up even more unanswered questions) makes it that much harder to look at Scott and Darren as two young men with bright futures who, at different times in their lives, both competed for Hank's approval.
Rather than being made into two rivals whose final battle against each other
should be meaningful and cathartic. . .it can't help but feel like the generic, 1-dimensional Cross is just the obligatory 3rd wheel in the Lang/Pym/Cross dynamic, as if he's only there because the movie happens to need a villain, and so a lot of potential momentum and narrative propulsion just slips through the cracks and falls flat.
But despite doing nothing to dispel the narrative that Marvel Studios struggles with its villains (
I'm also not fond of the choice to make it clear that Cross is a bad guy simply because he squishes a defenseless little lamb. . .it's a childish, shallow, and lazy form of cinematic shorthand), the opposite continues to be true when it comes to the heroes.
The script takes its time to introduce Lang and the predicament he finds himself in, while we also get to know Hank and Hope with as much attention and care as if they were main protagonists, too. It's the combination of these 3 flawed, yet likable characters that forms the emotional heart of the entire film. We actually find ourselves caring about what destroyed Hank and Hope's relationship, and our investment in Scott's relationship with his daughter is what makes the final battle as rousing and gripping as it is, despite the afore-mentioned issues where the villain is concerned.
At the end of the day,
Ant-Man's razor-sharp focus on flawed, 3-dimensional,
human protagonists is what sells audiences on the ridiculous premise of this kind of superhero film in the first place, and it's a huge reason why this is yet another worthy entry to the MCU.
2) Low Scale, High Stakes.
To most people, it seemed a bit
odd for
Ant-Man, not
Avengers: Age of Ultron, to round out Marvel's slate of Phase 2 films. After all, wouldn't something as massive and game-changing as the sequel to
The Avengers be the most fitting conclusion of one segment of the MCU, while also setting the stage to launch the universe full steam ahead towards
Civil War and eventually
Infinity War? From that perspective,
Ant-Man would surely just be an obligatory, awkwardly-placed epilogue to an otherwise enjoyable Phase 2.
Little did we know, however, that
Ant-Man's timing couldn't possibly have been any better. . .but first, allow me to backtrack.
Despite the varying opinions on
Age of Ultron, one thing was for sure - director Joss Whedon ended up making a massive, epic, and over-the-top event in the grandest way possible. To some, it was just a natural progression and, indeed, the
only logical way to go in order to one-up the high stakes of the first
Avengers flick. To others, it was a troubling warning sign that signalled the beginning of the end for the Marvel "formula", which
may be getting a bit stale and predictable.
Well, for fans in the latter group, they simply couldn't ask for a better palate cleanser than
Ant-Man.
Rather than focusing on a genocidal robot hell-bent on destroying the world and humanity as we know it,
Ant-Man decided to go in a totally different direction altogether. By going smaller (
in every sense of the word), more personal, and with a much lower scale, the movie actually succeeds in driving up the
emotional stakes to incredible levels. In fact, that's precisely what makes the setting of the climactic 3rd act battle (
which occurs in a child's bedroom) work like gangbusters.
The drama and tension doesn't derive from the audience being worried that the world is going to blow up should our hero fail, but rather because we find ourselves emotionally invested in a very likable, yet flawed hero trying to prove his worth to his daughter and redeem himself after a life of misdeeds and mistakes.
His fully-realized character arc involves both redemption and second chances. Though it might've been more dramatically interesting to see Lang as a more hardened criminal who therefore has a little extra incentive to prove himself to his jaded family, the Reed/Mckay/Rudd script turns Lang into an appealing father figure who turned to crime for the greater good. That doesn't ever absolve him of his past mistakes, but his 'heart-of-gold' personality trait makes him into a sympathetic figure who, in our eyes, actually deserves to get a second chance at the hands of yet
another person in search of redemption, Hank Pym.
It certainly doesn't hurt that Paul Rudd sells the hell out of the grounded, "every-man" angle, where his character is merely a blip on the radar in a universe full of gods, aliens, and super-powered heroes (
in fact, it's probably not a stretch to say that Scott Lang is more natural and effective in that role than Hawkeye was in Age of Ultron).
Appropriately enough, that actually leads directly to my next and final point.
1) Integrating with the rest of the MCU.
If you believe the rumors, one of the biggest sticking points in the Edgar Wright drama was how Feige & Co wanted the character to be more involved with the greater universe at large, while Wright was still pitching an outdated version where
Ant-Man was more or less a standalone story with no outside connections.
Given that context, I specifically went into
Ant-Man with an eye on how seamlessly (
or not) the film would exist and blend in with the rest of the MCU. . .and I couldn't have been more surprised by how well-done it was.
Obviously, the most memorable instance of this takes place around the 2nd act of the movie - the extended Falcon cameo (
with Captain America
veterans Christopher Markus and Stephen McFeely having written this particular scene). Not only did this
not come across as forced or unnatural, but it also managed to have massive repercussions on Scott Lang in the present (
it was his big 'test' in seeing if he could control the suit and hone his newfound abilities)
and the future (
the encounter directly leads to Lang getting on Falcon's radar and setting up his involvement in Civil War
, as the post-credits scene implied).
On top of all that, despite some particularly iffy CGI effects, it also turned out to be one of the most standout action sequences in the entire movie. And from a fanboy perspective, it's almost impossible to watch these two such radically different characters coming together and interacting with each other in increasingly humorous ways
without having a giant shit-eating grin on your face.
But even beyond that, the story of Hank Pym also allowed Peyton Reed to introduce some fun flashbacks to earlier times, giving us the opportunity to witness several fan-pleasing MCU moments that we otherwise would never have seen.
Think of the opening scene with a decades-younger Hank Pym (
can we take a moment to appreciate the incredible anti-aging effects at work on Michael Douglas here??) paying a visit to Howard Stark and Peggy Carter at the Triskelion, which functions as our window into Hank Pym's motivations for the rest of the movie. Or, for another example, the fan-servicey flashback of Pym and his wife Janet fully suited-up as their classic superhero counterparts, working to save the United States from an impending missile attack during the Cold War. . .which also doubled as a crucial character moment between Hank and his daughter Hope as he finally revealed the true story of her mother's death.
And speaking of Hope, Reed also makes sure to give us a tremendously satisfying conclusion to her arc that opens up so many possibilities for the MCU.
Throughout the movie, Reed repeatedly addressed what many fans surely must've been thinking - why are we even bothering with this Scott Lang guy instead of just giving the suit to Hope?? To be fair, Pym's overly-protective nature stemming from the death of his wife, and his considerably tumultuous relationship with his daughter, provides a solid enough reason for the movie to be titled "
Ant-Man" instead of "
The Wasp".
However, the mid-credits scene pays off on that in a big way, when Pym finally entrusts his more-than-capable daughter with the opportunity to become the Wasp, with Hope echoing the sentiments of much of the audience as she satisfyingly responded, "
It's about damn time!"
With all that in mind (
not to mention a particularly geeky reference to our favorite Web-head, the newest addition to the MCU!), one of
Ant-Man's surprising strengths is how easily and how naturally it managed to integrate itself into the same universe that the Avengers, the Guardians of the Galaxy, and Thanos all reside in. I for one can't wait to see Scott Lang, Hope van Dyne, Hank Pym, and maybe even Janet van Dyne all eventually meeting and bouncing off of the heroes and villains that we already know and love.
Conclusion
So where does this leave us with Marvel's newest addition to their universe?
While I'd hesitate to put
Ant-Man above any of the other Phase 2 films (
with the exception of Thor: The Dark World), I do believe it can be more directly compared to the other traditional origin films in the MCU-
Iron Man,
Thor, and
Captain America: The First Avenger.
Though
Iron Man remains one of Marvel Studios' all-around best films, and I personally believe
The First Avenger to be among the most underrated,
Ant-Man would probably slot in behind those two movies, but ahead of
Thor. What does that amount to? If I had to put a number to it, I'd say it deserves a solid 7/10 ranking.
Though it's certainly not without its fair share of flaws,
Ant-Man excels where it really counts and succeeds purely on the strength of understanding its heroes, reimagining its premise to reach a wide-ranging group of fans, and knowing its place in the shared universe that it calls home.
As always, thanks for reading! Agree with my take on Ant-Man, or think that I couldn't be more wrong? Feel free to sound off in the comments below!