ANT-MAN: End and Beginning

Ant-Man was indeed the pleasant surprise I was hoping for, if that could be said. When Edgar Wright departed, and Peyton Reed was selected, I felt a bit of trepidation at the thought that the movie would be one big comedy, probably making fun of the name. Needless to say, it wasn’t. Mr. Reed masterfully wove in the intricacies of a heist film, the comedy of Rudd and Reed, and the action sequences we have come to expect from MCU entries. Oh, don’t forget the Easter Eggs. They were there in full blast, in all shapes and sizes.

Another thing this film did exceptionally well was integrating it with the rest of the MCU, without taking away from the quality of the movie. One of my biggest issues with Age of Ultron was that tat it felt more like a Civil War prequel than an Avengers sequel (and we all know how well Prequels go). Ant-Man dutifully sets up plot for Civil War, but it feels key to the Ant-Man story.

Ant-Man marks the first smaller-scale MCU film, and we know that there are plenty more to come. Going in I felt that the future of those properties (Dr. Strange, Jessica Jones etc.) were really riding on this movie. If  people didn’t respond well to a lesser known superhero, I felt those movies would cave, if not in prediction then in the box office for sure. Thankfully, while Ant-Man may mark the end of Phase Two, it is marks the dawn of the Marvel Studios’ new powerhouse genre: the small (non-Avenger) hero.