MOVIE REVIEW: Ant-Man

written by David Steffen

Ant-Man is a 2015 superhero film based on the Marvel comics characters of the same name.  Hank Pym (Michael Douglas) is the inventor of a suit that allows the wearer to shrink and grow.  When the wearer is small, their punches land with the same force as when they’re full size, but concentrated onto the area of a pinhead.  Pym worked for S.H.I.E.L.D. using the suit until 1989 when he resigned when he learned that they were trying to replicate the suit technology for military applications, and started his own company: Pym Technologies.  In the present, Pym’s daughter Hope Van Dyne (Evangeline Lilly) is working with Pym’s former protege Darren Cross (Corey Stoll), to force Pym out of his own company.  Cross is determined to reverse-engineer Pym’s shrinking suit, and keeps on trying despite failure after failure.

Meanwhile, well-intentioned small-time thief Scott Lang (Paul Rudd) is released on parole, but has trouble finding legitimate work because of his ex-con status.  Pressured by his ex-wife Maggie (Judy Greer) to find a way to pay child support, he returns to a life of crime to try to break into a safe in the house of an older man who is supposed to be on vacation.  What he finds in the safe is the Ant-Man suit, planted there by Pym, and when he tries it on Pym puts him through a crash-course in its abilities (not only growing and shrinking, but being able to control ants using electrical signals).  Pym recruits Scott to help him thwart Cross’s plan to perfect the suit.

Ant-Man is as much a comedy as it is an action movie, unusual in the Marvel Cinematic Universe where action is usually most of the focus with humor as a sideline.  It’s friendly for kids, though a couple parts could be scary, bad guys are generally incapacitated instead of dying.  Paul Rudd has a knack for dry delivery, and he is perfect for this role, bringing much of the humor to the film, and Michael Douglas and Evangeline Lilly are great in their roles as well.  I watched this movie with my child and we enjoyed it a lot.  I’d recommend it for all ages.