Review: You cant talk about Ant-Man without talking about Edgar Wright. Oh, I so wish I could discuss Marvel's latest (the twelfth in their ever-expanding Cinematic Universe) without bringing up the Cornetto Trilogys mastermind, but its simply impossible. The film is simply too indebted to the director who left it near the end of its incredibly long pre-production (for reference, this film has been on the cards since the original Iron Man) to stand on its own. Ant-Man is littered with moments that you just know come from Wright and Joe Cornishs time on the project (Oceans-mocking information reveals and fast cutting montages), but the execution never goes beyond imitation of style. Peyton Reed does an admirable job of mimicking Wright, but thats all hes ever doing; mimicking. Its understandable why the film has gone this route - given its mainstream obscurity, Ant-Man needs to be a distinct property - but theres not enough to sell it. The action is where the imitation becomes so blatant. Ant-Mans signature power is that he can shrink down to a miniature size thanks to some pseudo-tech (he can also control ants, each species of which has a distinct, plot-relevant power, although thats some ridiculousness thatll have to be saved for another time). Thus most of the fight scenes take place on a microscopic level, with Paul Rudds Scott Lang either tackling other tiny beings or using his proportional strength to beat up hired muscle. In both cases, Reed cant quite decide how to shoot this. Sometimes its from Scotts viewpoint (a reverse of the city destruction in last years Godzilla), sometimes looping, quick-zoom wide shots. This is standard action filmmaking at a normal size, but here the choice of lenses mean you never quite get the sense of scale and thus cant really feel like youre along for the ride with Scott, rather a distant spectator. Alongside the cinematography, in these shrunken sequences the film jumps from one perspective to another so frantically that it all feels incredibly disjointed. Wright is a master at editing conception, using whip cuts and pans to give his movie a continuous kineticism. Similar tricks are attempted here, but feel clunky and mechanical. It's almost as if theyre, you know, copying something. Editing isnt a cinematic element you really take full stock of until its done poorly, and here its noticeably lacklustre. Several other Wright-isms that are clearly leftovers from the early drafts of the script are doubled down in this attempt at aping tone. The joke of cutting from miniature action to showing how minimal an impact it has on the real world (something straight out of Hot Fuzz) is repeated over and over, to the point that when the Thomas The Tank Engine moment from the trailer comes around its somewhat spent. I really didnt want to spend so much of the review focusing on an element we could have foretold back in May 2014, but its such an underlying element of the finished product when you scrape away the polish that it simply needs to be highlighted. But, at the same time, what polish it is. Ant-Man may lack a visionary director and boast action that is, for all its uniqueness, derivative, but its still a very fun movie, with some beats that border on great (even if it never quite rises to the top-tier of Marvel projects). Click next for Part 2 of the review.
