“Ant-Man” is a straightforward film about a guy who can shrink to the size of an ant and control his insect brethren. The concept is so half-baked one hopes it might signal the end of the long fever for movies based on Marvel comics.
Of all the film’s expensive special effects, none is more dramatic than the flashback to 1989, when advanced editing technology unwrinkles Michael Douglas’s face.
He plays Dr. Hank Pym, the inventor of the suit and serum that can shrivel humans until they’re eye-to-mandible with ants.
For whatever reason, Pym recruits the hapless cat burglar Scott Lang (Paul Rudd) to inhabit his chic black and red insect wear. Regardless of the veracity of the statement, “Oh wow, he looks JUST LIKE he did in ‘Clueless’ 20 years ago,” Rudd’s (presumably non-CGI-retouched) visage is not a viable endorsement of the Ant-Man role or his performance.
Pym needs Lang because he’s been strong-armed out of his life’s work by baddie Darren Cross (Corey Stoll), the kind of guy who turns innocent white lambs into bloody snot rockets as he ruthlessly perfects his own lucrative shrinking technology.
Evangeline Lilly is Pym’s daughter Hope, who’s caught between Cross and Lang, in a role sort of like Ingrid Bergman’s in “Notorious,” if “Notorious” were unrelenting claptrap directed by Peyton Reed instead of Alfred Hitchcock.
“Ant-Man” dialogue ranges from thudding in-jokes about “Avengers: the Age of Ultron” to eye-glazing puns (“We still haven’t worked out all the bugs!”) to boilerplate evocations of what’s-my-motivation: “Everyone deserves a shot a redemption.” Rudd tries to cut the heaviest moments with antic eyebrow raising but the Marvel universe is too deadly earnest for him to leaven it.
At a certain point, Dr. Pym makes it known that, when you’re already at ant size, there is the option to shrink even smaller, until you’re subatomic.
That’s quite appealing, the idea that you can shrink smaller than an electron and turn this bloated, thoughtless film into nothing more than a vast light show.
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“Ant-Man” is showing at the Sonoma 9 Cinemas. Rated PG-13. Running time 1:57. Visit www.cinemawest.com.
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