Are you an Ant-Man or a Can’t-Man?

§ July 31st, 2015 § Filed under movie reviews § 2 Comments

Just got in from seeing Ant-Man…it’s nearing midnight as I write this, so I’ll keep it short. Or small. Like an ant. An ant man.

Hold on, let me try that again.

Just saw Ant-Man, and it was a vast improvement over the last Marvel film inflicted on us, Avengers: Age of Disjointed Nonsense. While I wasn’t terribly eager for yet another superhero origin story, this one was unique (I believe) in that it gave us our first legacy superhero, more or less, in which an older hero passes down his name and powers and so forth to another. It was also a story which worked at a much smaller (har har, yes, I know) scale than recent Marvel movies, less bogged down by the shared universe, or at least incorporating it in a more natural, less in-your-face fashion. Having only one superhero guest-star during the course of the main story was something of a relief, though from the looks of things we’re going to get the exact opposite of that in this forthcoming Civil War movie.

Anyway, it was exciting and interesting, and, something the Marvel movies have been particularly good at, funny without undermining the characters. If anything the humor helps along that suspension of disbelief required to buy into all this craziness. That’s the kind of deep insight that keeps you two or three dozen people coming back to Progressive Ruin Dot Com.

The film also had one of the greatest, most fitting cameos of all time. No, not Stan the Man (yes, he’s there)…I’m talking about this fella. And I gotta give them credit for actually working the phrase “tales to astonish” — the name of the comic Ant-Man first appeared in — into the dialogue.

So, Ant-Man: surprisingly good. I’d recommend you go see it, because I’m sure you totally haven’t by now.

That’s it, I’m off to bed. Pleas-ANT dreams!

(sigh)

2 Responses to “Are you an Ant-Man or a Can’t-Man?”

  • Jason L says:

    I enjoyed the film a lot, but I think it’s greatest achievement is making Ant-Man cool enough that my 10 year old son wants his powers and to read comics about him.

    Ant-man is cool. I never thought that’d be a thing.

  • Thanks for a relatively spoiler free review. I won’t be able to see it until Sept. 19 so my ANTicipation is strong.