Mock Squid Soup: Ant-Man

MOCK! and The Armchair Squid are proud to welcome you to Mock Squid Soup: A Film Society, meetings on the second Friday of each month.  Last week, society members posted three clues as to their chosen film for the month.  Today is the big reveal.  A reminder on my clues:

- The hero is played by an accomplished comedic actor.  In his first big role, he played a borderline-incestuous love interest in a Jane Austen adaptation.

- The female lead is played by an actress who first came to prominence when her character was stranded on a tropical island.

- The actor who portrayed the villain was also a sleazy politician in a popular streaming series.

Title: Ant-Man
Director: Peyton Reed
Original Release: 2015
My Overall Rating: 4 stars out of 5

via Marvel Cinematic Universe Wiki

Over the past several months, I've been playing catch up with superhero movies.  In advance of our going to see Captain America: Civil War, Mock lent me a couple of DVDs to watch in preparation: Avengers: Age of Ultron and Ant-Man.  Of the two, Ant-Man was my favorite: a self-contained story with clearly drawn, well-acted characters.

Ant-Man made his first comic book appearance in 1962.  Scientist Hank Pym discovered a serum that allowed him to shrink to insect size.  As we join his story in the film, Pym (Michael Douglas) has fallen out of favor with his own company.  His former protégé Darren Cross (Corey Stoll) is the new man in charge and he's out to replicate Pym's technology.  Pym is worried, justifiably as we learn, that Cross's motivations are less than noble.

Pym needs a new guy to wear the Ant-Man suit.  Enter Scott Lang (Paul Rudd), an expert cat burglar with his heart in the right place.  Hank and his daughter Hope (Evangeline Lilly) convince Lang to join the cause.

Obviously, the movie plays a lot with the idea of scale.  For instance, there's a great chase scene on a toy train set - not quite as awesome as the one in Wallace and Gromit's The Wrong Trousers but still pretty cool.  I also enjoyed Lang's training, especially as he was learning about the different species of ants and how to work with them.  Apparently Rudd bought a huge ant farm in preparation for the role.

Rudd's natural comedic instincts also brings something new to the genre.  The humor doesn't feel campy at all with him.  It's also not so much humor that the story feels like a spoof.  It's a nice balance.

Getting back to my clues...

- The hero is played by an accomplished comedic actor.  In his first big role, he played a borderline-incestuous love interest in a Jane Austen adaptation.

Rudd's breakthrough came in the movie Clueless, adapted from Jane Austen's Emma.  

- The female lead is played by an actress who first came to prominence when her character was stranded on a tropical island.

Evangeline Lilly played Kate in the ABC series Lost.   Full disclosure: I disliked Lost intensely, the character of Kate especially.  But to Lilly's credit, she has shown surprising dynamism in her roles since, including this one.

- The actor who portrayed the villain was also a sleazy politician in a popular streaming series. 

Corey Stoll played Representative Peter Russo in Netflix's House of Cards.
 
Next meeting is Friday, July 8th.  I'll post July's blog list tomorrow.  For July, pick another society member's choice from our ever increasing library to review.  Today, please visit my fellow cinephiles, listed below: