Ant-Man Review: 8 Ways It's Better Than Avengers: Age Of Ultron

5. It's Actually Funny

The Avengers was a chucklesome movie, chock full of quips that provided some welcome levity to the superhero genre, while Iron Man 3 was a balls-to-the-wall Shane Black film, with the constant humour you'd expect so dominant it led to one of the most divisive twists of all time. Since then, Marvel movies have, for the most part, embraced being overly funny. And Age Of Ultron marked the point where it was taken too far - it had the same amount of one-liners as the first film, but with an attempted darker tone and tireder writing they just didn't land as well. Ant-Man, on the other hand, is genuinely funny. Given that the script has gone through the hands of Edgar Wright, Joe Cornish, Adam McKay, Paul Rudd and Peyton Reed it's not really much of a surprise that it's got more sustained jokes (one-liners are just a small part of it) than any Marvel movie before, nor that the various tonal shifts they all require are all handled very well. The glass ceiling of ridiculousness is well and truly shattered, with some beats getting proper belly laughs. R Refreshingly, all those ashamed jokes from the trailers about embarrassment with the concept of Ant-Man are absent. In fact, what's particularly exciting is how, going against the norm for both comedies and Marvel movies, most of the best jokes aren't present in the trailer at all, meaning there's plenty to enjoy fresh in the cinema.