Although our official Ant-Man review won’t be out until later this week (written by my husband Will who is our resident Marvel expert), I thought it would be fun to put together a list of seven things you need to know about the movie in advance of it coming out Friday. I liked it so much, I have already seen it twice (once with my husband and once with my three boys) and attended the star-studded press conference to learn more about how the film was made.
1. Ant-Man is a bit different from other Marvel films in that it is a heist movie at its core. According to Peyton Reed, the film’s director, “It’s always been a heist movie, that’s part of the DNA of the movie. When Paul (Rudd) and Adam McKay were working on the rewrites, that was one of the things we looked at, is like how can we bolster sort of the heist language in terms of the way we shoot and write the movie.”
2
. Now I know what you are thinking: “Paul Rudd is an super hero and helped write the movie? He’s a funny guy, but…” Yes. Paul Rudd is a funny guy and he is also a fantatic actor and great writer. His acting in the movie GREAT and the movie Ant-Man has a level of funny and fun that I feel most of the comic book movies miss out on. Some may try to be funny, but it often comes off “campy” or silly. That is just not the case with this movie. It is spot on in blending funny, fun and action. The funniest role in the film is reserved for actor Michael Pena. He is hilarious–perhaps one of the best parts of the whole movie.
3. There are Avengers references and it is more than just words. In the comics, Ant-Man is one of the founding members of the Avengers and while things may be a little out of order in that regard, die-hard Avengers fans will love what they see in the movie.
4. Filmmakers were dedicated to get the shrinking of Ant-Man just right. They went back and watched notable movies with shrinking elements from the past to see what worked and (more importantly) what didn’t. “There’s a long cinematic history of shrinking: Incredible Shrinking Man, Incredible Shrinking Woman, Honey, I Shrunk the Kids, of course, Honey, I Shrunk the Audience at Disney…,” says Reed. “We were making what would be the definitive shrinking movie of 2015 and the drum I kept banging was it’s got to look photorealistic. We can’t have a movie where when you’re in the normal world, it’s realistic and when you go down it feels like an animated movie. When you see dust particles floating around, how does the light play? I’m really, really happy with where we ended up because, in a movie like Ant-Man, it’s got to look real. And that applied to the ants, too. That was really one of the challenges is creating ants that looked photoreal.”
5. The movie is being shown in both 3D and good-old standard 2D. I have seen it in both and while the 3D is nice, I don’t think it is worth the extra money. You will have a really fun experience without the glasses–which can be such a pain when you are with kids.
6. Of all of the Marvel movies, I think this one is the most “kid friendly” of them all. There are a couple of moments in which I covered my youngest son’s eyes (keep an eye out for the bathroom scene at Pym and the first scene with the lamb). Most of the adult humor went right over my kids’ heads. It also resonates more as a movie parents can take kids to because in addition to being a heist movie, it is a movie about family and how complex families and being a family can be.
7. If you are a super Marvel nerd, you MUST stay through the end for TWO extra scenes that you will LOVE. And when I say through the end, I mean through the end of ALL of the credits. You will not be disappointed.
Our full review of this super fun summer film will be out on Friday, so be sure to come back to the blog to read what my Marvel-loving husband has to say about the movie!
