I’m gonna be honest here, RedheadedGirl and I did not have high hopes for Ant-Man. Really? Another movie about a white dude? With ants? Even the trailers did not inspire us to enthusiasm. But, we are the minions of Marvel. We had better just admit it. If Marvel has a movie, we will see it, and surprise – we both kind of liked it!  Ant-Man’s biggest problem isn’t that it’s bad; it’s that the other Marvel movies are so damn good that it’s a little tepid by comparison.

SPOILERS BELOW.

Ant-Man is a the tale of Scott, played by Paul Rudd, who just got out of prison for a heroic hacking crime. He’s trying to go straight so that he can be reunited with his daughter, Cassie. But inventor Hank Pym, played by Michael Douglas, pulls him in for one last job. Hank needs Scott to help him and Hank’s daughter, Hope (Evangeline Lilly) to “break into a place and steal some shit” before it falls into evil hands. Luckily, Scott will have the help of the Ant Man suit, which allows him to become very, very small, and the help of a whole lot of ants.

Here are our thoughts:

RHG: So that was better than expected. I mean, expectations were so low that the only way to not meet them would be for Paul Rudd to come out, pee on something and that would be the entire movie, WITH NO POST-CREDITS SCENE. So… the bar was low, shall we say.

CarrieS: I agree – it wasn’t anything ground-breaking, but it was fun, especially that last third of the movie when things really kicked into gear. Honestly its biggest problem is that it’s a very standard origin story that follows all the standard beats, and that gets old. Training montage, learning to use the tech montage, bonding as a team…we’ve see that stuff, so it was perfectly OK but just tired. On the other hand I did love it that the movie turns out to be two origin stories when we thought we were following one.

RHG: I liked the origin-story-as-a-heist-movie. I LOVE HEIST MOVIES. And Paul Rudd is very charming. Everyone was having a lot of fun, and that’s always nice. I think the movie knew it was ridiculous (because really, it is a ridiculous superpower), and that allowed the tone to be a lot lighter. It was fun to watch.

CarrieS: One thing I admire about Marvel is the way they use sub-genres to present different stories and characters – so Captain America was a war movie, but Winter Soldier was a spy political thriller which made Captain America a fish-out-of water in a more subtle and interesting way than relying on jokes about how he doesn’t get pop culture. Using the heist movie format was clever because it sets up so many ways to use the ants and use the suit – and the hardest thing the movie has to sell is that being really small is a cool superpower. But of course it’s cool if you have to infiltrate a building and they did a great job with that.

I was NOT looking forward to two hours of ants because although I respect them scientifically I fucking hate ants.  HATE THEM. But I thought the ants were the best part – the way different species could do different things and the way Scott built rapport with them.

Some of the action sequences were sheer genius – the miniature city, the carpet forest – whoever came up with the Thomas the Tank Engine of Doom deserves a huge pay bonus. THOSE EYES. So much fun!

RHG: Oh, yeah, they played with the size thing really well. And Ant-ony! Scott wanting to name the ants was adorable. (“Do you know how many ants there are?”)

I was also prepared by the Marvel fandom to be completely pissed about the sexism issues- Janet being either not addressed or purely fridged just for Hank’s emotional journey (and I want to discuss that later), three named women, one of which never interacts with the others, and it seeming like Hank didn’t want Hope to have the suit because sexism, was exhausting. Sure, some of it subverted by the end, but still.  BUT STILL.

What did you think of Hope?

CarrieS: Actually I ended up not very pissed off. I am completely baffled by all the dudes in the movie, and THAT pisses me off. Why couldn’t one of Scott’s friends have been a woman? Why couldn’t some of the workers at Pym Industries, or some of the villains be female?  Even if they didn’t have any lines?  Where are all the women in this universe?  Also, what the hell happened to Judy Greer?  How did she suddenly become The Useless Mom in fucking everything?

Ah, but you asked about Hope. First of all, I was happy that they at least acknowledged that Janet was a founding member of the Avengers, and I suspect her story might not be done with. Secondly, I liked it that Hope’s competence was never in question. We, the audience, knew why she wasn’t wearing the suit long before Scott spelled it out for her, and it wasn’t related to her having lady bits. Then the stinger and the fact that Lilly has a multi-movie contract made me think that all along I was watched her origin story in addition to Scott’s and that made me happy.

This summer Mad Max Fury Road set a high bar for representation of women, and Jurassic World set a low bar. This movie was in the middle. If Lilly continues to be sidelines and the promise of the stinger is not fulfilled, then I’ll be really angry.

RHG: This has been a really good summer for women in movies so far (and still not parity, but I’ll take what strides I can get) with Mad Max, Spy, Pitch Perfect 2, Magic Mike XXL, and from all accounts Trainwreck. So, yeah, we got Peggy being the HBIC, but I want more.

It was pretty clear that they were setting up a possible return of Janet with the “well she’s not dead she’s just quantum” so I wonder: does this still count as a fridging? I think people have started throwing that term around a bit more liberally than is still warranted, and Janet’s seeming death was a result of her own choices and not because somebody decided she needed to die. So…. I don’t know, I’m reluctant to be in a world where we say “no tragic backstories with any unfortunate implications,” because what I want is a world where there are a myriad of options for characters of all genders, orientations, races, economic positions, etc. All those people deserve to have stories told, not just as Tragic Backstory.

CarrieS: Absolutely – and I feel like in this film, I personally won’t know how I feel about Hope in particular and possibly Janet until we have a few more films under our belt. There’s a promise implied in the movie that Hope will take a more prominent action role – and they’ve already established that of the group she’s the most generally competent in terms of life skills, business savvy, planning, fighting, and using a suit. If they don’t fill that promise, then she’ll be just another female character relegated to sidekick and DAMN that will piss me off.

I really don’t want a romance between her and Scott. Of course she checked out his abs, because heeyyyy abs, but other than that I felt like they had no romantic chemistry but did have a nice friendship vibe. Let them be buddies.

RHG: I have never actually seen Lilly have romantic chemistry with anyone.

CarrieS: WORD. I love Lilly with all my heart but please, please don’t make her try to have romance on screen. It’s not her gift.

RHG: I also really appreciated how they wove this narrative into the larger Marvel universe. From “Everything has gone to shit, what should we do?” “Call the Avengers.” “They’re busy, what’s your plan b?” to seeing Scott using his new fighting skills (which were super representative of how Hope taught him to fight, and you know how I like consistency in fight choreography) AGAINST THE FALCON WHICH I DID NOT KNOW WAS GOING TO BE IN THIS MOVIE and seeing our beloved Peggy again, that was well done.

Also Michael Peña’s exposition style was delightful. I know there are some people who have chosen to be annoyed by it but it worked.

CarrieS: Yeah, I loved the call-backs and the fighting moves (the look on Hope’s face when Scott does the leg trick was priceless). Also Peña’s exposition style was pretty much the way everyone in my family talks. We talk slower, but we ave our hands around more, and the content is the same.

I loved it that the movie had a lot of characters of color, whether in major roles (Bobby Cannavale, Michael Peña) and smaller ones (the upper-class black family with the pool and the bug zapper). I was uncomfortable about the fact that the minority characters were more apt to be broad comic relief, but they weren’t one-dimensional comic relief. Peña’s character likes fine art and wine, and he’s really good at what he does. Overall, it felt like a world that isn’t magically all white, and I loved that even if I was a little worried that some of the minority characters might be portrayed as clowns instead of well-rounded people.  Speaking of making a character well-rounded instead of just goofy, when Peña went back to save that guy he had knocked out my heart grew three sizes. I loved that. It said so much about the character and about Marvel’s devotion to the ideal of reducing collateral damage.

BTW, if you want to take kids, you should know that some animals die, there’s mild cursing (damn, shit, hell – no f-bombs), and comic-book style violence. My tween daughter adored it.

RHG: YES it was Marvel’s most diverse movie yet. It’s still not great, but it’s better. I know Marvel can be better, but that’s sort of Marvel’s operating theory- we can be better than we are.

(Also Batman Vs. Superman trailer, I see you and your “dozens killed” in the total and utter destruction of Metropolis. Bullshit, I say. BULL. SHIT. Marvel owns your ass in being concerned about collateral damage and always will.)  (I have feelings, sorry).

I feel like had this been a stand-alone movie, and not in the MCU, I would put it as a solid B. Not high art, but enjoyable. Put against the rest of the MCU, it’s about a C+ish.

CarrieS: I agree.

It was a pleasant place-holder between the rather heavy Age of Ultron and what will probably be a very heavy Civil War. It didn’t break any new ground, but it was a fun way to pass a couple of hours and the final action scenes were brilliant.  Love the “messed up dog” and its fate!  Also love the fact that the movie subverted the idea that the step-dad is a jerk, and made it clear that part of Scott’s maturing had to involve appreciating how much that guy had done and continued to do for Cassie (Scott’s kid). I think we could call it a B- as a way to come up with one grade, but against other Marvel it’s a C+.
There are two post-credits scenes. Stay until the very end of the credits!

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Ant-Man is in theatres now, and you can find tickets (US) at Fandango and Moviefone.