To get the most common comparison out of the way, while this is extremely similar to it, it's not exactly Iron Man. Supervillain being a corporate suit wanting to make tons of money off of a weapon? Check. Teaser shot of the sidekick looking at the suit they'll wear in the next movie? Check. Superhero power coming from science and their equipment rather than something they can do either naturally or given to them? Check. Everything else though is very different. Our hero for the story is Scott Lang, a man who went to jail over a crime he did off screen, hired by Hank Pym to become the new Ant-Man, a superhero with the ability to change his size using Pym Particles (take a guess at who made them). The reason why Hank's doing this is because of what his former assistant has been doing with his company. You see, during his time in S.H.I.E.L.D, the Ant-Man suit was used to help protect the US during the Cold War, and when Hank learned that Howard Stark was trying to replicate the particles without Hank's permission, he quit S.H.I.E.L.D, started up his own R&D company, tried to hide the Particle research away, and was eventually forced to retire by his assistant, Darren Cross. Since then, Cross had been trying to recreate the particles and has now developed the Yellowjacket, a suit similar to the Ant-Man suit, but more heavily armed (offensive and defensive), can fly, and yellow instead of red. The movie itself is a heist movie, as the goal is for Scott to learn the Ant-Man equipment (including communicating with ants), break into Pym Tech, destroy all the data on Cross' Pym Particle research and the Yellowjacket suit. The best way to describe this movie is "What if a heist movie starred a superhero?" and it does work. The story is very simple, basic, but it does lead to some of the best moments in the MCU so far for me.
Part of it's the cast. Like with a lot of Marvel's movies, the casting choices are spot on, and the actors do really good performances. The two standouts for me being Paul Rudd as Scott Lang, and Evangeline Lilly as Hank Pym's daughter, Hope Van Dyne, though Corey Stoll as Darren Cross and Michael Douglas as Hank Pym come a close second. A lot of the minor characters are forgettable, I personally wasn't a fan of Scott's heist team, they come off as comic relief but they're not very funny. To me, they are the weakest link in the movie, but they're not so bad that it brings the whole movie down. Some of the best jokes for me are the ones that feel like natural inclusions in the movie. Things like Hope teaching Scott how to punch, and Falcon remaking on how he doesn't want Cap to know he just to beat up by Ant-Man. Some people hate dialogue like that, calling them quips, but I personally enjoy them, as a lot of them feel in character for those saying them.
What made a lot of people interested in this movie though is the animation, and what they do with the idea of a hero and villain who's gimmicks are shrinking and growing things. The concept alone leads to things like running through ant tunnels, a raft of fire ants in a water pipe, Ant-man kicking Falcon's ass by getting inside the wingsuit and disabling its electronics, being sucked up into a vacuum cleaner alongside a lego brick, and parts of the final battle being in a suitcase falling from a helicopter and a Thomas the Tank Engine playset. While there isn't much in terms of making things bigger, the three main examples of it are still entertaining, like driving out of a building in a tank that was a keychain, making Thomas crash through the wall of a house, and an ant the size of a dog. This movie is one of the better Marvel movies in terms of CGI, though the costume department has some hiccups (I'm pretty sure blood noses don't work that way guys). The cinematography for the film really does show how much fun the production team had with the powers, even if some of it was just there for product placement. Who in their right mind came up with the idea of having the final battle of the movie be on top of Thomas the Tank Engine? And please tell me they're back for Ant-Man and The Wasp.
Taking away the CGI though, the movie is middle of the road for Marvel movies. It's not a bad movie by any stretch of the imagination, but there also isn't much to it. Again, its a heist movie at the end of the day, so large chunks of the movie are dedicated to setting up for the heist. If that's your thing, great, if not, then you're going to be disappointed. For now, though, the Toybox will resume Sunday with a review of one of the Avengers: Infinity War Lego sets, and coming up next week here, Captain America: Civil War, and Star Wars: The Last Jedi... cause May the 4th.
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