Movie review: ‘Ant-Man’

Ant-Man could have ended up seeming more like Can’t Man.

Originally, Edgar Wright — the British mind behind the cult favorites Shaun of the Dead, Hot Fuzz and Scott Pilgrim vs. the World — was to direct this latest installment in the ever-expanding Marvel universe. But his vision for the micro superhero, honed over nearly a decade of trying to get it onto the screen, apparently was too “quirky” for Marvel and he bailed, leaving the studio to bring in Peyton Reed, whose résumé includes the less well-regarded The Break-Up and Bring It On.

Considering all these off-camera shenanigans, Ant-Man — about a man who shrinks to the size of an ant to fight evil — doesn’t completely come up short. As it dutifully marches toward its special-effects-driven conclusion, Ant-Man has enough charm to be engaging if not particularly memorable once the end credits roll — and, yes, you should stay through them for the usual Marvel promo.

For now, though, superhero fans should just be thankful that it’s no Green Lantern.

Part of Ant-Man’s appeal is the always affable, suburban-guy-next-door Rudd, who’s following in the footsteps of Robert Downey Jr., Mark Ruffalo and Chris Pratt in the unlikely-superhero department.

Rudd acquits himself well as Scott Lang, an ex-con with strong tech skills (he got sent up for burglary) who can’t find a job now that he’s back on the outside. Lang needs one so his ex-wife (Judy Greer), and her new cop boyfriend (Bobby Cannavale), will allow him to see his daughter.

But job prospects aren’t good and when his old running buddy (a funny Michael Peña) and his two friends (T.I., David Dastmalchian) hatch a plan to sneak into a mansion with a huge safe that must have something valuable in it, Lang volunteers as the one to execute the break-in.

He doesn’t know the house belongs to a reclusive, millionaire scientist, Dr. Hank Pym (Michael Douglas), who has perfected the process of shrinking living matter but kept it away from the ambitious, power-hungry guy running his company now, Darren Cross (the ever-reliable character actor Corey Stoll). Along with his daughter, Hope (Evangeline Lilly), Pym wants to take back his company.

So when Lang stumbles upon the suit in the safe and puts it on for the first time, he finds himself in the middle of the Pym powerplay and his plans to take down Cross, who’s also working on miniaturizing people, before Cross can take over the world.

The best parts of Ant-Man are when Lang is initially plunged into his mini-universe, where swirling drains, roaring vacuum cleaners and spinning club turntables become giant machines of death. During the finale, when Ant-Man and a downsized bad guy are going mano a mano on a toy train track, it’s a lot of fun.

There are also some clever pop-culture touches (a nice shoutout to the Cure), and the Avengers’ Falcon (Anthony Mackie) even makes an appearance.

Still, Wright’s film probably would have been the better one, perhaps a cheekily subversive wrench in the unstoppable Marvel machine as opposed to just a mildly entertaining cog.

But, considering the even more dire alternatives, Ant-Man is pretty good. And that’s no small feat.

This story was originally published July 15, 2015 at 1:50 PM with the headline "Movie review: ‘Ant-Man’."