Why Bother?: A Look Back at Ant-Man

(In the voice of Sam Elliot) Have you heard the tale of the beginning of the Marvel Cinematic Universe? Legend says that Ant-Man is the genesis of the studio as we know it. The story goes that in 2006, a young Edgar Wright approached by Marvel to make a movie starring the Astonishing Ant-Man. After shopping the idea around to a few different studios, it was clear that nobody in Hollywood really understood what an action movie involving a shrinking man could be, so Marvel set out to make their own studio, with blackjack and hookers. Years go by, Marvel becomes a household name, and Ant-Man (aside from some test footage in 2012) is all but forgotten. Then in December, 2013, it was announced that production on Ant-Man would finally be underway starring Paul Rudd as Scott Lang and Michael Douglas as Hank Pym. Wright, coming off of Scott Pilgrim vs. The World and The World’s End, and Rudd, most commonly known for his comedic performances, were destined to make something altogether different than what we had come to expect from the MCU.

"No, I promise! They're not holding me against my will! Hehehe...help me!"

Then in May, 2014, disaster struck. Wright, the man who had been attached to the film for eight years, left the project citing "differences in the vision" of the film. Cruelest of ironies, that the man with the ideas responsible for allegedly jumpstarting the studio was no longer welcome in the Marvel Club House. And that’s when Ant-Man devolved into a movie by committee. Peyton Reed was brought on to direct, Paul Rudd and Chris McKay joined forces to take another pass at the script, and the Marvel Creative Committee continued their meddling, unobstructed and unopposed (more on them later, I promise). Instead of the truly special film that we were promised, we get a homogenized origin story that probably would have felt right at home in 2006. In 2015, however, Ant-Man, became known as a mostly forgettable entry into the Marvel Cinematic Universe.

No, Ant-Man. Everything is not alright.

What They Did Right

The Smaller Scale

I’m so sorry if that came off as a pun; that was not my intention (or was it?). To say the story of Ant-Man is unique would be a gross misrepresentation of the movie. The plot is mostly generic, especially to compared to its contemporaries. However, Ant-Man gets points for taking a few steps back and shifting the stakes from ‘global turmoil’ to a much more intimate setting. Let's recap: since The Avengers, we have had a story about saving the world from a terrorist with an army of flying armor, a story about saving the nine realms from ancient aliens, a story about saving the world from a bunch of floating battle ships, a story about saving the galaxy from a zealot, and a story about saving the world from an army of robots and a fucking meteor. It was nice to revisit a time when your biggest concern was your arch enemy threatening to kill a loved one.

Pictured: A simpler time.

The reason Ant-Man works as well as it does is because it doesn’t try to raise the stakes to a level higher than the 'global extinction' stakes of Age of Ultron. While I don't mean to trivialize, the crux of the story is Lang trying to hang out with his daughter, stopping a weapons dealer from selling weapons, seeing what shenanigans he can get into along the way. The point isn’t that the story means less because we aren’t on the brink of catastrophe. I don’t necessarily means more either, but I feel like there was a realization with this movie that the threat level didn’t have to be constantly raised to ridiculous levels in order for the audience to care. Stop focusing on one-upping yourselves and just give us something we haven’t seen before. Which leads me to…

The Set Pieces

Before we get into the actual fights, I'd like to give a shout-out to the shrinking animations. Showing the faded-out after-images is something that, as a comic book fan, makes me squeal like a stuck pig. Now onto the action. Again, this movie was less about “how do we top the last one” and more about “what can we do that's fucking crazy?!” The fight sequences between Ant-Man and Yellowjacket are some of my favorites in the MCU for how clever they are. Granted, the fight in the helicopter is pretty standard fare, but once they get into the suitcase, it’s an entirely different movie. From Lifesavers the size of elephants to the epic bass of The Cure’s Disintegration, the movie takes on a new life. Take a look!

Then there’s the bedroom scene in which Thomas the Tank becomes the gift that just keeps on giving. It’s great that the fate of our heroes comes down to a fight in a little girl’s bedroom. Take a look!

The Captain America movies get a lot of credit for that fast-paced, ground level action, but the stuff in Ant-Man is incredibly zany and something that remains unmatched in the world of comic book movies. Had the tone in the bedroom fight been carried out through the rest of the movie, I think Ant-Man would have been much better flick from beginning to end.

Michael Peña

Of all of the missteps that this movie makes, the casting of Michael Peña in the role of Luis is not one of them; he's just the best. I want a version of this movie where everyone is replaced with Michael Peña and we get two hours of Michael Peña telling super elaborate stories to the other Michael Peñas he comes in contact with.

COMING SOON TO A THEATER NEAR YOU!

His recaps are easily the best sequences in the movie and one of the most interesting ways to deliver exposition. We all know a guy that embellishes and rambles for no discernible reason. Shit, I'm a guy that embellishes and rambles for no discernible reason. Though people like to single out Luis’s role as the comic relief, I prefer to focus on his optimism. Luis is introduced to the audience as a guy who has suffered so much loss and heartbreak over the three years Scott Lang was in prison. Luis tells us that his girl left him, his mom died, and his dad got deported. Yet despite all of this tragedy, Luis excitedly tells us:  “But I got to keep the van!” This is the true hero of the story; the man that has lost everything but still manages to take pleasure in the simple joys of life. As I look out the window and stare down at an increasingly unfamiliar world, it’s important to remember that, like Luis, we all get to keep the van in our own way.  Luis is not the hero we deserve, but he’s the one we need right now.

What They Did Wrong

The Lame Villain

The villain in the movie is Darren Cross, AKA Yellowjacket. I’m sure that most of you reading this didn't remember that at all. Don’t bother learning it; he’s not around for very long and this won’t be on the test. In the great Marvel tradition of terrible antagonists, Cross is nothing more than a slightly off-kilter disposable villain with muddled motivations. His story starts out interesting enough:  the man is a dejected protégé of Hank Pym and wants to take over his company to prove that he was a worthy successor to the famed scientist. Great, with him so far. Then you add in blink-and-you-miss references to the idea that Cross is being driven more insane by constant exposure to the Pym particle. Cool, off-balanced, check. And now he… has intimate knowledge of Scott Lang and decides to use the Yellowjacket suit to threaten his daughter instead of killing off a wounded Hank Pym for… reasons?

"I don't know what I'm doing here either." - Corey Stoll, probably.

Re-watching Ant-Man, it feels like there is a big chunk of this movie missing that would have shed some light onto Cross’s character (and let’s be honest, add some much needed depth to the rest of the characters). Corey Stoll is immensely charismatic in the role and pulls off ‘unsettling’ like nobody’s business, which makes it all the more frustrating that they couldn’t make Cross a more compelling character. Instead of spending time with or learning about him, I feel like the creative team was just like “Shave his head, make him a businessman, put him in a grey suit. Did we make Iron Man again yet? No? Cool. Cut and print.”

Tepid Americano

I have a friend that worked in a coffee shop in Seattle for a long time. As you can probably imagine, Seattleites are very particular about their coffee and my friend received many a strange order; the most interesting and perplexing of which was what would be forever referred to as the ‘tepid Americano.’ An Americano, for those who don’t know, is simply espresso and hot water that coffee shops charge you way too much money for. Normally, people will get Americanos hot, or they will get Americanos iced. Pretty standard ordering procedure. The person that orders a tepid Americano? That person is on the FBI watch list, guaranteed. That’s some serial killer shit. The guy that orders a tepid Americano is probably the guy that has to say is mom’s name out loud before cumming and spends the next hour staring in the bathroom mirror screaming “WHY ARE YOU LIKE THIS?!” The girl who orders the tepid Americano gets off on the guy’s screaming. Ordering a tepid Americano communicates to your barista and anyone that overheard your order that you are directly in the center of a shitty day in your shitty life and you want to drink shitty coffee because you can’t bat away your indifference long enough to enjoy a single simple pleasure the world has to offer. You are the anti-Luis. Why even bother at that point? Just cut your losses, try not to kill anyone on your way home, go to sleep early, and pray to any god that will listen to have better luck tomorrow.

Now imagine all the things I just described being performed by Eeyore.
You're welcome.

The general indifference associated with ordering the tepid Americano is the same sort of ‘why bother’ attitude that the filmmakers employed in writing these characters. Say what you will about previous scripts (I have), the strength of any movie in the MCU is the defining traits of their heroes. Tony Stark is the sarcastic one, Steve Rogers is endearingly earnest, Natasha Romanoff is manipulative. Everybody has their thing. What is Scott Lang’s thing? He has a daughter and he does crime sometimes. The two things that you can point out about Lang’s personality are traits of circumstance; there is nothing inherent about his character. I mean, it's pretty telling that we care more about the CGI ants than we do the actual hero.

*sniff* I'll never forget you, Antony. *sniff* Only dreams now.

What makes it even more disappointing is that Rudd is one of the most lovable actors working right now; just seeing his face on screen gives you that same warm feeling inside that you get while watching videos of puppies playing with each other.

DAAAAAWWWW!!!!!!!

None of that shines through in this performance and we have to wait until Lang’s turn in Civil War before we get any sort of sense of who he is and what he can be.

But wait, the collateral damage of the tepid Americano doesn’t stop at Lang’s story! In nearly every scene, you get the same undercurrent of apathy.

Cross:  “I’m mad that you never admitted to being Ant-Man.”

Pym: “I was Ant-Man.”

Cross: “You finally admit it!”

And scene.

Pym: “Hope’s mom died in a plane crash.”

Hope: “She didn’t die in a plane crash.”

Pym: “She didn’t die in a plane crash.”

Hope: “You finally admit it!”

And scene. The further I get away from the release of this movie, the more tepid this Americano becomes. I had a moment while re-watching the film in which I asked myself why Marvel decided to release this movie. While the movie itself isn’t bad enough to be offensive, it certainly isn’t good enough to be meaningful or memorable. I guess it’s exactly what it needed to be in the moment:  a mediocre shot of caffeine to help get us through the day until we could find better coffee elsewhere. It’s just a shame; Ant-Man could have been so much more.

Final Thoughts

I wish that I could say more about Ant-Man, but this really is a nothing movie. Wedged between Avengers: Age of Ultron and Captain America: Civil War, Ant-Man serves as an unmemorable palate cleanser flanked by two incredibly flavorful entrees. With as tumultuous as the production of this film was, I suppose I should be happy that the film turned out as well as it did, but what bothers me is that compared to other films in the MCU, Ant-Man appears to lack any sort of ambition or creativity. Ant-Man just... is. I think what’s difficult, too, is that I don’t know whose movie this really is at the end of the day. Is it Peyton Reed, the director for hire? Is it Kevin Feige’s vision? How much of what’s on screen belongs to Edgar Wright? How much input did the Legion of Doom Marvel Creative Committee have in getting Ant-Man into theaters? It’s like the Justice League dilemma only with a less terrible outcome. Look, I know that there are some of you out there that can and will defend this movie and I’m not here to tell you that you’re wrong, but in the wake of what’s come before and after this movie, Ant-Man is an unnecessary addition in the Marvel Cinematic Universe.

So where does Ant-Man rank in my list of MCU Films?

  1. Captain America: The Winter Soldier

  2. The Avengers

  3. Iron Man 3

  4. Iron Man

  5. Guardians of the Galaxy

  6. Captain America: The First Avenger

  7. Avengers: Age of Ultron

  8. Thor: The Dark World

  9. Thor
10. Ant-Man

11. Iron Man 2

12. The Incredible Hulk

Let's see if they can Wright right the ship with this summer's Ant-Man and the Wasp.

End

Next week, I’m tackling Captain America: Civil War, in which I’ll yearn for the days that I can spend a good portion of my time ruminating on people’s coffee ordering habits. Thank you so much for reading; I hope I was able to make you smile. If you like what you’re reading, please like, comment, and share. If you don’t like what you’re reading, please like, comment, and share anyway with some insulting little tag like “This fucking guy.” I’m now on the tweeties @TheJamesBrock so there’s a completely new way for you guys to ignore me. Talk to you again soon!

Be kind to each other.

-James