It's Marvel Monday and we're shrinking down to size!
ABOUT ANT-MAN
Armed with a super-suit with the astonishing ability to shrink in scale but increase in strength, cat burglar Scott Lang must embrace his inner hero and help his mentor, Dr. Hank Pym, pull off a plan that will save the world.
AIR DATE & NETWORK FOR ANT-MAN
July 17, 2015 | Theatrical Release
CAST & CREW OF ANT-MAN
Director: Peyton Reed
Writers: Edgar Wright, Joe Cornish, Adam McKay
Cast:
- Paul Rudd as Scott Lang/Ant-Man
- Michael Douglas as Dr. Hank Pym
- Corey Stoll as Darren Cross/Yellowjacket
- Evangeline Lilly as Hope van Dyne
BRAN'S MOVIE SYNOPSIS
Back in 1989, Hank Pym is working with S.H.I.E.L.D. until he finds out they’re trying to copy his shrinking technology, and he’s like, “Absolutely not, y’all are way too shady for tiny science.” So he quits and decides nobody gets the shrink suit on his watch.
Fast forward to the present and Hank’s life is not going great. His daughter Hope is mad at him, his former protégé Darren Cross has basically stolen his company, and Cross is this close to making his own terrifying murder-shrinking suit called Yellowjacket. Hank sees this and is like, “Cool, this is really bad” and does not sign off on it but Darren doesn't care.
Meanwhile, we meet Scott Lang, a lovable ex-con whose main personality trait is that he’s trying really hard. He gets out of prison, moves in with his buddy Luis, and wants to be a good dad to his daughter Cassie. Unfortunately, society has decided once you’ve gone to jail you’re only allowed to work at Baskin-Robbins for like six minutes before getting fired. He tries to visit Cassie, but his ex Maggie and her cop fiancé Paxton are like, “Maybe pay child support before doing surprise pop-ins, my guy.”
So naturally, Scott does what any struggling dad trying to get his life together would do: he agrees to do one more burglary.
His buddy Luis tells him about this rich old dude’s house with a big safe, so Scott breaks in, cracks the safe, and finds… a weird leather motorcycle suit. Not cash. Not jewels. He takes it home, puts it on, and immediately shrinks down to bug-size and nearly dies in a bathtub and getting stomped on at a party, all while some voice talks to him in his mask.
Terrified, Scott decides to return the suit, but on his way out he gets arrested. cuz thief. But surprise! The whole thing was a setup by Hank Pym, who wanted to see if Scott had the skills to become the new Ant-Man. He tells Scott that if he wants to help and also get out of the jail, to put back on the suit. It works and he shrinks again and sneaks out..
Hank recruits Scott to help steal the Yellowjacket tech before Darren Cross can sell it to evil people, which, spoiler alert, he absolutely plans to do. So now Scott enters the classic superhero training montage portion of the movie where he learns hand-to-hand combat, how to use the suit, and most importantly, how to command ants like some kind of tiny bug king.
Hope, meanwhile, is clearly way more qualified for all of this and would obviously be better at the job, but Hank refuses to let her do it because he’s still deeply traumatized over what happened to her mother Janet. We learn Janet was the original Wasp and got lost in the Quantum Realm years ago while stopping a missile, which is both sad and also the most comic-book sentence imaginable.
To prep for the big heist, Scott needs a special device, which means he has to sneak into Avengers headquarters. This leads to a random but delightful side quest where he fights Sam Wilson, aka Falcon, and somehow wins mostly by being annoying and tiny. It’s one of those MCU moments where the movie just casually reminds you, “Oh right, this all technically connects.”
Then it’s time for the big finale. Darren Cross unveils the Yellowjacket at Pym Technologies during a fancy event, and Scott and the crew break in to stop the sale. Luis and the gang somehow become essential parts of the mission despite being, at best, wildly underqualified. Scott sneaks in with a whole army of ants, plants explosives, and tries to steal the suit.
But Cross is ready for them because of course he is, and he captures Scott, Hank, and Hope. He reveals he’s planning to sell the tech to Hydra, because if there’s one thing Hydra loves, it’s tiny fascism. Things go sideways fast, but Scott and Hope fight back, the building starts collapsing, and Hank gets shot because apparently old men in Marvel are legally required to get wounded in the third act.
Scott chases Cross, who puts on the Yellowjacket suit and becomes a full-on flying nightmare. Their final battle somehow goes from high-tech corporate warfare to a fight in Cassie’s bedroom, which is honestly one of the best visual gags in the whole movie. Trains are crashing, Thomas the Tank Engine is involved, and to Cassie it probably just looks like two dads having a nervous breakdown.
When Cross takes Cassie hostage, Scott has no choice but to do the one thing Hank warned him never to do: override the regulator and shrink beyond human comprehension into the Quantum Realm. Which sounds fake, but in this movie is very real and extremely stressful. Scott manages to sabotage Yellowjacket from the inside, Cross gets absolutely obliterated, and somehow Scott finds his way back from the Quantum Realm because apparently he’s just built different.
After saving literally everyone, Scott finally gets a win. Paxton decides maybe this guy isn’t so bad after all and helps keep him out of prison. Hank realizes that if Scott could survive the Quantum Realm, maybe Janet could still be alive. Hope gets teased with her own Wasp suit, which everyone in the audience immediately wanted to see instead, and Luis pops back in at the end to say Falcon is looking for Scott because once you do one weird tiny mission, suddenly the Avengers are texting.
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