‘Ant-Man’ – Yep, it’s the real deal (Spoilers. Duh.)

“Ant-Man?” “Ant-Man?” Ludicrous. Silly. Comic-booky.

Exactly.

Go see it.

It’s late and I’m tired, but some first impressions upon seeing the movie tonight:

Spoilers ahead, more likely than not.

It seems like every new Marvel movie has naysayers convinced – at least in advance – that this will be the one that destroys the studio. We heard that with “Guardians of the Galaxy” last year. We heard it with “Ant-Man” this year.

Nope. Hasn’t happened. Sure won’t happen with “Ant-Man,” which is smaller in scale than some of the Marvel movies but still has high personal stakes for the characters, as well as fun action and character scenes.

Credit scenes, because this is what you want to know: As these things go, the scenes have some heft. The first – in the mid-credits – at least promises a new, female hero. The second sets up the entry of the Ant-Man character into the larger Marvel Cinematic Universe and next spring’s “Captain America: Civil War.”

The final credits scene, however, is foreshadowed somewhat by the extended cameo played by Anthony Mackie’s Falcon character, however. After Falcon intercepts and fights with Paul Rudd’s Scott Lang at the new Avengers facility and Falcon turns up again at the end of the movie, looking for Ant-Man, there’s little surprise to the post-credits scene. Still, it’s pretty cool.

The movie has Easter eggs – more than I could catch – and plot threads for the overall MCU. But the best of those by far is the opening scene, set in 1989, with an uncanny, younger CGI version of Michael Douglas’ character, Hank Pym, the original Ant-Man. Loved this scene  and loved how it filled in some blanks in the Marvel Cinematic Universe as we know it so far.

There’s a surprising amount of comedy in the movie, maybe not really surprisingly. The whimsy makes for some of the best moments in “Ant-Man,” however.

I’ll come back to the movie at a later date, maybe after I see it a second time.

And by the way, here’s my earlier post on why Ant-Man matters to the MCU.

‘Ant-Man’ trailer: Big things, small packages

A while back in this space I talked about why Ant-Man – oddball character, oddball history, possibly oddball movie – matters to the Marvel Comics universe and the Marvel Cinematic Universe.

I think this summer’s “Ant-Man” movie, while lower on the expectations scale than “Age of Ultron,” could play a crucial role.

We know that Hank Pym (Michael Douglas), the original Ant-Man, passes the mantle to Scott Lang (Paul Rudd), the new Ant-Man.

Based on rumors circulating, we’re going to guess that the movie will bridge some of the gaps in the history of the Marvel universe we haven’t seen on the big screen yet.

The first “Ant-Man” trailer underwhelmed some people.

The new one, released today, was really good, I thought. And yes, there’s a lot of “Iron Man” lurking in the plotline of the new movie.

But that’s okay, because “Iron Man” was good enough to kickstart the Marvel Cinematic Universe.

Here’s the trailer. Enjoy.

Why Ant-Man – and maybe ‘Ant-Man’ – matters

I know there was some discontent out there with the trailer for Marvel’s “Ant-Man” movie, but I was relieved when I saw it the other day.

Why?

Mostly because I was relieved the trailer indicated the movie, starring Paul Rudd as the second Ant-Man, Scott Lang, will address some of the same questions the moviegoing public will have: Why do we need a superhero who shrinks? And why would anyone call themselves Ant-Man?

But also because the movie will finally acknowledge the place in the Marvel Universe of one of its pioneering characters.

So who is Ant-Man and why should we care about him?

Ant-Man is best known as Henry, or Hank, Pym, and he debuted in comics in “Tales to Astonish” 27, published in January 1962. Pym was an unfortunate scientist who could shrink to ant-size … but couldn’t defend himself from ants. He barely survived this tale that was a retread of “The Incredible Shrinking Man.”

But Pym returned in “Tales to Astonish” 35, this time as Ant-Man and sporting a helmet that let him communicate with ants. He was their master!

After several issues of adventures, Pym and girlfriend (later wife) Janet Van Dyne appeared in the first issue of “The Avengers,” as a diverse group of heroes got together to defeat Thor’s brother, Loki.

Pym and Van Dyne even named the group, which makes it all the more important that their history in the Marvel universe be part of the Marvel Cinematic Universe. Avengers co-founders!

Pym is a problematic character on a couple of counts, though.

It’s not like the Marvel Cinematic Universe needs another genius scientist, even if Pym created Ultron, the villain in the upcoming “Avengers: Age of Ultron.” The MCU already has Tony Stark and Bruce Banner.

Plus, Pym was always an erratic character. That’s a plus for the realistic 1960s-and-beyond Marvel Comics universe, but not for movies that increasingly play to a wide mainstream audience. So Pym the brilliant genius who had emotional breakdowns, masqueraded as at least one super-villain and even struck his wife is shifted to a secondary role in the movie.

Why the “Ant-Man” movie matters is another thing. but I think that it does.

Everybody worried when the movie’s original director, “Shaun of the Dead” creator Edgar Wright, left the project and he and Marvel cited creative differences. The temptation was to worry that Marvel wanted Wright to make his movie more mainstream and he didn’t go along.

I trust ultimate director Peyton Reed – “Bring it On” is a classic – but more than anything, I trust Marvel.

Why?

Well, their track record is pretty good. Most of the Marvel Cinematic Universe movies have been good to great, with only a couple of lesser entries (“Iron Man 2” to some extent).

I also think “Ant-Man” will explore the idea of failure, loss and redemption in the Marvel universe. And that’s good, because those story beats and emotions are a huge part of the comic books.

The upcoming “Doctor Strange” movie, with Benedict Cumberbatch set to play the arrogant surgeon who rebuilds his life, should strike some of the same notes.

But more importantly, I think Marvel will use “Ant-Man” to fill in the gaps in its movie universe.

How?

Rumors indicate that portions of “Ant-Man” will take place in the 1960s, with a younger actor playing Michael Douglas’ role of Hank Pym, the original Ant-Man. It’s been suggested that we’ll see 1960s-period-appropriate versions of Howard Stark and other characters long established but unexplored during a period of several decades.

Just like “Agent Carter” on TV right now is filling in the blank spots in the post-World War II Marvel universe, I believe “Ant-Man” will fill the gaps in the 1960s, with a young Pym and wife Janet Van Dyne (parents of Hope Van Dyne, the character played by Evangeline Lilly in the movie) adventuring and working with SHIELD.

There’s a ton of material here that, if properly explored, will fill in “lost years” and make the Marvel on-screen universe feel even more like a real, if fantastical, world.

So yeah, Ant-Man matters because of his history and “Ant-Man” matters because of how it might flesh out the Marvel history onscreen.

‘Ant-Man’ trailer: ‘Is it too late to change the name?’

The new trailer for “Ant-Man,” Marvel’s newest superhero flick, premiered tonight during “Agent Carter.”

The Peyton Reed movie, featuring Michael Douglas as Henry Pym in mentor mode and Paul Rudd as Scott Lang, the guy who inherits the suit, comes out this summer.

Offbeat action and humor will sell this movie.

The trailer is fun stuff.

 

Comic-Con: ‘Ant-Man’ poster art

I’m gonna have to think about this for a while.

As Comic-Con begins in San Diego tonight, we’ll see and hear lots of interesting comic-book-movie-related stuff.

Here’s a tidbit from Entertainment Weekly: A poster promoting Marvel’s “Ant-Man.”

You got your Michael Douglas, your Paul Rudd. And you got a very comic-booky-looking Ant-Man.

Something tells me that if Edgar Wright had continued as director of the movie, we’d see something with a different tone.

 

Edgar Wright, ‘Ant-Man’ and the Marvel Cinematic Universe

The news today that Edgar Wright would no longer direct “Ant-Man” – but that the movie, set to kick off the Marvel Cinematic Universe’s Phase Three, immediately following 2015’s “Avengers: Age of Ultron” would continue under another director – seemed like a bump in the road that Marvel’s been building since before “Iron Man” came out in 2008.

Maybe a major bump.

It’s possible we’ll find out what “creative differences” occurred between Wright, maker of “Shaun of the Dead,” and Marvel and MCU honcho Kevin Feige. These things happen, but aside from some disgruntlement from writers and directors and Jon Favreau’s departure after “Iron Man 2,” we haven’t seen a lot of discord in the Marvel Cinematic Universe.

As a matter of fact, compared to DC/Warner Bros.’ problems getting its superhero slate booted up, Marvel has had a pretty smooth time of it. Despite the fact that Marvel is somewhat notoriously cheap in its movie-making.

But Wright’s departure, we have to believe, doesn’t come about because of money. There must have been some fundamental disagreement in how “Ant-Man” was going to come out and how it would fit into the MCU.

What’s even stranger is that Feige recently said that Wright – who has been working on “Ant-Man” since 2006, before most people even knew there was an MCU – was integral in how the universe was developed.
Feige said:

“We changed, frankly some of the MCU to accommodate this version of Ant-Man. Knowing what we wanted to do with Edgar and with Ant-Man, going years and years back, helped to dictate what we did with the roster for Avengers the first time. It was a bit of both in terms of his idea for the Ant-Man story influencing the birth of the MCU in the early films leading up to Avengers…”

Since the movie has mostly been cast, with Michael Douglas and Paul Rudd as older and younger Ant-Men Hank Pym and Scott Lang, and the movie was about to start filming soon, it seems unlikely we’ll see major changes in the story. More likely it will be a matter of tone and execution. Wright was going to do his movie his way and Marvel couldn’t abide by that.

I was excited about “Ant-Man” for a couple of reasons. For one, the character is a lynchpin of the comic-book Marvel universe. He was a founder of “The Avengers,” for pete’s sake.

And the apparent plan to use “Ant-Man” to flesh out the mostly unexplored middle years of the MCU – with Douglas as Pym active in flashback scenes in the 1960s or 1970s – was even cooler.

We still might see that all play out.

Or we might not.

“Ant-Man” might be terrific even without Wright. After all, we all hated the thought of Favreau leaving the “Iron Man” series.

We’ll all be lucky if the MCU can continue on smoothly after this bump in the road.

 

Hank Pym? Sure. Reed Richards? Nuh-huh.

Let’s play a game. We’ll call it “Superhero Casting: Yes or No.”

It’s inspired by the many, many casting rumors circulating online. Denzel Washington as Green Lantern  John Stewart. “Girls'” Adam Driver as Nightwing. You get the picture.

So Marvel recently announced that Michael Douglas would be playing the original Ant-Man, Henry Pym, in Edgar Wright’s upcoming “Ant-Man” movie. Paul Rudd had already been announced, and it turns out he’s playing Scott Lang, the second-generation Ant-Man.

I’m kind of intrigued by the idea of a senior citizen superhero. If the speculation is correct and Pym – an important figure in the Marvel Comics universe and one of the founders of the Avengers – was a below-the-radar adventurer or SHIELD agent sometime between the time of Captain America and … reborn Captain America, that’s kind of interesting.

So I’m okay with a pivotal comic book figure being the subject of offbeat casting.

But then there’s the reboot of “Fantastic Four,” in which Fox seems to be going for a 20-something cast.

A  few young actors, including Kit Harrington, are said to be in the running for Reed Richards, one of the brainiest men in the Marvel Universe and the father figure of the FF.

Sorry. This isn’t Reed Richards.

This is Reed Richards.

The end of the world as we know it: ‘The World’s End’

Edgar Wright, who might someday be known as the director of “Ant-Man,” has over the past decade given movie fans often-funny, often-touching glimpses into the lives of a few misfits and outcasts in the UK, from the dead-end zombie fighters of “Shaun of the Dead” to the small-town coppers of “Hot Fuzz.”

Now comes Wright’s “The World’s End,” which seems to cap this summer’s moviegoing (and end of the world-depicting) experience.

What Wright jokingly refers to as the third film in his “Cornetto” trilogy – named after a popular ice cream treat that shows up in all three movies, yes that’s how offbeat Wright’s humor is – is actually two movies in one: A “growing up is hard to do” reunion of old chums movie and an end-of-the-world comic thriller.

Needless to say, spoilers ahead if you haven’t seen the movie, which opened wide yesterday.

Two of Wright’s regular collaborators, Simon Pegg (Shaun as well as Scotty from “Star Trek”) and Nick Frost are among a group of friends who get together more than two decades after one of the most awesome but frustratingly incomplete nights of their lives: In 1990, before they went their separate ways and left their hometown of Newton Haven, they attempted an epic pub crawl that entailed drinking a pint at each of 12 pubs.

In fact, Pegg’s character, Gary King, only gets his four friends to join him by lying to them that the others have already agreed to meet to try to complete their challenge. That’s not enough for some, notably Andy (Frost’s character), who not only stopped drinking but holds Gary in contempt for his actions (only gradually revealed) that night. Andy comes along only after Gary tells him he needs the flashback to recover from the recent death of his mother.

Nevertheless, Pegg and cohorts played by Frost, Martin Freeman, Eddie Marsan and Paddy Considine return to Newton Haven and attempt the feat. Along the way, they run into Rosamund Pike as Freeman’s sister, who hooked up with Gary that night long ago.

The quest begins with a couple of disappointments for the hilariously self-centered Gary – played with gusto by Pegg – in that Andy no longer drinks and no one in their old town seems to remember them.

Those anomalies are resolved, however, when at one stop King impetuously confronts one of the townspeople and the fivesome is shocked to discover many of the residents of Newton Haven have been replaced by robots.

The rest of the movie plays out in a comic rush as the group of friends tries to get away without being absorbed and assimilated by the robots and their alien overlords – even while Gary, increasingly drunk, determined and frustrated, tries to complete the pub crawl.

Parts of “The World’s End” are laugh-out-loud funny and parts are poignant. There are some bizarre shock value special effects and a funny final encounter with the invaders who’ve turned Newton Haven into a bland lab experiment.

Driven by Pegg’s bravura performance and the propulsive “must get to the next pub” plot, “The World’s End” is a fun capper to Wright’s Brit-rich series of comedies.

Random observations:

Wright likes casting former James Bond actors in his movies. Timothy Dalton was in “Hot Fuzz,” while Pierce Brosnan is on hand here. I’m looking forward to Connery, Moore or Lazenby in “Ant-Man.”

The director gives us “call backs” to favorite moments in the earlier films, but none more obvious and beloved – it’s even in the commercials – than Pegg attempting to jump a fence.

It’s been a big summer for the end of the world, from “World War Z” to “This is the End” to this. It’s odd that the two more humor-inclined movies seemed to work best.

End of the world or not, “The World’s End” owes as much to “Invasion of the Body Snatchers” as to any other story.

Here’s a big spoiler alert, for discussion of the ending:

I was startled by it. When the little village of Newton Haven melts down thanks to the alien invaders and an electromagnetic pulse shoots out, the lights go out everywhere. I mean, around the globe. The final montage of scenes, narrated by Frost’s character, depicts the disparate members of the group living out their lives in the post-apocalypse. Most appropriately, Pegg’s Gary King is a wayfaring adventurer, moving across the wasteland as the now-teetotalling leader of a group of robotic duplicates of his friends’ younger selves. It feels like a climax that teases a sequel or spin-off film, but it’s really all we need to see to enjoy that premise.

Save the dates: More Marvel movies

The least surprising news out of Hollywood this week: More Marvel Comics movies are on the horizon.

Marvel announced a still-unspecified movie would debut in theaters on July 8, 2016.

That’s in addition to Marvel movies – also unspecified – set for May 6, 2016, and May 5, 2017 that were announced in recent weeks.

Those are all in the wake of previously-announced – and specified – Marvel movies for 2015, namely the sequel to “The Avengers” and “Ant-Man.”

We’ll know – maybe as early as next month’s San Diego Comic Con – details of those 2016 and 2017 movies. Last year, for example, Comic Con audiences were the first to hear the full titles for upcoming Marvel movies like “Thor: The Dark World” (out this November) and 2014 titles like “Guardians of the Galaxy” and “Captain America: The Winter Soldier.”

So we’ll know before long if those upcoming movies will be sequels featuring Thor and Cap or new movies featuring the likes of “Dr. Strange” and “Black Panther.”

Some online reports this week indicated that “Dr. Strange” – the movie and character – would be a running thread through future Marvel movies not unlike the way Iron Man has been in the first set of movies.

It would be an interesting choice, considering that Stephen Strange, surgeon turned master of the mystic arts, is a more fantasy-oriented character than any we’ve seen so far (with the possible exception of Thor) and making him a central character like Iron Man is an indication that Marvel is edging further “out there” in its films. It would also, if cast correctly, be a character that could equal Robert Downey Jr.’s Tony Stark in the hearts of moviegoers – a good move since Downey is only so far signed to appear in the two “Avengers” sequels.

Here’s looking forward to some new news.

Marvel Phase 2: What we want to see

It’s pretty easy to talk about what movies and characters we want to see in Marvel’s cinematic Phase Two, leading up to the “Avengers” sequel in 2015.

We’re already know we’re getting “Iron Man 3” in just a few days, the “Thor” sequel this fall, “Captain America: The Winter Soldier” and “Guardians of the Galaxy” after that. “Ant-Man” fits in there somewhere.

But what’s the spirit of what we want to see in the next set of movies?

The “this is new and exciting” feel of the original “Iron Man.” We’d seen a lot of superhero movies before 2008, but “Iron Man” was the first to create such a believable universe – the Marvel universe – of characters. You knew even before Nick Fury’s walk-on at the end that we were going to see this universe explored.

The surprise of “The Incredible Hulk.” Yes, the Hulk was better in “The Avengers.” Yes, Joss Whedon got the characters of Bruce Banner and “The Other Guy” just right. But 2008’s “The Incredible Hulk” had some great moments, including even non-Greenskin moments, especially the scene where Bruce Banner leads a pack of Thunderbolt Ross’ soldiers on a chase through the slums of a South American city. It was a very “Bourne” sequence and had little in the way of typical superhero effects. But it sure was cool. “Ant-Man” has the potential to surprise us like that.

The heart of “Captain America.” We will be lucky indeed if the “Cap” sequel or any of the other Phase Two movies have the old-fashioned heart of Joe Johnston’s original. Cap’s story could have been corny. But this “kid from Brooklyn” was heart-warming and endearing and exciting at the same time.

The spectacle of “The Avengers.” It had never been done, but Joss Whedon did it. He made a movie about a bunch of super-powered heroes that didn’t feel crowded or outlandish but had more than its share of large-scale scenes and epic battles. We need that in Phase 2. Imagine how wowed we could feel when we see The Falcon take flight in the “Cap” sequel.

The feel of “there’s a greater universe out there” of all the Phase One movies. It’s not just about loading the movies with guest stars and recurring characters. It’s implying – with greater or lesser degrees of subtlety – that there’s a bigger story lurking just around the corner from what’s happening on screen. Remember wondering how SHIELD played into all these stories? Who the heck that guy Thanos was at the end of “Avengers?” If we’re lucky, Phase Two will leave us wondering and wanting more.