Ant-Man
How do
you sell ice to an Eskimo? You’ve got a person who lives in a cold climate,
surrounded by snow and ice and never has a shortage of it. He can use it to
build his house and re-apply the ice and snow when he needs to. Then you come
on the scene trying to sell him something he doesn’t need to buy – how do you
sell it to him? You convince him what you have to offer is better and that he
would be missing out by not buying your ice. I imagine this scenario was what
the creators of Marvel’s latest addition “Ant-Man” felt like when they decided
to try and sell this lesser known and somewhat miniscule hero from their comic
book back-catalogue.
But Marvel being Marvel, are masters of marketing and know
how to pull an audience in – because they know their audience extremely well,
and have them in the palm of their hand. Yes, if you enjoy Marvel’s movies, you
are not in control of what movies you will see in any given year; you will watch
whatever movie Marvel throw at you because you are that Eskimo and Marvel is
the Ice Salesman who can give you a smaller version of what you’ve already got
plenty of, and cleverly persuade you to buy their product because you might
just kick yourself if you let them leave, never knowing how that ice could have
been. It’s that clever approach they use which makes every Marvel movie a multi-million
dollar hit.
From the
moment it was announced sometime the year before it's release that Ant-Man would be making it to
the big screen, movie-goers were curious and even concerned. The Avengers had
firmly established themselves, with each character having their own movie and
then coming together to score 2012’s biggest hit, so it seemed the formula had
been set and no additional heroes were needed. But Marvel, perhaps starting to
get a little too confident in their craft, brought us “Guardians of the Galaxy”
in 2014, which raised some eyebrows upon its announcement but turned out to be
surprisingly better than most expected. Clever marketing or clever
storytelling? Maybe both.
Then the first teaser trailer for Ant-Man went online at the start of 2015, and it seemed Marvel had taken a big risk. Here
you had a movie about a superhero called Ant-Man – What The? A guy who could
shrink and use insects to fight his battles. How could such a small scale story
and scenario compare to the likes of Iron Man and Thor; a guy the size of a bug
on the Avengers playing field. Hmmm… Like its predecessor Iron Man was when
first released in 2008, Ant-Man was surely going to be the Gamble Movie of
2015; either it would be good to great and do well, or a complete flop.
Well I
got to see it today, and once again Marvel has done a good job. With their
dominance of the movies for the past seven years, the movie studio giant has
developed a winning, and smart, formula. It goes something like this;
- Pick a superhero from your vast array of comic books, in particular one that would be seen as almost impossible to adapt to the big screen
- Cast an Actor that is familiar to audiences (or a relative unknown) and give them a role that will show a whole new side to their acting ability and launch or revive their career
- Make the story about them but link it in to every other Marvel movie that has yet to be made, all leading up to the Avengers over-arching storyline
Ant-Man
follows this winning formula to a tee, but also throws in a few extra elements
to the mix. For starters, Ant-Man is surely Marvels most audacious and
experimental movie to date, as it takes a step back in size and scope to tell a
smaller story on a smaller stage. Secondly, it takes the ever-recognisable and
always-reliable Paul Rudd, who entered the movie scene over 20 years ago with
“Clueless”, followed by a run on the hit show “Friends” as Phoebe’s well-to-do
boyfriend, and followed this with a string of romantic comedies and more
recently becoming the King of the Bromance film with “I Love You, Man”. Never
anyone’s first guess to be a superhero, but Marvel have their reasons and chose
him for the role of Scott Lang.
With his likeable demeanour, Rudd has good
looks and charm but isn’t your typical movie star; instead of distancing you
because he seems above us lesser mortals, you can relate to him, and he
connects with you in a way that feels familiar, like he could be a good
mate of yours. He plays the Everyman character perfectly well, and in the case
of a Marvel movie, most of their superheros have that Everyman quality about
them. But unlike his counterparts the Avengers, who either have extreme super
powers, cool weapons and years of fighting experience, Scott Lang is just a
small-time crook, who gets chosen by Dr Hank Pym (Michael Douglas) to pull of a
special heist.
Movies
about the concept of shrinking are few and far between. Most notably, there was
“The Incredible Shrinking Man" in the late 1950’s, about a man exposed to a
radioactive cloud who gradually shrinks down over several weeks. Then a clever
take on the idea in the late 80’s with “Innerspace”. This portrayed a pilot put
into a small vessel that is shrunk and destined to enter the body of a rabbit
for research purposes. But instead, he gets injected into a mans butt and takes
us inside the human body in amazing detail. Then my personal favourite and one
of the best family movies of all time, “Honey, I Shrunk the Kids”. Crazy
inventor Wayne Szalinksi invents a shrinking machine, accidentally shrinks his
son and daughter and the two kids next door, who then get lost in their
backyard. With overgrown grass, and the dangers of bees, sprinklers and
lawnmowers, the kids must make their way back to the house.
Ant-Man takes
shrinking people on screen to a whole new level. With brilliant special effects
and clever cinematography, whenever Scott presses his buttons and quickly zaps
down to the size of an ant, we the viewer are zapped down to that level with
him. From the bottom of a bathtub, to inside a vaccum cleaner and every air
vent, duct and water pipe available, Ant-Man learns to control the amazing
power of the suit he’s given and summon legions of Ants to help him achieve his
mission.
The
premise is somewhat silly, but Ant-Man is aware of its own silliness. In
saying that, it’s definitely a lighter piece of fare, fast paced and brisk,
running at less than two hours in length. It’s also quite funny, with witty
dialogue and clever jokes along the way, to break some of the more moody and
tense scenes, especially involving the character of Hank Pym who originally
invented the Ant-Man suit and mentors Scott to break into his old company and stop
a crazy CEO from unleashing his shrinking technology onto the world as a
weapon.
Not
particularly memorable or even ground-breaking, Ant-Man is a reliable movie for
what it is. The origin story of Scott-turned-Superhero is brief and cuts to the
chase quickly, which is a refreshing change from the likes of Iron Man and
Captain America, spending the majority of their running time making the hero.
At this stage in Marvels mission, it’s audience are now well-versed on the
back-story, with each previous film building up to each Avengers film (there
will be two more back to back in 2018-2019) so the wheels are spinning and on
track to achieve Marvel’s grand plan. And where does Ant-Man fit into all of
this? At first glance, he doesn’t appear to be cut of the same mustard as Iron
Man, Thor, Captain and Hulk, but his powers are indisputable. Probably having
one of the greatest advantages over all of them, Ant-Man can shrink in size but
maintain his strength and speed, able to take down men with a single punch.
*Post Credit Scenes – the first of two scenes here
shows Dr Hank Pym and his daughter Hope walking through his lab, where he
speaks about something he’s wanted to show her. Behind a locked door is what he
and his late wife were working on but never finished. Revealing a special suit
that was never used, Hank suggests it’s time to give it a test run. Hope stares
at it in awe and excitement, and says “It’s about damn time”, eluding that she
would put on the suit in the future, and ultimately become The Wasp. We then
cut to a tense scene where Steve Rogers (Cap), Sam (Falcon) and Bucky (Winter Soldier),
who is pinned down by his metal arm in a vice, talk about a plan to fight back.
“We’re on our own” says Captain, then Falcon reassures him, “Maybe not… I know
a guy”, which was in reference to the encounter Falcon had with Ant-Man at the
Avengers HQ.
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