You Say Aunt, I Say Ant

You Say Aunt, I Say Ant

Ant Man  /  directed by Peyton Reed

If only Ant Man’s narrative matched the swift ease with which its title character zaps between insect-tiny and man-size!  This latest emissary from the Marvel borg is something of a slow burn; by my reckoning, it never really gels until its last 20 climactic minutes.  Before then, we’ve got to watch Paul Rudd not only learn how to operate his amazing suit, but also re-connect with his basic charm as an actor; I don’t know if it was the pressure of playing a Mighty Super Hero, even one as silly in concept as Ant Man, but Rudd seems to be rudderless for much of the film — not bad, just oddly generic.  Props must be given to Michael Douglas, who delivers the pseudo-scientific balderdash with which his Dr. Hank Pym is burdened with a Douglasian mix of conviction and faint menace that makes it just barely go down OK.  Still, there was more than one scene among Rudd, Douglas, and Evangeline Lilly where dollars to donuts they had to have been commiserating between takes about how the hell they got stuck saying these silly lines for the silver screen, even if they’re all being paid bajillions of dollars to do so; you can just sense it!

But Ant Man is saved by the mesmerizing surrealism of its shrink-down premise, in which, counterintuitively, the hero gains powers by getting smaller.  Once you put aside the strangely-menacing World War I gas mask appearance of Ant Man (come to think of it, this sort of evokes an exterminator, which is weird, since ants HATE exterminators!) and embrace the trippiness of the scale shifts, not to mention his ability to herd around — by mental waves!!!! — several classes of ants (they fly!  they float!  they stampede like steer!) well, if you can’t enjoy that spectacle a little bit, then, to paraphrase former Texas Governor Rick Perry, you must not have a heart.