★½☆☆☆

8 July 2015

This a movie review of ANT-MAN.

By Hemanth Kissoon

“As long as I’m alive, no one will get that particle,” Dr Hank Pym (Michael Douglas)
 
Origin story -> plot McGuffin -> baddie with the same powers -> computer generated destruction.
That's the formula now for virtually all superhero movies introducing a new saviour, right? ANT-MAN is basically IRON MAN with a different suit.

Marvel’s cinema project, began in 2009, was at first so enticing: Individual movies made and working in parallel, building to the crescendo of THE AVENGERS, and then the second phase to AVENGERS: AGE OF ULTRON. Normally sequels are linear, but no major studio had attempted to create a web of instalments. Bravo, one thought, at this level of ambition and planning. However, the air of excitement has slowly been draining out of the endeavour. Visually bland directors have been chosen to helm the movies, devoid of signature and panache. (STAR WARS is going down the same universe-building road later this year, bar they seem to be picking filmmakers who have proven skill. We will see over the next five years whether that pans out…)
 
No one gets bitten by a radioactive insect à la SPIDER-MAN, the Ant-Man moniker of the title derives from a formula, the “Pym Particle”, developed by scientist and soldier Hank, who worked for S.H.I.E.L.D. during the Cold War. A suit surrounds the body (think X-MEN) and encased in a nifty helmet, the wearer is able to shrink and re-enlarge at the push of a button. The science-y bit: Atoms contract and increase in density, so the wearer is tiny yet packs the wallop of a 200lb man. Espionage and enemy mission thwarting are how Hank is deployed.

We meet him in 1989 (Michael Douglas CGI’ed to be 30 years younger, though like most of the effects in the film it is obvious) at the nascent S.H.I.E.L.D. headquarters (later to be destroyed in CAPTAIN AMERICA: THE WINTER SOLDIER), handing in his resignation in the aftermath of an attempt to steal his formula. (For fans, we get to see Howard Stark as played by John Slattery.)
 
Jumping to the present, Scott Lang (Paul Rudd) is released from prison. Not confident it seems to make Scott a proper criminal (for a more interesting redemptive arc), Lang is a Robin Hood-type figure who burgled an evil corporation to right its wrongs and served three years for the honour. Not developed further, ANT-MAN wastes the opportunity to say something interesting about the little man being crushed, which would have been a simpatico theme. Instead, so many characters refer to his time in prison being the end all, rather than why he was there. Scott even calls himself a thief, but there is no reference to any other crime; a muddled character then, rather than a complex one.

Ex-wife Maggie (Judy Greer – in another thankless part, see also JURASSIC WORLD) won’t allow proper visitation to their young daughter, Cassie (Abby Ryder Fortson), until Scott gets a job, an apartment and starts paying child support (which he has been attempting to do). So, money is more important to her than integrity? It’s not like he’s a shirker. Again, this is all just accepted by everyone, including Lang.
 
Meanwhile, over at Pym Technologies, the C.E.O. who took over from Hank, Darren Cross (Corey Stoll), has been obsessing over the myth of his former mentor’s Ant-Man creation. The audience get shown some secret vintage footage of a seemingly invisible force taking on a coterie of soldiers. Fast-edits and various angles make such clandestine recording nonsensical – typical of the visuals of the movie: Just quick edits that do not allow an action sequence to breathe and build up a head of steam. And there’s only so much shrinking-punching-enlarging-punching-shrinking-punching before one yearns for a bit of inventiveness and flair.
 
Darren Cross is striving to create his equivalent of the particle, and is going unhinged in the process. Not interestingly so, but two-dimensionally. When will filmmakers learn that their antagonist is just as important, if not more so, than their hero/heroine? The villain needs to be fleshed out and have a compelling motivation. Evil for evil’s sake, or megalomania, is just lazy. Contrast Heath Ledger’s Joker or Nick Nolte’s father in HULK, their drive is intriguingly obfuscated; or even better, the organisation, “The Network”, at the heart of ace TV show ‘Utopia’.
 
Age has caught up with Hank, and the suit has taken its toll on him, so he needs a protégé. You can guess the rest. Frustratingly so.