What you didn't like about Ant-Man - Flaws/Critiques

I wish they would've [BLACKOUT]held onto Darren Cross for an eventual Masters of Evil team.[/BLACKOUT]

 

Lang's training phase in act 2. It was a very generic, seen it a thousand times type deal. I think that section really took it out of it's "unique zone".

 

If there was one point I thought was kind of muddled, it was Scott's starting point. Given all the talk about "redemption", I don't get why they made his initial crime a Robin Hood-type thing where he was just trying to help people. Lang in the comics just became a thief because he wasn't making enough money to support his family, which is also a somewhat sympathetic motivation, but ultimately a self-centered one. It's especially odd given that they have him plot to steal for profit later anyway.

 

- A flashback scene of Hank Pym in action as Ant-Man by himself (although I did like the brief flashback they did show).

-The movie didn't have any major flaws (IMO), only minor ones. 1) We should've seen the Yellowjacket suit in action at least once prior to the finale 2) The step-dad plot was kind of weak

-A bit more of a sense of urgency with the pacing towards the beginning. You can still build character and keep the audience engaged. The humor and interest in the characters kept me from really noticing this but I could see where a average moviegoer could lose interest.

 

My only complaint was that they didn't spend enough time on the Hope/Scott relationship, so when they kiss toward the end it kind of seemed a bit out of left field.

 

I think the dynamic was there to maybe delve into a little later down the road in a sequel (perhaps?). They could have thrown some bits during the training montage but otherwise it was smart to keep the story on Hank/Hope's relationship.

 

I thought the Falcon cameo/fight was a little too goofy and stupid. Other than that, great movie and hopefully in the future we can explore more of the legend of Hank Pym in his prime.

 

I see what you're saying but the way I interpret it was that there was something going on between them but they were trying to hide it from Hank and the audience was looking at it from Hanks point of view the whole time, so you're just as in the dark as Hank was. You gotta realise Ant Man isn't moving in real time so there'll be hours or whole days of interaction we don't see between these characters. I imagine there was intimacy scenes we didn't see. It was something different rather than the cliche love moments you get when a female character is training/working with with a male character. It was obvious there was chemistry.

My only complaint was the shrinking wasn't as surreal as I would've like it. When Scott got used to it, it was like you were watching a little man running around, I kinda wanted to see it from Scott's perspective more rather than a full size human looking at an Ant perspective. Some scenes had this, like the bit where he fell on the DJ Deck and running around trying to avoid chicks high heels. Also in the bathtub. I wanted to feel like I was shrunk down with Scott not looking at him shrunk while I'm full size.

 

I think if(or when really) Hank goes in search of Janet in the atomic realm, Yellowjacket can sneak back into the regular realm with them, that is if you sell Yellowjackets death as a sub-atomic shrink and not something else.

 

Darren Cross, another weak villain that could have been more interesting with better writing.

 

-Darren Cross-He's another generic Marvel villain (which is sad because yet again they cast a great actor and then don't use him to his full potential).

-Hope's attitude got a little grating at times (but not always) Also

Spoiler

She suffers from the "she's probably the most all-around competent character here. But we cannot make her THE lead because....reasons sydrome?

-I also thought that that the Scott/Hope thing wasn't developed enough. MAYBE the idea was that Hank was in the dark about what was actually going on, but the film doesn't tell us that (so it's merely speculation at this point). And if they want to build on it in the sequel, fine. But then don't have them kiss. Make it a thing like Tony/Pepper in IM1 were there's an obvious tease for future films, but no actually physical romance this time around. As it stands, the kiss felt forced and not earned enough to me.

-I'm sorry, but Janet's absence was really noticeable. I still don't see why she couldn't have been in this, what was the point of keeping Hank but not her? The film didn't convince of that either.

 

Hope van Dyne was a Mary Sue.

Janet van Dyne, the real Wasp, was marginalized in favor of Mary Sue Hope.

Darren Cross was a weak villain.

The stakes never felt very high. Scott Lang's stakes in the story were very weak. It's never explained how becoming Ant-Man will keep him out of jail or to help him get money to pay child support to see his kid again. In the comics, he stole the Ant-Man tech out of desperation. His daughter was sick, and she needed an operation from a doctor who was kidnapped. He was doing it out of desperation because of his family. This could have been easily fixed with Hank Pym saying, "I will get your record expunged, or I will get you a job" or something. How does the Ant-Man mission fix his actual problems? Not that he's exactly allowed to broadcast he's a superhero to his ex-wife to fix his problems. It was simply an accident based on what happened.

I didn't care for the humor, IMHO way too much. I know some people probably liked the humor of Lang's crew, but it didn't work for me at all.

 

This. And some of the humor didn't settle with me. Other than that, fantastic film.

 

Overall, there weren't a lot of complaints from me. The movie took a while to take off, but once it got to the second half, it really hit its stride.

I liked Corey Stoll, but Cross was too much of a cookie cutter villain. He reminded me a lot of Obadiah Stane. Regardless, he was still better than the majority of the MCU villains, though that isn't saying much.

Scott's crew got annoying. Michael Pena's character had a few good moments, but most of the jokes fell flat. I was expecting the humor in the movie to be on par with GOTG (though I did love the [BLACKOUT]giant Thomas the Tank Engine gag and Falcon's "It's really important to me that Cap never finds out about this"[/BLACKOUT]).

I also would have liked to see more 60s Ant-Man flashbacks.

 

Spoiler

Does T.I. use an alien rat as a microphone?

 

I needed more Luis

 

^ I wish the other guys stood out nearly as much as Luis did. I think the black guy's name was David, but I can't even remember the other guy's name.

Well, I don't quite think he was just trying to help people. It sounded to me like he was pissed off for being fired after becoming a whistle-blower. The whistle-blowing was heroic, but the followup may not have been.

Anyway, as nice as the heist stuff was, I wish it took up a bit more of the movie than it ultimately did.

 

I guess Cross minus the surrogate daddy issues could be seen as a rehash of Stane from IM1, but I still enjoyed Stoll's performance. He should have been a bit more unique, I'd say. Maybe show more of his mental instability..

 

It's not even just Stane. It's Stane, Justin Hammer, and Aldrich Killian. Basically, Cross was an IM villain in an Ant Man movie.

 

I thought Wright had written an opening Pym-based adventure set in the 1960s, which would've been an opening scene to kick off the movie. I thought the first 20 minutes to half an hour was a little on the slow side. It would've been nice to see Pym in action. Maybe it could've been the adventure where the Wasp was lost.

Also, Wasp should've had a more unique suit in the flashback. It just looked like a female version of the Ant-Man suit.

I think they also showed too many of the action sequences in the trailer. Or maybe there weren't that many others than the ones shown in the trailer, so it felt like I had already seen most of it, even though I had only watched the first trailer and the teaser and avoided the rest.

I also thought Scott was going to ask if it was too late to change the name. That was cut completely. Also, I think they could've just kept it as "break into a place and steal some stuff" like in the trailer, instead of "steal some ****", which I didn't think was really necessary.

 

"Have you noticed that their stuff is **** and your **** is stuff?"

- George Carlin

 

I feel that would have revealed too much. The opening scene did feel like a product of the rewrite and the only thing that didn't quite flow naturally (I felt it was trying to hard to have impact through tying into everything else). But it also succeeded in explaining the stakes of the movie and the motivations of Hank Pym in five minutes.

I was OK with that. It made the technology seem more utilitarian, which I think fit Pym's personality. It also made them seem like a cute couple with their matching outfits. I thought the wings were a great throwback to the past and Wasp and did the job well.

That's not a criticism of the movie, but I tend to agree with that. I knew they weren't going to steal the Yellowjacket suit because it's heavily featured in the commercials. On the other hand, the Thomas the Tank Engine scene in the trailer stole the show, so I can't fault them for that.

I like the expletive version. The other version only exists because they couldn't air the other one on television. I never liked the "too late to change the name" quote and the "I'm Ant-Man, I know, it wasn't my idea" quote so I'm glad they're gone. The trailer seemed to show him saying that to Cross, but either that whole scene is gone or, more probably, he was talking to Falcon.

 

Michael Penã was just fine, I didn't find him annoying, but didn't find his stuff hilarious or anything. I think the humour beats could vary from person to person on that one, but reviews have me believe most people found it funny. I was a little ho-hum with that.

Corey Stoll's character seems to be quite insane right off the bat, with little lead in, i.e. the scene in

Spoiler

the bathroom where he vaporises a guy simply for expressing some concern.

. Surely he hadn't yet tried out the suit successfully? I wanted to see him try out the suit and gradually get crazier. Something felt slightly off with the continuity. In fact, as I understand it, his scenes were moved around a bit anyway.

Tonally I didn't get as many belly laughs out of the movie as I'd been led to believe I might, which in itself isn't necessarily a bad thing, seeing as I enjoy Marvel movies for other things than just humour, but if people are going in expecting an out and out comedy some might be surprised depending on their take on it. For me it was more like an action movie with a few funny beats scattered, which basically made it along the lines of something like Iron Man, for me.

I hate that I am doing this, but Edgar Wright. I like his movies, have been a fan of his style and can't help but wonder what else he would have brought to the table if he'd seen the project through. Would it have been wittier? More zany camera work? More originality? We'll never know, it doesn't exist so I'll just leave it there.

 

I think the villain was a bit generic and maybe the motivation of "oh no the pym particles could be a weapon" is a bit old fashioned. The Internet could be an Internet but you wouldn't jealously withhold it from society because of that.

I mean pym particles could revolutionise surgery and shipping just as two non militaristic examples. The world economy would be so much helped if you could ship entire wardrobes of clothes the size of a pea that can be reenlarged.