Before we begin, I just want to clarify that Ant-Man is a lot of fun. It’s flawed and messy, for reasons I’ll get into, but it’s a lot of fun. It just would have been much better if it had been the second Ant-Man movie. Spoilers ahoy!
The fundamental problem with Ant-Man is that it both over-explains and under-explains. It’s not really clear why Darren Cross is so worked up over Hank’s approval, or why he’s losing his mind and selling weapons to HYDRA, unless you’re familiar with the comics and the Marvel Cinematic Universe. It’s also not really clear why Hank Pym is hiding in a basement, refusing to put on the suit and solve his own problems, or why his daughter was so angry at him. And, yet, we get lots and lots of time dedicated to Hank Pym and his family issues, so much so that Scott Lang actually calls himself “expendable.”
The net result is a movie that thinks we care more about secondary characters, and insects, than we do about the central character.
The most frustrating issue is that this was easily solved by making a movie that Ant-Man actually has the concept for, sitting around in its exposition. We learn, early on in the movie, that Hank Pym was, in addition to being a brilliant scientist, a S.H.I.E.L.D. agent who spent the ’60s defeating mad scientists and toppling insane dictators.
In other words: Marvel could have made a ’60s-style Bond movie that explains everything. In fact, they could have made a ’60s-style Bond movie with a director who has, in the past, perfectly imitated the grammar and style of big-budget ’60s filmmaking.
And why the hell didn’t they, I’d like to know? The period origin movie is something Marvel has done before with Captain America: The First Avenger, and it out-grossed Ant-Man at the box office. It even would have worked in the setting. While I have little patience for the asinine demand that comic book movies must be campy simply because the critic thinks the hero’s powers are stupid, the powers in question would be a bit easier to swallow set in an era of superscience and the space race.
And it would have allowed Marvel to solve a lot of narrative problems: Instead of a throwaway line about the Pym particles causing psychological problems, we could have Hank Pym losing it on a mission. Instead of a lot of teary complaining about the missing Janet Van Dyne, we could start the movie knowing what happened to her.
The only reason I can think of why they didn’t pursue this idea is because it wouldn’t have allowed them to stuff in an Avenger. There is no scene that better illustrates this than the highly entertaining and narratively useless fight Ant-Man has with the Falcon. It’s a hoot, but it clearly exists solely to remind people that this is a Marvel Movie. It might as well have had an 800-number scrolling along the bottom to call to reserve your tickets for Captain America: Civil War, coming 2016! Also, tell your friends, so they’ll feel they have to see this movie!
When I was talking about Marvel’s decreasing appetite for risk being a problem, this is exactly what I meant. At the very least, Ant-Man: The Swinging ’60s Avenger would have made the same amount of money at the box office, and probably would have been a better movie. As it is, one hopes Marvel loosens up and at least makes the prequel; if nothing else, Peyton Reed deserves another shot at the ’60s.
