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Ant-Man

The Marvel Cinematic Universe (MCU) keeps churning along and now presents it's second most bizarre addition. The first was Guardians of the Galaxy, my favorite Marvel film by a long shot. Now, Ant-Man, which I love despite myself.
 
Scott Lang (Paul Rudd) just wants to leave behind his life of petty crime and make things right with his daughter Cassie (Abby Ryder), who lives with his former wife Maggie (Judy Greer) and her new police officer husband, Paxton (Bobby Cannavale). His life takes a turn for the strange when he's recruited by brilliant scientist Dr. Hank Pym (Michael Douglas) to stop his former protégé Darren Cross (Corey Stoll) from doing something stupid. Hank's daughter Hope (Evangeline Lilly) objects. Superhero hijinks involving tiny superheroes and villains ensues.
 
Originally this was going to be Edgar Wright's contribution to the MCU, but apparently producer Kevin Feige expected the writer/producer/director of, among other things, Scott Pilgrim Versus the World to conform to the MCU formula. Wright declined and left the project.
 
Which is a pity, since you can sense little bits of Wright throughout much of the film, and they are the best parts. Not that director Peyton Reed does a bad job. Indeed, he has a light touch and was smart enough to leave much of Wright's writing alone, or so it seems to me.
 
The premise of the film is silly enough. Sure, let's have a superhero whose super ability is to shrink to the size of an ant while at the same time gaining super strength and the ability to control ants. It's vaguely crazy, and the screenplay goes there. The plot itself is little more than a reimagining of the story from the first Iron Man film. That worked in Iron Man because the roles felt more intimate; our hero was the one personally involved. In Ant-Man, the relationship between Our Hero and Our Villain is a couple of steps removed, so the central conflict is more remote.
 
Indeed, Ant-Man continues the MCU pattern of having terrible villains. The exception to this has been Loki (Tom Hiddleston). The urge is to give full credit to Hiddleston, who is simply wonderful in the role, but the real credit goes to Loki having an actual goal (to rule Asgard while extracting a modicum of revenge) that is easily identified and even, to an extent, relatable. As nice a job as Corey Stoll does, he's just another wacko lusting for power for power's sake, money for money's sake, and oh ho hum let's move along, shall we?
 
The first two acts of the film move along at a decent clip, but I didn't really feel all that engaged. When the nutty action breaks out in the third act, though, I was laughing out loud precisely when the writers and director wanted me to. There are absurd moments in the film where we jump back out of the miniature world where the fight is taking place and back to normal size. Thus, the sounds of battle go away and a little toy train falls off its tracks. Things like this happen a couple of times, and this is where I felt Wright's contribution the strongest. Reed wisely does this only a few times, keeping the humor fresh without letting it wear our its welcome.
 
Which pretty much sums up the entire film. It's outright funny in many places, deliberately so. Thus, you're laughing with it rather than at it, which is always a good thing. The plot is also much more intimate, rather than involving yet another existential threat to the planet. Of course it all wraps up with set ups for sequels and a tie-in with future Marvel films (look to the future and see our tiny hero in next year's Captain America: Civil War).
 
This is probably as strange as Marvel films will get, at least until the Sorcerer Supreme, Doctor Strange, appears in late 2016, but it's great fun and there's nothing wrong with that.

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