1037. Ant-Man (2015)

Starring: Paul Rudd, Evangeline Lily, Michael Douglas

Director: Peyton Reed

Running Time: 117 mins

Ant-Man is an American film and the twelfth film in the Marvel Cinematic Universe. A recently-released cat burglar, Scott Lang, is taken under the wing of a genius scientist who teaches him the ways of being the incredible shrinking ‘Ant-Man’ in order to pull off a heist to save the world.

This is a bit of an oddball as far as Marvel movies go. It’s got the generic superhero plot line and all, but it’s set on an appropriately much smaller-scale, with quirkier humour and characters that make a more goofy but entertaining film than you’d normally expect from the titans of the box office.

There’s no doubt that this is a fun film. On the one hand, there are a ton of jokes here, and although the majority of them fall flat, there are enough to keep you smiling throughout. Therefore, this isn’t necessarily as hilarious a film as it clearly tries to be, but its bizarreness gives it a nice charm that we haven’t seen from Marvel before.

The plot is your typical hero versus bad guy sort of a thing, and, whilst the villain is far from interesting, the loveable hero in Scott Lang, played surprisingly excellently by funny man Paul Rudd, makes Ant-Man a protagonist that you always want to will on, making the plot a lot more joyful than other, less likeable superheroes’ movies are.

The performances here are actually great across the board. Again, Corey Stoll as the bad guy isn’t particularly impressive, but that’s more down to the average writing for his character. However, supporting players such as the hilarious Michael Peña, the kick-ass Evangeline Lily and the always fantastic Michael Douglas add extra to the film as a whole, with their well-portrayed and interesting characters turning this into more than your run-of-the-mill superhero flick.

What’s more is that the visual effects here are absolutely incredible! The CGI in the fight scenes with all the explosions and such are as impressive as ever, but it’s the animation of the Ant-Man when he shrinks and the way the depth of his surroundings looks that’s most impressive, and again adds to this film by making it visually spectacular too.

Overall, this gets a 7.3 from me, because despite not being the most hilarious Marvel movie, nor the most intensely exciting, this quirkier addition to the cinematic universe is undoubtedly a lot of fun for all from start to finish.