Movie Review: Ant-Man

MOVIE REVIEW

Ant-Man Rated (PG)

Review: Usman Azad

Rating: 6.5/10

There'sa girl in our office who scoffed when she first heard of Ant-Man. She wasn't even convinced when this reporter got her to watch the slickly produced trailer.

Sure, she giggled a bit at its goofball humour.

But at the end of the day, she couldn't wrap her head around a hero the size of an ant, literally.

And after watching the 115-minute flick at the weekend, I can say that the producers of the film - the comic book juggernaut Marvel - only just convinced me to buy into it.

Ant-Man stars Paul Rudd as Scott Lang, a well-intentioned cat burglar who has been released from prison and swears never to go back to crime.

Of course this doesn't last long and during his next burglary, he scores the Ant-Man suit, which has the power to shrink a human to the size of an ant and allow him to control arachnids like his own personal army.

Creator Dr Hank Pym (Michael Douglas) uses Lang to steal another similarly powered suit, the yellow jacket, from Darren Cross (Corey Stoll) before it is used for evil.

Of course, as is the proviso with these films, the fate of the world rests on Lang being successful.

There is something to be said for Marvel's plunge through its comic book heroes and its interconnected universe of films - which include the Avengers, Iron Man, Captain America and the fantastic Guardians of the Galaxy.

There is no point creating a movie universe if there aren't characters to inhabit it.

But as they say in cricket, you can't hit every ball for six.

And if one was going to follow through on the sport analogy, Ant-Man would be like an edge through the slips and to the boundary.

Sadly, Ant-Man doesn't feel like its own complete and beloved movie - rather it is just another chapter in a much bigger production number.

I had no problems in believing in the powers of Scott Lang, or in the angst of his mentor and former Ant-Man, Dr Hank Pym, but I found the movie terribly contrived.

That's not to say that this won't entertain you for a couple of hours on a cold winter's night.

There are plenty of laughs to make it bearable but after the success of Guardians of the Galaxy, moviegoers were probably expecting something more to chew on.

Instead, they got a rough appetiser for another undoubtedly heavily hyped, big-budget comic book action film.