That Was Quicker Than I Expected

So I did get to see Ant-Man. It wasn't easy. You know, because he's small.

First things first. It is strange the movie spends so much time insisting the Hope (Evangeline Lilly) is in practically every way more qualified to steal the Yellowjacket suit than Scott, but then goes ahead and puts Scott Lang in it anyway. They really harp on that with his struggles using the suit, controlling the ants, not being able to fight worth a damn. She has to help her dad, Hank Pym, teach Scott all this stuff, when she's right there, already knowing how to do it. Scott's primary advantages seem to be he's a thief, and he's not Hank's daughter, which makes him expendable. Except Scott has a daughter of his own. Maybe he's been in jail for much of her childhood, but that's better than him being dead.

If I'm willing to take the movie at face value, that it needed to be Scott doing the thieving because he has the experience in that area, and the crew, it was OK. Decent little heist movie, had some humor in it. I didn't really find Scott's partner who can never get to the point funny like I was supposed to, but that's not a big deal. The various gags with tiny things suddenly becoming huge worked pretty well, and the fight between Scott and Cross on the train set was solid.

Pym mentioned concerns that Cross' formula with mess with brain chemistry or something if you used on people, and I wondered if we were meant to take it that Cross selling the suit to HYDRA was a result of that. I also wondered if we were meant to see the direction Cross went as partially a failing on Hank's part. Cross at times really seemed as though he wanted Hank's approval, wanted to work with him and build this together. And Hank, partially out of grief over losing Jan, and partially just out of good common sense about the potential for abuse with his inventions, rejected that.

I doubt that's the case. Cross was probably always going to do something unscrupulous like sell to HYDRA, and if Hank had gone along, it would have simply resulted in selling to HYDRA when they were still hiding within SHIELD. But the film has this strong sense of dads trying to make things right, with Scott trying to go straight, trying to be a positive influence in his daughter's life. And you've got Hank, who lost control of his company, lost control of his protege, and is largely estranged from his daughter (who really ought to have been his protege), and he's also trying to fix things before it's too late. Obviously he needs to repair his relationship with Hope, but if there isn't the idea he could have done so with Cross at some point in the past, I'm not sure what he was supposed to do to avert that problem. Kill Cross? Never invent the suit or the Pym Particles, I guess.

Anyway, I'm not generally a Paul Rudd guy, but Ant-Man was fine. I enjoyed it more than the latter two Iron Man films, or either of the Thors, I think. They probably all fall in that category of movies where there are parts of them I enjoy, and others I wouldn't bother to sit through. Go watch something else, come back for the next part I like.