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Post by MatthewP on Jul 17, 2015 14:38:16 GMT -5
I saw the new Ant-Man movie last night, and really enjoyed it. The plot is pretty straightforward, and there's not a ton of depth, but the characters are likeable, the action is fun, and there's quite a bit of humor.
The plot is a basic stop the bad guys from getting Pym's technology story, with a couple father-daughter interpersonal issues thrown in as side-plots. It's a pretty good batch of characters, led by Rudd's Scott Lang, who is very likeable. Michael Pena as his best friend steals the show a couple times with some very funny bits. Douglas and Lilly are fine as Pym and daughter. They all have characters you can root for, and ultimately work really well as a team.
Besides the humor, the fights really make this a fun movie. They are pretty creative with the possibilities of ant-size battles. They do poke fun at themselves several times with the mini-battles, but they still stay exciting.
Bottom line: it wasn't complex, and was even a bit predictable, but it was a heck of a lot of fun to watch. Another great one from Marvel!
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Post by spoon on Jul 17, 2015 21:29:54 GMT -5
I just saw Ant-Man, and I very highly recommend it. I already feel like I want to see it again.
To be clear, I'm not grading Ant-Man on a curve. It's not just merely a good job for second-tier character. I like Ant-Man more than Iron Man 3 or The Winter Soldier. It seems like it's getting tagged as the light, funny Marvel movie, but that undersells it. It does do a better job at humor than other Marvel movies. The laughs are earned; they're not forced. But frankly, the action is handled better than in movies like Iron Man 3. The action is very creative, and the movie does a good job of avoiding action sequences that seem to drag.
It also does the serious and emotional moments really well. Paul Rudd is great, but the secondary and tertiary characters are handled with great care as well. Michael Pena is a scene stealer. It has various links to the larger Marvel Cinematic Universe, but doesn't sacrifice the flow of the story to do it.
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Post by The Captain on Jul 18, 2015 8:54:25 GMT -5
I was able to see Ant-Man yesterday afternoon, and I thought it was a nicely-done movie. Paul Rudd had that "everyman" quality that the role of Scott Lang required; he couldn't be too handsome or too well-built or too "anything", or else he wouldn't have been believable. Michael Douglas and Evangeline Lilly were perfectly serviceable in their roles, and the villain was sufficiently bad without being too over the top. As spoon wrote, Michael Pena was definitely a scene-stealer, and the other members of Scott's crew were fine for what they were asked to do.
The action scenes were well choreographed, the shifting between real-size and ant-size was clever, and while I thought that some of the humor was a little forced and based on Scott being too self-unaware, it also had genuinely funny moments. The post-credit scenes helped set up both a future installment of Ant-Man as well as furthered the overall narrative of the MCU.
I would place Ant-Man in the top half on my list of Marvel movies. It's behind Winter Soldier, Captain America, and Guardians of the Galaxy, and about on par with Avengers I, but it is higher than any of the Iron Man movies (although not by much over I), either of the Thor movies, and Avengers II. Certainly a nice use of my Friday afternoon off.
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Ant-Man
Jul 18, 2015 17:32:56 GMT -5
Post by Deleted on Jul 18, 2015 17:32:56 GMT -5
Thanks guys for your support and recommedations - I was going to see it tomorrow or Monday.
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Post by batlaw on Jul 19, 2015 15:48:11 GMT -5
Saw it last night. Although I quite enjoyed it and thought it was good, it wasn't as good as I expected or hoped. I'd rank it squarely in the middle of the mcu. There was a lot to like but I think this might be probably the least rewatchable of any mcu movie. The entire first half was pretty slow imo and the action sequences were minor and few until the lengthy but cool climax. I don't imagine id pick this of my dvd shelf to watch again before any of the others (even though it may be "better" than some), not likely w/o some fast forwarding. Not bashing it and I'd recommend it, but I wasn't as impressed by it as I was wa, gotg or aaou for example. And unlike those im not compelled to revisit it right away.
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Post by dupersuper on Jul 21, 2015 0:12:39 GMT -5
Not quite up there with Winter Soldier/Avengers/Iron Man 1/First Avenger/Guardians of the Galaxy/Daredevil/Agent Carter but solidly among Thor/Thor 2/Hulk/Avengers 2/Agents of SHIELD/the Marvel shorts, and thus better than Iron 2 and Iron Man 3 (and even those were perfectly watchable).
"It's not a key chain." Heh.
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Post by tingramretro on Jul 21, 2015 3:26:43 GMT -5
Saw it yesterday and thoroughly enjoyed it. I think it may now be in my top five Marvel movies, along with the two Cap movies, the first Avengers movie and GOTG.
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shaxper
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Ant-Man
Jul 21, 2015 9:21:55 GMT -5
Post by shaxper on Jul 21, 2015 9:21:55 GMT -5
Saw it yesterday and thoroughly enjoyed it. I think it may now be in my top five Marvel movies, along with the two Cap movies, the first Avengers movie and GOTG. Welcome to the CCF, tingramretro! |
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Ant-Man
Jul 21, 2015 10:57:04 GMT -5
Post by DE Sinclair on Jul 21, 2015 10:57:04 GMT -5
Saw it yesterday and thoroughly enjoyed it. I think it may now be in my top five Marvel movies, along with the two Cap movies, the first Avengers movie and GOTG. Welcome! Are you a fan of the comics as well as the movies? |
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Post by tingramretro on Jul 21, 2015 17:22:27 GMT -5
Saw it yesterday and thoroughly enjoyed it. I think it may now be in my top five Marvel movies, along with the two Cap movies, the first Avengers movie and GOTG. Welcome! Are you a fan of the comics as well as the movies? Only since about 1976.  |
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Ant-Man
Jul 21, 2015 21:17:11 GMT -5
via mobile
Post by Gene on Jul 21, 2015 21:17:11 GMT -5
I really liked it! Rudd, Lilly, and Douglas had great chemistry and the jokes all landed. I could have done without the "guest appearance," but that's a minor gripe.
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Ant-Man
Jul 21, 2015 21:50:00 GMT -5
Post by spoon on Jul 21, 2015 21:50:00 GMT -5
I really liked it! Rudd, Lilly, and Douglas had great chemistry and the jokes all landed. I could have done without the "guest appearance," but that's a minor gripe. I definitely agree with you're assessment of the leads and the humor. I find Evangine Lilly as Hope much more compelling than Black Widow or Scarlet Witch have been in the MCU so far. She's one of my three favorite female leads in the MCU films along with Peggy Carter and Jane Foster. The cast is really deep. I hope Michael Pena's characters comes back. And while the evil tech exec has been done in prior films, I think Corey Stoll did a better job than those villains in the Iron Man films. |
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Ant-Man
Jul 21, 2015 22:01:36 GMT -5
via mobile
Post by Gene on Jul 21, 2015 22:01:36 GMT -5
Darren Cross reminded me a lot of Stane from the first Iron Man. He actually had some motivation to do the things he did. My biggest criticism of Marvel Studios is that a lot of their villains come off as very shallow and forgettable. They've been better lately, so I'm glad they're keeping it up.
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Ant-Man
Jul 22, 2015 6:44:34 GMT -5
Post by The Captain on Jul 22, 2015 6:44:34 GMT -5
Darren Cross reminded me a lot of Stane from the first Iron Man. He actually had some motivation to do the things he did. My biggest criticism of Marvel Studios is that a lot of their villains come off as very shallow and forgettable. They've been better lately, so I'm glad they're keeping it up. Respectfully disagree with the bolded portion. Of the current MCU run of films, the only villains that I found to be "forgettable" were Malekith (not because his motivation of "revenge for the slaughter of my people" was shallow, but because the entire film was just executed poorly) and Killian (IM 3 was a below-average film, and his motivation of "Tony Stark didn't pay any attention to me" was pathetic). Ronan was also pretty vanilla, because he was there as Thanos' errand boy; the Mad Titan was the one pulling the strings on that puppet, so Ronan himself didn't have much to do of his own accord. |
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Ant-Man
Jul 27, 2015 15:08:39 GMT -5
Post by Dizzy D on Jul 27, 2015 15:08:39 GMT -5
Saw this earlier tonight. I liked it quite a bit, but it wasn't up there with the best of the Marvel movies (Iron Man I, Avengers, Winter Soldier and Guardians for me). A solid second tier which did a nice job at expanding the universe quite a bit, but I can't help but wonder what could have been had Edgar Wright directed this.
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