Hey everyone welcome back to Silver Screen Spectacle, today we’re wrapping up Phase Two of our MCU Flashback with the 2015 Ant-Man. There was a similar feeling around this film, as there was the first Guardians film. Everyone thought Ant-Man was just far too ridiculous for general audiences. Well, Marvel shut everyone up yet again, delivering another critical and commercial hit. While one of the lower-grossing new Marvel films, I’ve never met someone who didn’t like this movie or this character. Ant-Man became a much more crucial character, later on, so let’s look back at his introduction into the MCU.
This movie is just an insane amount of fun throughout. Paul Rudd was perfect casting and a significant addition to the MCU. His comedic timing and chemistry with his supporting cast is amazing. Michael Douglas and Evangeline Lily are outstanding as Hank and Hope. Douglas brings the acting power for the crucial emotional moments while Lily nails the balance between humor and anger. Bobby Cannavale and Judy Greer are a welcome surprise as Rudd’s ex-wife and her new fiance. While it seems like they do at first, it’s extremely pleasant to see a divorced family not hate each other. Abby Ryder Fortson as Cassie Lang is one of the best child actor performances I’ve seen in a long time. She is so adorable and acts shockingly well off the adult cast. Anthony Mackie has a hilarious cameo in probably my favorite action scene in the film. The standouts though are easily Michael Pena, T.I., and David Dastmalchian. While the latter two get plenty of great comedic moments, Pena was the breakout here. Luis became so many people’s favorite character immediately, and every single one of his jokes lands for me. Corey Stoll gives an okay performance as the villain, but I’ll discuss his character more in the script.
While I sometimes wish I could’ve seen what Edgar Wright would’ve done with this film before he left the project, Peyton Reed is no slouch. The action sequences are inventive and just tons of fun, taking full advantage of the shrinking and growing back and forth. While the script is great except for one aspect, the family drama and humor works incredibly well with the main heist plotline. All our heroes get robust character and humor moments to shine. Sadly, we’re back to yet another bad Marvel villain. Now Stoll does the best he can with the material, but this is such a boring, poorly written villain. Any scene where he’s not interacting with our leads is a massive bore. I want to give a special shout-out to the score by Christophe Beck and the cinematography by Russell Carpenter. The score really helps build the mood, especially in the action sequences it really stands out. This is one of my favorite looking Marvel films. The cinematography is stunning and I cannot take my eyes off of it.
In terms of post-credits scenes, the first one is an excellent introduction for Evangeline Lily to become the Wasp in the sequel. The second sequence isn’t important now that Civil War is out, but it was huge when this film released. Civil War was extremely anticipated for me having read the comics, and the scene we got from the film with Bucky captured got me even more excited.
So overall, I just have so much fun with this movie throughout, even with the terrible villain. I’m excited to start Phase Three with Captain America: Civil War. So, guys, that’s it for this MCU Flashback if you enjoyed it give it a share and I’ll see you next time.
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