I’ll never squash another insect again, not after watching Marvel’s latest film Ant-Man, which happens to be a superhero film unlike any that Marvel Studios has produced in recent memory. How unique is Ant-Man? For one it is a comedic heist film in a superhero outfit. For the other, it stars the lovable comedic actor Paul Rudd (Scott Lang), who with his ‘bro next door’ looks doesn’t quite cut a stereotypical superhero. Perhaps most significantly, it avoids clichés such as a super villain hell-bent on eradicating mankind, or a noble superhero struggling to save humanity from immediate peril.

On the contrary, Scott Lang, a kind-hearted burglar, is only in it for his little daughter Cassie (Abby Ryder), in a plot sweet enough to thaw the hearts of the manliest of men. The father-daughter relationship is a running theme in Ant-Man. Lang’s mentor, Hank Pym, played by one of the greatest actors of his generation, Michael Douglas, has a frosty relationship with his daughter Hope van Dyne (Evangeline Lilly). Here, the two are shown to be at odds because of a secret held by Hank, though when it is finally revealed, Hank’s motivations for not sharing it for decades are tough to swallow.

Sometimes big things come in small packages

Of course, Ant-Man carries its share of obligatory genre tropes. This is, after all, a superhero film, and an origin tale at that. However, director Peyton Reed alongside the four screenwriters handles this with great skill and intelligence, often leaving us chortling at the self-depreciating humour which takes regular aim at the silliness of the superhero genre. Now I don’t know if the cinema had put something in my coffee (which is funny, because I wasn’t even drinking coffee), but Ant-Man left my cheek muscles weary from all the laughing.

A bright example of the clever filmmaking is the climactic scene. As with so many origin films (Man of Steel, Iron Man etc.) our hero ends up fighting an adversary with very similar powers as him. Without giving too much away, shrunk to the size of ants, the two battle it out in a city which gets leveled. The kicker is that it’s a toy city, hence satisfying the audience’s bloodlust, yet without the casualties. Here, Peyton Reed has great fun at the genre’s expense by regularly zooming out of the tense battle to show us how silly it all actually is. Perhaps the implication is that we fans of superhero films are overgrown children after all.

The other laughs in the film aren’t so clever but are amusing none the less. They are delivered courtesy of Lang’s partners in crime; Luis (Michael Peña) and Dave (T.I.). But perhaps the weakest character in the film is the villain Darren Cross (Corey Stoll), whose turn from Hank’s protégée into a one-dimensional sociopath isn’t convincingly explained.

The special effects are truly spectacular. When Ant-Man shrinks down to size, the world is large enough for him to ride insects as if they were elephants, with our hero running around dynamically in an urban jungle. I particularly loved how the film characterised the little ants in the film, giving them the heroic sendoff they deserved.

Ant-Man may certainly be a film about a tiny superhero, but it boasts a giant heart.

Rated PG-13 for sci-fi action & violence

Published in Dawn, Sunday Magazine August 2nd, 2015

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