Ant-Man

A lot of people (myself included) had this one marked down as a flop after Marvel and writer-director Edgar Wright – who’d been working on it for close to a decade – parted ways. But while there’s enough traces of Wright’s trademark style here to feel bad for what we’ve lost (plus enough generic marvel superhero stuff to maybe explain why he walked), this still manages to be the most likable and fun Marvel superhero movie in a long time.
Scott Lang (Paul Rudd) is a thief – well, cat burglar – with a Masters in electrical engineering and zero job prospects as he’s just been released from San Quentin. Meanwhile, across town and in a far more traditional Marvel movie, former shrinking super-hero Dr Hank Pym (Michael Douglas) has discovered that his former protégé Darren Cross (Corey Stoll) has used his company to crack (almost) the secret of the ‘Pym Particle’ that can shrink objects and people without making them implode.
Pym and his semi-estranged daughter Hope (Evangeline Lilly) want to stop Cross before he goes too far, and the best way to do that is to steal his invention and destroy his research. But for that, they’re going to need a thief… The stakes are smaller (pun intended) and the tone is lighter than usual for recent Marvel films, but that works to Ant-Man’s advantage, especially as it gives both Rudd and Douglas room to make their characters more than just quip-spouting gag machines. The special effects aren’t spectacular but they’re well thought-out, leading to a couple of sequences that make good use of the Ant-Man suit’s shrinking capabilities. Best of all, this is a stand-alone film (end credits stuff and a solo Avengers cameo aside), which means it’s largely free of the increasingly crushing burden of the Marvel universe. No doubt that’s to come, and every repeat appearance from Lang is going to put more lines on Rudd’s face. But for now at least, this is a piece of silliness that firmly stands alone.