Review of Ant-Man (2015) by Nikolayg — 30 Dec 2015

This movie started strong but after a half or so, as the characters and personalities gave way to effects and fights, relentlessly, and as the novelty of seeing small objects like bathtub stoppers appear huge, and as the novelty of Ant Man being normal size, shrinking, the suddenly becoming normal size again (giving the impression of constantly appearing and disappearing during fights) wore off, I lost interest. I'm not against action; I enjoyed Spectre and Force Awakens and other superhero movies such as Sam Raimi's Spider-Man 2 and the first Avengers movie, but there was nothing like the entertaining relationships of Avengers or Spider-Man in this film, and somehow the personal story (which revolved around Ant Man's desire to see his daughter, which his ex-wife wouldn't let him do because he hadn't paid child support which he had not been able to do because he'd just gotten out of prison) and its connection to the action wasn't convincing to me. It may have had to do with the lead not having adequate charisma or chemistry with anyone. It really just all came across to me as a bunch of noise. I think the musical score should have been a lot better too. It came across as generically bombastic. One bright spot was Michael Douglas, especially the way they made Michael Douglas in the first scene, which takes place in the past, appear so young. That was a fun bit that lasted a few minutes.

Overall a harmless movie for kids - not a shred of realistic violence; it's all pretty silly violence and no one gets killed - or bad language, and it's not a cynical movie either. But aside from being kid safe, I can't recommend it.