"Who are you, who is she, what the hell is going on here, and can I go back to jail now?"
Hello everyone!
So, obviously, I'm a big Marvel fan. I think I've proven that in my previous blog posts, but in case you've all forgotten, please see exhibits A and B, thank you!
I kind of sort of didn't really get to finish Marvel's Second Phase when I should have, however, because for some reason I just didn't get to Ant-Man until very recently. Why, you ask? I'm really not one hundred percent sure about what happened.
Maybe it as because he really looks a whole lot like the Atom from DC and I kind of like watching Ray Palmer do his thing on Legends of Tomorrow. Maybe because I'm not the biggest Paul Rudd fan.
Maybe I just didn't want to watch one more movie that'll bring me close to Captain America: Civil War.
I kind of like listing that last fact as the go-to, however, my OCD finally prevailed, so here I am tonight to talk about Ant-Man.
S.H.I.E.L.D. has been trying to develop a shrinking particle for a long, long time, but Pym, who actually succeeded with it, won't hand it over, despite the fact we're talking about Howard Stark and Peggy Carter. Oh well, tough luck for all you fans out there, but it's really not happening. The good thing? Michael Douglas plays Pym, which could certainly be labelled as the highlight of the movie.
But that's neither here nor there as this happened earlier in our history, because we're in 2016 in the next scene where Paul Rudd's character, Scott Lang, has just been released from prison, and we learn he's a very good thief, but who now wants to walk the straight and narrow for his daughter. His gang of fellow thieves sort of want him on the bad track again though, which is how he ends up breaking into a very secure safe and stealing ... a suit.
Let's back up a little.
Scott can't get a regular job because he's an ex-convict, but on the other side of the spectrum we meet Pym again because his former laboratory is trying to reproduce that shrinking particle. Remember that one? It's also where we meet Hope van Dyne, who happens to be Pym's daughter.
And this guy, Darren Cross, who wants to go big (or in this case small) or go home, but let's shelve him for later.
Hope and Pym want to stop Cross from actually succeeding, and for that, they need Scott, who is disilusioned with not having a job and being unable to see his baby girl, so he agrees to steal money from this eccentric old looney (read: Pym), but ends up with a weird leather suit.
Turns out, Pym orchestrated everything and proceeds to shrink the poor guy down to the size of an ant, and then we meet a whole army of ants helping him out. One's actually flying and the name is 247 (later renamed Ant-hony).
Scott doesn't go along with this until later though, as he initially tries to return the suit only to have Hope sic the cops on him, but he eventually decides to wing it, and Pym sort of introduces him to his little helpers. Basically, if you control the right brain waves, the ants will do everything for you - and I had nightmares about those little suckers for a week after finishing this movie.
The idea is for Scott to learn to be Ant-Man so that he can get into the facility where this shrinking thing is stored, steal it, and get out before anyone realizes what's wrong. Only, Cross, speeds up the timeline, and Scott sort of botches up an attempt to steal something from the Avengers (to be fair though, Pym thought the warehouse was abandoned, but it's actually the training center we saw at the end of Ultron).
Finally, the plan goes ahead after Scott introduces his three other friends to help out, and he and Hope have a little bonding moment, but things do NOT go according to what they laid out.
See, Cross is a bit of a power-grabbing idiot and he was oing to sell his stuff to HYDRA. That's right, those megalomaniacs aren't dead yet, though we all sort of wish they were.
Luckily for us, Scott is on the job and he ends up destroying the whole lab with all the data in there, much to Cross' dismay - he even manages this while his ex's fiancé is hunting for him, but Cross goes mental and shrinks himself so he can fight the Ant-Man, and an epic battle ensues in the house of Scott's ex, which results in some very large toys - and an ant the size of a dog.
Eventually though, Scott has to go sub-atom, so small that he basically doesn't exist anymore ... and only his daughter's love brings him back. Or love for his daughter. Or both.
By this point, the cop has figured out who the bad guy was and covers for Scott and things start to settle down; Scott even shares a kiss with Hope and Hope is shown a Wasp suit her father and mother had been building before her mother died during a botched mission.
All is NOT well, however, because in the last post-credit scene, we see Wilson and Rogers with a captive Bucky Barnes, and they're unable to contact Stark because of the Accords ... let the race begin!
All in all, this was a solid movie though the ants were certainly creepy enough to keep me way on my toes, and I'm not saying I dislike them. But seeing a million of them on screen? Thanks but no thanks. It wasn't as memorable as the other Marvel movies, probably because I didn't connect to the hero as much, but it did tie in nicely so now it's time to see just what the Powers that Be have in store for us next!
Let's hope nothing too ridiculous.
xx
*images and video not mine
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