‘Ant-Man’ is the Oddest Marvel Hero, but it Works

Ant-Man is an odd duck and that works for it. The problem is, it’s not odd enough.

Rounding out Phase Two of the Marvel Cinematic Universe, we find Scott Lang, your average criminal with a heart of gold, falling into the role of Ant-Man, a super-shrinking superhero with the power to control ants with his mind (yes, seriously) to stop a business tycoon from selling a similar shrinking technology to weapons dealers because, in the Marvel Universe, being tiny is mighty… or something.

It’s strange for a Marvel movie, that’s for sure, but as they are now dredging the bottom of the superhero barrel for their movies, I guess it’s only going to get odder and odder. Guardians of the Galaxy was pretty weird too. Like I said, though, weird can be good.

Ant-Man is good, that’s for sure. It embraces its goofiness with impressive gusto almost to the point that I wish it had gone weirder just for the sake of more originality.

It’s an almost formulaic Marvel movie, but the perfect cast and humor elevates it to something special. To be honest, at its heart, Ant-Man is a heist movie and that’s new to the MCU and, for a Marvel movie, it’s also comfortably small-scale (not a pun… all right, it is a pun).

Ant-Man is enjoyable. It’s not deep nor does it have any special meaning like some of the better Marvel movies, but it is a lot of fun and that counts for a lot. It definitely has some of the most inventive and funny fight sequences I’ve seen in a movie in a long time. I just wish it wasn’t so formulaic… I’m so tired of the origin story.