Movie: Ant-Man (2015)

All the spoilers all the time.  You have been warned!

My Thoughts While Watching:

Well, crap – I did not post this properly yesterday. So, this is actually Marvel Monday on a Tuesday because of that screw up!  Apologies!

LOVE the starter song!

Baskin Robins don’t play!

I like the idea that sometimes heroes don’t have a pristine origins story.  Sometimes they rise from their situations to become better.  I would like to think that maybe this perspective gives Scott Lang a different perspective when chasing the bad guys.  Probably not though.

“We are all doing this for reasons much greater than any of us.”

The Thomas the Train scene is just genius as is Michael Pena retelling any story.

Subatomic Cassie sounds like Poltergeist!!

And my up-to-date MCU ranking:

• Guardians of the Galaxy
• Ant-Man
• Iron Man
• The Avengers
• Captain America: First Avenger
• Captain America: Winter Soldier
• Iron Man 3
• Avengers: Age of Ultron
• Thor: The Dark World
• Thor 1
• Iron Man 2
• Hulk

Some Interviews and Extra Video:

IMDB Synopsis: Armed with a super-suit with the astonishing ability to shrink in scale but increase in strength, cat burglar Scott Lang must embrace his inner hero and help his mentor, Dr. Hank Pym, plan and pull off a heist that will save the world.

Starring:

	Paul Rudd	…	Scott Lang / Ant-Man
	Michael Douglas	…	Dr. Hank Pym
	Evangeline Lilly	…	Hope van Dyne
	Corey Stoll	…	Darren Cross / Yellowjacket
	Bobby Cannavale	…	Paxton
	Anthony Mackie	…	Sam Wilson / Falcon
	Judy Greer	…	Maggie Lang
	Abby Ryder Fortson	…	Cassie Lang
	Michael Peña	…	Luis
	David Dastmalchian	…	Kurt
	T.I.	…	Dave (as Tip ‘T.I.’ Harris)
	Wood Harris	…	Gale
	Hayley Atwell	…	Peggy Carter
	John Slattery	…	Howard Stark

Director: Peyton Reed

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My ranking scores –

0-19 Levels of: Ugh

20-39 Levels of: Meh (aka I cannot reach the remote)

40-59 Levels of: I don’t hate it?

60-85 Levels of: That was solid.

86-100 Levels of: I Loved It!

I rank this movie a 98!

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Trailer:

Additional Movie Info:

It received a Rotten Tomatoes rating of 83% Fresh.  It received a Rotten Tomato audience rating of 86% liking it.  Average Rating: 4.01/5 with a number of User Ratings: 166,134.

Specs:  Release date: 17 July 2015 (USA) / Runtime: 117 minutes / Budget: $130M

IMDB Trivia:

• At first, the film was meant to focus on the original Ant-Man, Hank Pym. However, Pym developed several personalities, one of whom abused his girlfriend, and producers decided he was not family friendly. Instead, the focus shifted to Scott Lang, with Pym as a mentor and supporting character.
• When Paul Rudd told his nine-year-old son he was going to be Ant-Man, his son said, “Wow, I can’t wait to see how stupid that’ll be.”
• Michael Douglas explained why he took the role of Hank Pym, saying, “And most importantly, I did it for my children. They’re so excited. I’ve finally got a picture that they are so excited about. Dad is cool. You have to understand, for most of my career, I’ve done so many R-rated pictures. They can never see any of my movies. Just recently, at 14 and 12, they’re becoming more aware of some of the things that I’ve done. So, this is a lot of fun.”
• (at around 11 mins) Darren Cross jokes that the concept of a shrinking human sounds like a “tale to astonish.” Ant-Man made his debut in the comic “Tales to Astonish” #27 (Jan. 1962). Darren Cross shrinks a chair as part of a demonstration; this was taken from the same comic, where the first thing Hank Pym shrank was a chair.
• The ants were specifically designed to be less grisly and friendlier than in real life: -The ants were generally influenced by Saharan silver ants: they possess longer legs, can use their front legs as arms and possess a fur coat that makes them look shinier and armored. -Their movements were slowed down to make them feel like noble beasts. -The bullet ants were influenced by Ray Winstone; they were made to look heavier and their hairs were made thicker to resemble horns. -The crazy ants were influenced by puppies, to act playful and peppy.
• A sequence was filmed where Pym and Lang discuss the Ant-Man name. Lines from this exchange include “Lame, I know,” “Iron Man was taken,” and “Is it too late to change the name?” (Interestingly, Pym did adopt other monikers in the comics, including Ant-Man, Giant-Man, Goliath, Yellowjacket and Wasp.) These lines were featured in trailers and TV spots, but not the finished film.
• The house used for Hank’s residence was also used as Halliwell Manor in Charmed (1998).
• During a fight inside a bag between Cross and Lang while both are minimized, Cross shouts: “I’m gonna disintegrate you!”, and the Siri AI in an iPhone device inside the same bag understands this as a command to play the album “Disintegration” by The Cure, and proceeds to play the album’s first track, “Plainsong”. The album came out in 1989, the same year as the movie’s opening scene. “Lullaby”, another song on the same album, mentions a “spiderman”.
• According to Peyton Reed when it came to using Thomas the Tank Engine during the battle sequence on Cassie’s train set, there were certain stipulations when it came to showing the character. Reed and the team met with the rights holders of Thomas and had to make a presentation. The owners stipulated that Thomas couldn’t be depicted as doing anything evil, had to remain neutral and no character could be tied to a train track that Thomas was going to be on, as the owners were very protective. Reed was happy with using Thomas as it helped add to the personality of the film, and that the owners found the use of Thomas funny in the film.
• (at around 1h 45 mins) Ant-Man is the first film in the Marvel Cinematic Universe to feature a reference to Spider-Man, the rights to whom were recently obtained by Marvel Studios. During Luis’s flashback with his cousin near the end of the film, the reporter says that there is “a guy that can jump, a guy that can swing, and a guy that can climb on walls.”
• (at around 43 mins) Hank Pym mentions that not wearing a proper helmet might unbalance the brain’s chemicals (which is what sent Cross insane). In the comics, Hank Pym actually did suffer from mental disorders (though their cause is unknown).
• Another ending was filmed that is closure-related. In it Scott Lang tracks down and confronts Mitchell, who knew that Carson took the Pym Particles sample during the confrontation at the lab. It was filmed as a measure of ambiguity in the event it was needed. The producers eventually decided to leave it out as a future plot point in either of another tie-in or in the sequel.
• The climax, when Scott shrinks to sub-atomic levels and enters the quantum realm, is a tribute to the Disneyland attraction, Adventure Thru Inner Space. Open from 1967 through 1985, the attraction shrunk guests as they got smaller till they became the size of an atom. Hank warns Scott by saying, “It means that you would enter a reality where all concepts of time and space become irrelevant as you shrink for all eternity.” This same quote is repeated when Scott is in the quantum realm, though it echoes, similar to the Paul Frees quote from the attraction, “They will be our only source of contact once you have passed beyond the limits of normal Mag-ni-fi-ca-tion”
• (at around 50 mins) Hank Pym tells Hope that her mother (Janet Van Dyne) died in a plane crash, and Hope says she wishes he would stop telling that lie. Evangeline Lilly, who portrays Hope Van Dyne (aka Hope Pym) also portrayed Kate Austen in Lost (2004) – where she and the other main characters miraculously appeared to have survived a plane crash.