Ant-Man Yellowjacket

[The_Manhunter]

imho, i just don't think there's enough time to introduce the hereos and devote time to the villian too. that's why i think netflix is the true arena for comic book to video adaptations. fisk was done beautifully.

The movie wasn't even 2 hours long though.

 

[The_Manhunter]

I don't think he was weak. Yellowjacket was way more fleshed out than those villains you mentioned.

Darren Cross motivation is clear and is shown to be incredibly ruthless.

Spoiler

His goal is to get revenge on Hank and prove he is superior to him.

The character adopted Ultron's relationship with Hank Pym from the comics

Darren Cross is a surrogate son to Hank but Hank has pushed him away to keep his Ant-Man technology from him. Hank also lied to Darren for years saying the technology was just a rumour. Cross felt betrayed and abandoned so forced Hank out of his company. Cross has been taking Hank's technology and improving it as he believes he is better than Hank but is really just bitter.

He is selling the Yellowjacket suit. By having the Ant-Man suit there is no competition for his suit. Cross says this in the movie.

Cross keeps the Pym Particles because the suits need them to work. If he controls the supply of Pym particles he controls the people using his suits. It is leverage and makes him powerful. This is said in the film.

Cross wants to kill Hank because he has been made crazy from to much Pym particle exposure, because Hank is trying to stop him and because of his surrogate daddy issue with Hank.

Spoiler

Wow, great catch with the Ultron analogy. I never thought of that.

 

[Mike Murdock]

I loved him but I think we can stay away from the militaristic industrialist trope for a little while.

They probably will. But they used it for the characters that make most sense - inventor superheroes (Stark and Pym). You aren't going to see it for Thor, for example.

 

[AnneFan]

The movie wasn't even 2 hours long though.

I think the length of the movie was perfect.

 

[chamber-music]

I think Cross had plenty of screentime. He was in the movie far more than I expected.

As I said before his relationship with Hank was similar to Ultron's in the comics. Perhaps he could of used a flashback to his younger days with Hank but on the whole you understood the history of their relationship and his abandonment issues with Hank.

 

[Mysteryman]

When Cross spoke using the Yellowjacket helmet,
Was I the only one who thought he looked like Ultron?

 

[Godzillasaurus]

Would've desired that the Yellowjacket character itself got more screentime, and not at the very end of the film. But he is definitely one of my favorite MCU villains thus far, and is certainly the coolest-looking

 

[The_Manhunter]

I think the length of the movie was perfect.

I do too, but in general Marvel's movies could use a little more screen time IMO.

 

[Lencho01]

I thought the character was ok, but he was definitely missing something to make him more memorable outside of his cool suit. Still enjoyed him more than most of the other recent villains, though.

 

[Mysteryman]

I think the length of the movie was perfect.

So did the director

I saw an interview where Peyton Reed said that he wanted the movie to be under 2 hours

 

[The_Manhunter]

So did the director

I saw an interview where Peyton Reed said that he wanted the movie to be under 2 hours

I feel like I am not getting my full money's worth if the movie dips too far under 2 hours though. I'd rather see a 3-3.5 hour movie than a 1.5-2 hr movie.

 

[Webfoot Hero]

I feel like I am not getting my full money's worth if the movie dips too far under 2 hours though. I'd rather see a 3-3.5 hour movie than a 1.5-2 hr movie.

But I don't think a movie like this lends itself to a longer run like that. Reed wanted it under 2 hours so the movie had a nice pace and no excess storylines dragging it down. I think he accomplished that even though it meant not getting the villain completely fleshed out.

 

[The_Manhunter]

But I don't think a movie like this lends itself to a longer run like that. Reed wanted it under 2 hours so the movie had a nice pace and no excess storylines dragging it down. I think he accomplished that even though it meant not getting the villain completely fleshed out.

It's really just a matter of personal taste I suppose

 

[MichaelChen]

It's more complicated than that. I think this explanation is a bit of an exaggeration. I don't believe it's true by any stretch of the imagination that Marvel doesn't "care" about their villains. If they didn't care, they wouldn't consistently go out of their way to find top talented actors to portray them. Also, they wouldn't work so hard on the villains' costume designs, which are almost always excellent.

No, the problem comes from the limited screentime the villains tend to get. Marvel has obviously made a conscious decision that they want to develop their protagonists first and foremost, and as a result, the filmmakers end up investing the lion's share of time, energy and resources into giving the heroes top-notch portrayals. In almost every MCU film, there's no doubt that the heroes are the undisputed stars of their movies. The drawback, of course, is that there's a limited amount of time and resources left to develop the villain characters.

So it's less a matter of "not caring" and more a matter of priorities. Marvel obviously has made the protagonists their first priority. Consequently, only so much time remains for the villains. In this movie, Darren Cross has some very good scenes, but his screentime is fairly limited, so we only get to learn the bare bones about his character. The film obviously wants us to learn about Scott, Hank, and Hope first and foremost.

This pattern shows up in most MCU movies. To be clear, I'm definitely not someone who thinks that all non-Loki MCU villains suck. I think that's a gross exaggeration and distortion. For the most part, I think most MCU villains have interesting, enjoyable things about them (Malekith was the one I felt got neglected the most). It's just that there's not often enough time to develop them to their full potential, given Marvel's chosen priorities. In the future, if they want their villains to have deeper characterization, they should either give the villains more screentime or give them more character-driven scenes.

I think part of it is simply that Marvel doesn't have full access to it's most iconic heroes like Spider-Man. There's no one with the built-in empathy that, say, Batman brings to the table. A Batman movie can be mostly about Joker because Batman is so iconic you can downplay him a bit. Same with Spider-Man; you can make his movie heavily about Doctor Octopus and he's fine.

But everyone else, the movie has to be heavily devoted to developing the hero, because they've got little iconic status to fall back on. So that's what Marvel does, and as you say this leaves little room for the villain to be more than a cardboard-cut-out.

 

[coluanprime]

I actually enjoyed Cross. He was a little Stane 2.0 but I thought he came across as genuinely scary and psychopathic.

 

[kedrell]

During the first 2/3 of the movie he wasn't really impressing me all that much. He was headed for a spot in the lower half of MCU villains that were adequate but nothing spectacular. But he really excelled in the last 1/3 of the movie and now I'd definitely rank him with the upper half of MCU villains. Not Kingpin/Loki/Ultron/Stane level but better ultimately than Ronan last year. I get more out of a guy being willing to threaten a little girl to get at the hero than yet another would-be world conqueror. His defeat was very satisfying.

 

[CaptainWagner]

Cross was definitly in the higher class of Marvel villains. I wish they would have developed him a bit more and was very disapointed that they [BLACKOUT]killed him off.[/BLACKOUT]

 

[Saitou Hajime]

I loved Cross. He had good motivations which got across just fine, and his supervillain guise had a killer look and powers. And he's exceptionally dickish even amongst the best Marvel villains; loved him trolling Hank every chance he got, and the scene where he murders that one dissenter and casually flushes his remains down the toiler was arguably the most blooded act I've seen a Marvel villain do.

 

[kevork89]

Full respect to people who liked him. I'm on the other side. I wasn't a fan of Cross. Corey was great. But for me I needed a lot more fleshing out. I can get his issues with Hank and everything. But it wasn't enough for me.

Spoilers so don't look if you haven't seen it.

Spoiler

He has money, power and he's smart. He's capable of a lot. I'm glad it wasn't some lame villain trying to destroy the world or anything like that. I just didn't get his motivation to sell the suits to Hydra. He could've easily talked to Stark who would be interested. And that would've pissed off Hank too who didn't want Stark to get his hand on anything. For me it wasn't enough to make him a good villain. I'll admit him killing that guy and flushing him was messed and he threatened the life of a little girl which was quite a villainous thing. You could say the exposure drove him mad. But it didn't feel like there was enough of a transformation. He was just a dick. Being a a*hole for whatever isn't enough of a reason. Tony is an a*hole but he doesn't go around killing people or selling suits to bad guys. All I'm saying is Cross had nothing to gain. He had money and power. We didn't get his intentions. He was annoyed with Hank doesn't seem like enough of a reason to try and kill the guy. That's my main issue and why I felt that he fell flat as a villain. He was a psycho though. I'll say that.

 

[Eros]

I loved Cross. He had good motivations which got across just fine, and his supervillain guise had a killer look and powers. And he's exceptionally dickish even amongst the best Marvel villains; loved him trolling Hank every chance he got, and the scene where he murders that one dissenter and casually flushes his remains down the toiler was arguably the most blooded act I've seen a Marvel villain do.

go watch Daredevil dude on netflix Kingpin/Fisk has that scene beat. Anyway Cross was your standard marvel movie villain, part Stane part Ultron bit of Loki thrown in. Never really explored why he was so cold blooded, and it cant just be cause Hank Lied to him, standard villians, which like most marvel movie villains save for Loki he got killed off.

 

[TheSpectacular]

I get more out of a guy being willing to threaten a little girl to get at the hero than yet another would-be world conqueror. His defeat was very satisfying.

This.

I think Cross is definitely one of the MCU's better villains. Especially with only one film. Everyone has Loki as the best MCU villain, but he's had development over multiple films. Same can be said for Hydra villains. He's a lot like Stane, who I would also say is a better MCU villain.

Also, I think it's possible that

Spoiler

Cross isn't dead. When Lamg destroyed his Pym particle supply, we saw him shrinking disproportionately. Is it possible that this also caused him to go sub-atomic?

 

[Saitou Hajime]

Spoiler

He has money, power and he's smart. He's capable of a lot. I'm glad it wasn't some lame villain trying to destroy the world or anything like that. I just didn't get his motivation to sell the suits to Hydra. He could've easily talked to Stark who would be interested. And that would've pissed off Hank too who didn't want Stark to get his hand on anything. For me it wasn't enough to make him a good villain. I'll admit him killing that guy and flushing him was messed and he threatened the life of a little girl which was quite a villainous thing. You could say the exposure drove him mad. But it didn't feel like there was enough of a transformation. He was just a dick. Being a a*hole for whatever isn't enough of a reason. Tony is an a*hole but he doesn't go around killing people or selling suits to bad guys. All I'm saying is Cross had nothing to gain. He had money and power. We didn't get his intentions. He was annoyed with Hank doesn't seem like enough of a reason to try and kill the guy. That's my main issue and why I felt that he fell flat as a villain. He was a psycho though. I'll say that.

Spoiler

Cross sold his goods to Hydra because he knew they would do bad things with it, people doing bad things with his technology or derivatives of it would hurt Hank a lot, and Cross got off on hurting Hank. Which is also the reason why he never sold to Stark or any other good guy. As some other posters, he was basically Ultron.

 

[AnneFan]

So did the director

I saw an interview where Peyton Reed said that he wanted the movie to be under 2 hours

That's good. I left the movie thinking if this is the only Ant Man solo film, they managed to cover quite a lot.

 

[Gr0oT]

It's really just a matter of personal taste I suppose

I think it be more a matter of balancing quality and quantity.
I love the movie and would have loved to be immersed in it for another hour but not at the cost of diminishing quality.

Forcing an hour more into the movie would probably had stunk it up in the same way that making cuts hurt AoU and T:TDW.

 

[terry78]

I figured part of it was, but I just found out the entire suit was CG. Pretty impressive.