Film Heart Is an Awesome Power: The Movie
I had really huge expectations for this movie, even bigger than I did for Age of Ultron. Antman is one of my favourite secondary heroes in the Marvel Universe, and sadly a big victim of What Kind of Lame Power Is Heart, Anyway?. I wanted this film to make him grow out of his Memetic Loser reputation, to prove he could be a great character of his own, which wouldn't be easy, what with his biggest contribution to the story being taken away from him to be given to Stark. I wanted this movie to prove a guy who shrinks and controls ants could be awesome.
And boy did it succeed.
While Antman doesn't really breaks new ground in its premise and formula (it's essentially the same basic plot than Iron Man, with some Caper side added in the mix), it's still a really good movie, and shines in two areas. The first, as I said, is by how it takes its hard to take seriously premise, and manages to make it look badass. The Fridge Horror of being shrinked to micro-size, the potential of soldier the size of an bug while still retaining his normal strength and density, the various species of ants and their abilities... everything is explored. This movie actually managed to convince me Antman had the potential to be one of the MCU's deadliest assassins.
The second strength of this movie is his characters. Hank Pym is by far my favourite: aside from the fact Micheal Douglas is great in the role, he is played as a Crazy Awesome Mad Scientist who is basically using ants solve all his problems, and looks awesome doing it. This gave him something really unique, and made him stand out amongst the characters. Scott is not quite as great, but the fact he is a (semi)former thief, and a father, makes him interesting enough for a superhero, and I do accept him as a worthy successor. Hope was great too, especially in her relationship with her father, and I look forward seeing her as the new Wasp. Darren Cross was, on paper, a rather cliché rehash of every Iron Man movie villain ever, but the writing actually managed to make him entertaining and effective, especially his Sanity Slippage.
Overall, Antman is a worthy new installment in the MCU, and a really fun, enjoyable movie. I really hope it will have enough success for us too get a sequel.
Film Good but...
After the utter disappointments of Captain America: The Winter Soldier (which was simply a 2 hour special of Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D. with boring and confusing action scenes believed to be a political thriller) and Avengers: Age of Ultron (which was promised to be a BIG adventure but ended up in nothing because of editing reasons), I didn't expect very much from Ant-Man.
Actually, I'm getting bored with the Avengers and SHIELD, slowing my hype over Civil War and focusing my attention on other much more interesting and risky projects like Daredevil or Jessica Jones. But that's another story.
The adventures of Scott Lang only provided me slight entertainment as it was a quite average and forgettable adventure with fine performances of most of the cast. Paul Rudd was charming and funny as usual, good ole Michael Douglas was great at portraying the melancholic Hank Pym and Evangeline Lilly was very cute with that bobcut.
My main problem was that, as I mentioned above, I found it average with only a few scenes (Michael Peña's Running Gag for example) that were really funny. Peyton Reed added some great jokes and scenes along with Rudd (the cameos of Falcon and the Bachmann model of Thomas), but didn't make enough to be a great and unique adventure like James Gunn did with Guardians of the Galaxy. Had Edgar Wright not abandoned the project (I heard he wanted to make a very different film, independent from the MCU I think), he would have make something really great, probably closer to Guardians. In conclusion, great ideas, poor execution.
I had more fun with Mad Max: Fury Road, Mission: Impossible - Rogue Nation and Jurassic World than with Ant-Man, but I'd watch it again over Age of Ultron for sure.