Ant-Man (2015)

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Mr. Oragahn
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Ant-Man (2015)

Post by Mr. Oragahn » Sun Feb 07, 2016 11:32 pm

So, what's your opinion on this movie?
First time I heard of it, I was more than skeptic. It sounded like the worst idea ever, another random superhero where you pick something odd and you just tack Man behind and there you go, generic character.
However, watching the movie introduced me to one of the coolest and quirkiest characters in ages.
Of all Marvel movies, it's probably one of the best I've seen thus far. For starters, this one does have humour. It's not always spot on, you may not like the Mexican's act, but it kinda grew on me. That's also because the main spade of jokes contains nuts of gold and manages to be fine dosed when needed. The garden dwarf one in some vaguely erotic pose would have had me spill soda all over the floor if I had any at that moment. Obviously, the very notion of changing the point of reference from "normal everyday" to supersmall does provide lots of potential if handled properly, as it was achieved with mastery in Honey, I Shrunk the Kids movie (which, for the reminder, did not rely on an abundance of CGI); but this time, one can shrink and grow at will and this opens a new field of possibilities. I don't care, really, if the physics fly through the window, the science doesn't matter, the fun is there. Add a pinch of good exchanges too between Scott, Hank and Hope and the deal is sealed. It also follows the traditional recipe of superhero movies wherein the villain dons the evil-tech-suit, yet doesn't try to be too smart about it although it is straight forward and certainly not forced at all. Thing is, it makes sense. Well at least it feels more natural than in Iron Man and its often suit-assisted antagonists who are barely legitimate, which also became old hat around two thirds of the first opus, the entire series owing it all to Tony Stark's wits before you get dragged through boring battles of me-too robosuits.
This time, we do get suit vs suit, but it works. For one, you have a guy in an antiquated suit who must count on the help of a variety of ants plus shrink-discs and grow-discs he's got to put to good (and funny) use, against a typical evil who's got a better (and very cool looking) suit with armour, jetpack, plus two mechanical arms that can shoot very powerful LAZORZ (they really do blow a lot of stuff up, especially when the two guys go small).
Finally, for all its lightheartedness, this rather honest movie manages to afford itself an Interstellar-like level of serious-in-tone and quite sad contemplation about the very fabric of life and... it flows, it works fantastically. It's simple and beautiful within a short span of time.
If I had four thumbs they'd all be up.

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Re: Ant-Man (2015)

Post by Sideswipe » Mon Feb 08, 2016 2:03 am

I liked this movie a lot more than I was expecting to, even though once again the villain sucks. Why does the MCU have such terrible villains? The movie has a lot of heart though and the little girl playing Scott's daughter was terribly adorable.

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Re: Ant-Man (2015)

Post by Mr. Oragahn » Mon Feb 08, 2016 11:14 pm

That's really one of the MCU's main problems. All villains exist only for one movie. That alone wouldn't be such a problem since most movies follow the same rule, but the MCU wastes a fantastic opportunity here. Disney-Marvel are literally creating a web of related movies, yet they cannot give us several recurring enemies? That's because they'd think it would be repetitive, boring and perhaps hard to write?
That's why people go look for shows then. You cannot get a Wilson Fisk wrapped within a two hours movie.
At least some villains suck but they make sense, and others just are... ? That being said, for a movie like Ant-Man, I don't think a troubled, sadistic, sardonic or Joker-like villain would have been a good choice. It had to remain simple enough regarding the overall tone. You'll notice that it's quite a family movie and no one really dies. When PYM tech's CEO Darren Cross shoots that guy in the toilets, it's done with the shrink gun that turns stuff into goo. It becomes a funny moment in fact, wiping of the floor and flush included. :)
So where, or when can there be a solid bad guy? Citing the earlier example of Fisk, grimdark Daredevil sets a different tone but feels completely at odds with the MCU; it would be far more natural alongside Batman Vs. Superman (Zod in that movie was a good villain imho, at least sufficient for the movie's scope considering that we're dealing with the superhero genre here).
Or you move to CA: Winter Soldier's Bucky. But he's not exactly that much of a villain, more like a henchman, a tool on the verge of becoming gray, then good perhaps. Villains in comics tend to be farcical, perhaps a tad fruity. Which in turn pretty much dooms the MCU into being a forgettable set of pop-corn flicks.
It's quite interesting that when we're looking for a cornerstone of good recurring villainy, we turn towards Star Wars and the figure of Vader. Not too stupid (the movies took themselves seriously), but not grimdark either. Perhaps, more recently, Lord of the Rings. No, not Sauron, but his tool, the ring itself. It is the corruption, it's the ticking bomb, it pushes reluctant heroes to their limits. It keeps Sauron's essence close to them in some kind of twisted game where the closer they'll get to their objective, the worse it will be for all of them and especially the bearer.
I think that writing a good movie featuring a villain requires that you love your villain more than your hero. If the villain is simple, the hero's overall quest isn't exactly a challenge to figure out. But if the villain is complicated and multifaceted, or so close to the hero that the later gets altered by the former, then the hero cannot claim perfection either, as difficult choices will have to be made.
On the other hand, MCU's baddies simply are walking clichés. They're average, all we ask is for them not to be downright retarded and pathetic *GotG*.

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Re: Ant-Man (2015)

Post by Sideswipe » Tue Feb 09, 2016 2:09 am

They made a mistake killing off Obediah Stane in Iron Man. He could have easily have been a dark Tony Stark and Jeff Bridges is talented enough to make him menacing and threatening. They totally wasted an opportunity for phase which would have been Stane rounding up his own band of super villains. How cool would it have been instead of Ultron we got the MCU version of the Dark Avengers led by Stane?

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Re: Ant-Man (2015)

Post by Mr. Oragahn » Tue Feb 09, 2016 9:25 pm

And then how would that have gone with Hydra? Would have Stane allowed himself be assimilated into the organization, or would have been a competitor too (preferable from a writing point of view)?
But going over the wasted (and exciting) possibilities is self inflicted torture.

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Re: Ant-Man (2015)

Post by Sideswipe » Tue Feb 09, 2016 9:45 pm

He could have been Hydra all along or have nothing to do with them. Part of the excitement of phase one was that it was building up to something, I never got that with phase two. It would have been cool to have.

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Re: Ant-Man (2015)

Post by mojo » Wed Feb 10, 2016 3:47 pm

i was less than thrilled by ant-man. not that it was a bad movie, i just understood what it COULD HAVE BEEN.

http://comicvine.gamespot.com/eric-ogrady/4005-6774/

ant-man was a fantastic, fantastic source of very weird humor in the comic book 'the thunderbolts', which was basically marvel's suicide squad. bad guys get to work for the government in hopes of getting time off their prison sentences. this was a pretty serious comic, and one i loved SO MUCH. ant-man brought the laughs x1000.

Image
Image
Image

not the easiest character to use as a source of humor, since the original ant-man is mostly known for this:

Image

that would be hank pym beating holy hell out of his wife, the wasp. he was so well known for this act that the character, when reimagined for the ultimate universe, just couldn't help himself, apparently..

Image

..and took it up to eleven by spraying her with raid and then sending an army of ants to mess her up. because she 'made him feel small'.

the movie itself wasn't bad, although i find it impossible to take the character seriously, because in the comic, there's none of this bs about ant-man possessing the full physical strength of his normal form while shrunk to ant size. this makes no sense, and seems ridiculously dangerous to me. hitting a person with a full force punch and having all that force impacting an area the size of the head of a pin HAS to do serious damage. not to mention the fact his whole body would probably follow his fist into whoever he hits, leaving him stranded in living meat. his defense wouldn't be great, either, since a normal human could easily kill him completely by accident.

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Re: Ant-Man (2015)

Post by Moff Tarquin » Thu Feb 11, 2016 1:07 am

mojo wrote: the movie itself wasn't bad, although i find it impossible to take the character seriously, because in the comic, there's none of this bs about ant-man possessing the full physical strength of his normal form while shrunk to ant size. this makes no sense, and seems ridiculously dangerous to me. hitting a person with a full force punch and having all that force impacting an area the size of the head of a pin HAS to do serious damage. not to mention the fact his whole body would probably follow his fist into whoever he hits, leaving him stranded in living meat. his defense wouldn't be great, either, since a normal human could easily kill him completely by accident.
Actually, if his mass remained the same through the transformation (probably the most reasonable way to make him keep his full-size strength), he would be ludicrously dense. Like, "Instead-of-having-bullets-leave-holes-in-me-I-leave-holes-in-bullets" dense. So, while he'd be ludicrously durable, he also wouldn't be able to ride ants or any of that stuff. He'd also be almost completely immobile, because the ludicrous pressures applied by his feet to the ground would just dig through. Anything he tried to touch, he'd just pierce through. Crazy stuff.

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Re: Ant-Man (2015)

Post by mojo » Fri Feb 12, 2016 12:02 pm

no way. this is a physics problem. there's only so dense a living thing can be before it is destroyed by it's own weight and mass. if he retained his full body mass, also, he'd be 180 pounds while ant-size and sink straight into the ground the second he was off concrete.. but maybe you said that already. i'm less than coherent. my point is this - ant-man is a really stupid superhero. and paul rudd is awesome. and it was fucking stupid that they used yellowjacket as the enemy. because yellowjacket is just the name hank pym uses when he isn't being ant-man.

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Re: Ant-Man (2015)

Post by mojo » Fri Feb 12, 2016 12:05 pm


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Re: Ant-Man (2015)

Post by Mr. Oragahn » Sun Feb 14, 2016 11:27 pm

Mojo, that's some good stuff. I lol'd. :)
Of course, coming from there... that's always the problem with some adaptations. We pulled a Disney on it.
mojo wrote: the movie itself wasn't bad, although i find it impossible to take the character seriously, because in the comic, there's none of this bs about ant-man possessing the full physical strength of his normal form while shrunk to ant size. this makes no sense, and seems ridiculously dangerous to me. hitting a person with a full force punch and having all that force impacting an area the size of the head of a pin HAS to do serious damage. not to mention the fact his whole body would probably follow his fist into whoever he hits, leaving him stranded in living meat. his defense wouldn't be great, either, since a normal human could easily kill him completely by accident.
Absolutely. That's immediately what I thought when seeing the old pictures of that so called anti-commie propaganda. He'd simply be a mini-bullet, more like a railgun's pellet on steroids. While he could be make flea-like jumps for sure, the whole super punch bs couldn't work. Still, with no background on Ant-Man and with this problem literally blown out of my mind god knows why or how, I found this movie one of the most enjoyable ones next to Winter Soldier and perhaps Thor 2 (because it looked better, darker, had neat looking elves and because a clearly well done Loki character).

Although all the pervy things could have been handled without showing much boobage if the producers had wanted to. But they had something else in mind.
Anyways, this one says it all. Well, maybe in his next appearance?

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