Blu-Ray/Movie Review: Ant Man

 

Ant-Man is one of the 2015 entries into the MCU slate of movies. It continues the MCU storyline and is set after the events of The Age of Ultron. It even ties back somewhat to the Agent Carter TV series, with Hailey Atwell and John Slattery appearing as aged versions of Peggy Carter and Howard Stark at the beginning of the movie as a setup for the rest of the plot. There are even tie-ins to the next Captain America movie (with a post-credits scene) and, ultimately, to the Avengers Infinity Wars movies (which will include Ant-Man). Without giving too much away, Michael Douglas's character Hank Prym, one of the original S.H.E. I. L.D. agents and inventor of the ant man suit, a technology that allows humans to shrink to the size of an ant, and gain the equivalent of an ant's strength to its size hires burglar Scott Lang, played by Paul Rudd to break into his former company and steal a second suit being developed by Prym's one time protege now rival Darren Cross (played by House of Cards' Cory Stoll). Evangeline Lilly plays Hope van Dyne, Prym's daughter, who reluctantly helps Lang train to become Ant-Man.

There are multiple physical media releases of the movie now. The Blu-ray's A/V quality is very good, as has been the case with the other MCU movies, especially the more recent ones. For extras, the single-disc version includes a few short behind-the-scenes and making-of features, about 10 minutes worth of "news" footage that helps flesh out some of the characters' backgrounds, some deleted scenes, and a gag reel. While the extras that were included are good, they are not as extensive as the releases of some of the other movies have received.

I think those who are fans of the Marvel Universe movies and TV shows will enjoy this. The tone of the movie is different enough that if you are having superhero movie fatigue, you can find it enjoyable because it is definitely not like any of the ones that have come before it. While some of it is a bit silly, to be sure (but really, all the superhero movies are to some extent), this movie embraces and even plays on the silliness in a tongue-in-cheek manner. The acting is very good, and the movie does well staying on the fringes of the larger MCU storyline while telling its own story. At its core, the film is a heist movie wrapped up in a superhero movie. It is like Oceans 11 meets The Avengers. It does very well as the origin story for the various stand-alone characters yet blends into the existing Marvel Universe, with the biggest cross-over being the meeting between Ant-Man and Falcon about halfway into the movie. Paul Rudd does a great job of being a hero who is willing to break the rules or the law to do the right thing. He also brings an air of every man (he did not have to get ripped for the movie like Chris Evans and Chris Hemsworth did for their roles) and brings the smart-ass quality that he is known for from his other work. The movie has a good blend of action and humor (probably more humor than the other MCU movies combined) and is absolutely worth the time to watch.