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Ant-Man
How do you sell ice to an Eskimo? You’ve got a person who
lives in a cold climate, surrounded by snow and ice and never has a shortage of
it. He can use it to build his house and re-apply the ice and snow when he
needs to. Then you come on the scene trying to sell him something he doesn’t
need to buy – how do you sell it to him? You convince him what you have to
offer is better and that he would be missing out by not buying your ice. I
imagine this scenario was what the creators of Marvel’s latest addition
“Ant-Man” felt like when they decided to try and sell this lesser known and
somewhat miniscule hero from their comic book back-catalogue. But Marvel being
Marvel, are masters of marketing and know how to pull an audience in – because
they know their audience extremely well, and have them in the palm of their
hand. Yes, if you enjoy Marvel’s movies, you are not in control of what movies
you will see in any given year; you will watch whatever movie Marvel
throw at you because you are that Eskimo and Marvel is the Ice Salesman who can
give you a smaller version of what you’ve already got plenty of, and cleverly
persuade you to buy their product because you might just kick yourself if you
let them leave, never knowing how that ice could have been. It’s that clever
approach they use which makes every Marvel movie a multi-million dollar hit. In
particular, how they will sell Ant-Man to the world upon its worldwide release
this week.
From the moment it was announced sometime last year that
Ant-Man would be making it to the big screen, movie goers were curious and even
concerned. The Avengers had firmly established themselves, with each character
having their own movie and then coming together to score 2012’s biggest hit, so
it seemed the formula had been set and no additional heroes were needed. But
Marvel, perhaps starting to get a little too confident in their craft, brought
us “Guardians of the Galaxy” in 2014, which raised some eyebrows upon its
announcement but turned out to be surprisingly better than most expected.
Clever marketing or clever storytelling? Maybe both. Then the first teaser
trailer for Ant-Man went on line at the start of this year, and it seemed
Marvel had taken a big risk. Here you had a movie about a superhero called
Ant-Man – What The? A guy who could shrink and use insects to fight his
battles. How could such a small scale story and scenario compare to the likes
of Iron Man and Thor; a guy the size of a bug on the Avengers playing field.
Hmmm… Like its predecessor Iron Man was when first released in 2008, Ant-Man
was surely going to be the Gamble Movie of 2015; either it would be good to
great and do well, or a complete flop.
Well I got to see it today, and once again Marvel has done a
good job. With their dominance of the movies for the past seven years, the
movie studio giant has developed a winning, and smart, formula. It goes
something like this;
- Pick a superhero from your vast array of comic books, in particular one that would be seen as almost impossible to adapt to the big screen
- Cast an Actor that is familiar to audiences (or a relative unknown) and give them a role that will show a whole new side to their acting ability and launch or revive their career
- Make the story about them but link it in to every other Marvel movie that has yet to be made, all leading up to the Avengers over-arching storyline
Ant-Man follows this winning formula to a tee, but also
throws in a few extra elements to the mix. For starters, Ant-Man is surely
Marvels most audacious and experimental movie to date, as it takes a step back
in size and scope to tell a smaller story on a smaller stage. Secondly, it
takes the ever-recognisable and always-reliable Paul Rudd, who entered the
movie scene over 20 years ago with “Clueless”, followed by a run on the hit
show “Friends” as Phoebe’s well-to-do boyfriend, and followed this with a
string of romantic comedies and more recently becoming the King of the Bromance
film with “I Love You, Man”. Never anyone’s first guess to be a superhero, but
Marvel have their reasons and chose him for the role of Scott Lang. With his
likeable demeanour, Rudd has good looks and charm but isn’t your typical movie
star; instead of distancing you because he seems above us lesser mortals, you
can relate to him, and he connects with you in a way that feels familiar,
like he could be a good mate of yours. He plays the Everyman character
perfectly well, and in the case of a Marvel movie, most of their superheros
have that Everyman quality about them. But unlike his counterparts the
Avengers, who either have extreme super powers, cool weapons and years of
fighting experience, Scott Lang is just a small-time crook, who gets chosen by
Dr Hank Pym (Michael Douglas) to pull of a special heist.
Movies about the concept of shrinking are few and far
between. Most notably, there was “The Incredible Shrinking” man in the late
1950’s, about a man exposed to a radioactive cloud who gradually shrinks down
over several weeks. Then a clever take on the idea in the late 80’s with
“Innerspace”. This portrayed a pilot put into a small vessel that is shrunk and
destined to enter the body of a rabbit for research purposes. But instead, he
gets injected into a mans butt and takes us inside the human body in amazing
detail. Then my personal favourite and one of the best family movies of all
time, “Honey, I Shrunk the Kids”. Crazy inventor Wayne Szalinksi invents a
shrinking machine, accidentally shrinks his son and daughter and the two kids
next door, who then get lost in their backyard. With overgrown grass, and the
dangers of bees, sprinlklers and lawnmowers, the kids must make their way back
to the house. Ant-Man takes shrinking people on screen to a whole new level.
With brilliant special effects and clever cinematography, whenever Scott
presses his buttons and quickly zaps down to the size of an ant, we the viewer
are zapped down to that level with him. From the bottom of a bathtub, to inside
a vaccum cleaner and every air vent, duct and water pipe available, Ant-Man
learns to control the amazing power of the suit he’s given and summon legions
of Ants to help him achieve his mission.
The premise is somewhat silly, but Ant-Man is aware of
its own silliness. In saying that, it’s definitely a lighter piece of fare,
fast paced and brisk, running at less than two hours in length. It’s also quite
funny, with witty dialogue and clever jokes along the way, to break some of the
more moody and tense scenes, especially involving the character of Hank Pym who
originally invented the Ant-Man suit and mentors Scott to break into his old
company and stop a crazy CEO from unleashing his shrinking technology onto the
world as a weapon.
Not particularly memorable or even ground-breaking, Ant-Man
is a reliable movie for what it is. The origin story of Scott-turned-Superhero
is brief and cuts to the chase quickly, which is a refreshing change from the
likes of Iron Man and Captain America,
spending the majority of their running time making the hero. At this stage in
Marvels mission, it’s audience are now well-versed on the back-story, with each
previous film building up to each Avengers film (there will be two more back to
back in 2018-2019) so the wheels are spinning and on track to achieve Marvel’s
grand plan. And where does Ant-Man fit into all of this? At first glance, he
doesn’t appear to be cut of the same mustard as Iron Man, Thor, Captain and
Hulk, but his powers are indisputable. Probably having one of the greatest
advantages over all of them, Ant-Man can shrink in size but maintain his
strength and speed, able to take down men with a single punch. If you stay
around during the closing credits of the film, you will be treated with two
small scenes that continue the story of this film, but also tie it in with the
characters we know from The Avengers.
If you want a short, funny, entertaining film with some
solid special effects and decent acting, then Ant-Man will not shrink your
expectations. It’s an enjoyable and crowd-pleasing ride.
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