Ant Man

(Movie Review)

So...I'm late with this one obviously.
I wanted to see it back last year when it came out, but never managed to schedule in a trip to the theater.

Funny thing about these summer blockbuster movies: there's so much hype surrounding them when they get released that you feel like you can't possibly live a complete life unless you see it.
But then a few months after the hype has died down, you completely forget about it.  And I pretty much completely forgot about this movie.

Except...except that these Marvel movies, and their shared universe, create a sense of obligation to see all of them so that you can see how they all fit together.
(I'm not the first person to notice this, I know.  And I know some people have been complaining about it, but as a geek, I still think the large in-universe continuity is really cool.)

Anyway, it was on TV this evening, and I wasn't doing anything, so I thought I'd just watch it to see.

On the negative side, many people have commented on how formulaic these Marvel movies have been getting lately.  And this movie follows a very predictable formula.
On the plus side, it's all competently done.
The acting, directing, and writing is all good.  The comedy is okay.  (To be honest, it wasn't nearly as funny as I was hoping for, given a lot of the funny people who worked on this movie.  But, whatever, can't win them all.  The comedy was serviceable.)

That, plus Ant Man as a superhero allows for some innovations and twists on the standard formula.  Sure it's a standard big action scene at the end, but having the hero and villain shrink down and fight it out on a toy train set was innovating enough to make the normal formula interesting.

Rating :
6 out of 10 Stars.  (5 stars for being a competently done formulaic superhero movie.  Plus 1 more star for the extra fun that shrinking down to a small scale brought this movie.)

Links
I liked this article from uproxx.com: Why ‘Ant-Man’ Should Have Been ‘Ant-Man 2’

Marvel Cinematic Universe Links:
Iron Man, Iron Man 2, Iron Man 3, Captain America, Captain America 2, Thor, The Incredible Hulk, The Avengers,  Guardians of the Galaxy. and Civil War.

Video Review
Here and embedded below.



Link of the Day
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