Non-spoiler review
I went into this feeling fairly hyped with high expectations with the growing buzz. I liked what I was hearing about the movie, and was prepared for good things.
Now this won't apply for everyone, but it does me. As much as it pained me, I think going in, some of the TV spots definitely spoiled too many of those action/effects laden set pieces I'd grown accustomed to seeing in various segments and iterations. Going in blind would have had me staring A LOT more in wonder at some of these creative and very original looking concepts that we get to see frequently once Rudd's Scott Lang finally dons his suit. Frankly, a lot of those major scenes we have seen more than enough of. But it doesn't take away from them being quite an achievement visually and creatively all the same.
Peyton was certainly correct in his interviews; there are visuals we've never seen done before ever in this movie and for that alone you have to give props to Marvel for trying something different with this.
As to the tone, I went in expecting to have a few more belly laughs than I did actually, almost like an out and out comedy based on how Peyton himself has described things. For me, I laughed at fewer points than I did Guardians, but AGAIN, some of the TV spots and preview footage spoiled some of those laughs and I wonder whether an unspoiled viewing might have affected that. For me it felt more along the lines of Iron Man as in action packed with some humorous overtones scattered through. The obvious comedy coming from Michael Pena's character. So I wouldn't go in anticipating an out and out comedy necessarily, more an action movie with humour scattered with a few lighter moments, largely as a by-product of Pená's little quips and jibes.
The cast performances were uniformly good to great especially Michael Douglas who played things mostly straight. Likewise Evangeline's Hope was played with some charm, which grew as she got more comfortable with the idea of Scott Lang and his own set of skills. Rudd was also playing fairly straight, I didn't find as much comic relief from him as I might have expected given some of the buzz, however a few great scenes did highlight his comic chops. For me though this was more an expression of Rudd playing serious. Like his scenes with his daughter, or reminiscing his daughter. There is a scene between her and Michael Douglas that was very emotional, and then offset with some comedy which I felt worked nicely.
In all I found it quite a fun ride, it seemed to service what it was setting out for. The now much-hyped cameo scene was great, there was a lot more to it than I had anticipated. Again, it would have been nice to have been more surprised.
I saw the 3D showing, and although there were spots where this obviously worked well, I don't believe you need to see this in 3D, at least not in the same way I would recommend Guardians. For me, Guardians has become a benchmark for good use of the 3D, and I think Ant-Man is serviceable but 2D would be just fine here.
7/10 is about right for the movie, I went in with high expectations, so this is a pretty good score I think. I largely agree with it's current aggregated percentage standing on RT.
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