Every MCU Origin Story Ranked From Worst To Best

It's impossible to watch the first Ant-Man without considering how much better it might've been with original writer-director Edgar Wright at the helm.

That said, journeyman filmmaker Peyton Reed does a solid job wringing fun out of the film's size-shifting action sequences, aided by one of the strongest ensemble casts of any origin movie.

The likes of Paul Rudd, Michael Douglas, Evangeline Lilly, and Michael Pena are perfectly cast here, and while the particulars of the plot make for a superficially familiar heist movie, the gimmickry inherent to the Ant-Man character ensure it's anything but.

In introducing the Quantum Realm to the MCU Ant-Man is low-key one of its most important movies, and though it doesn't get close to achieving its full potential - wasting Corey Stoll as antagonist Yellowjacket is especially infuriating - it provided some welcome respite between Avengers: Age of Ultron and Captain America: Civil War.