Storyboards: Ant-Man (not quite a review)

So on the 15th I went to an advanced screening of Ant-Man. My expectations were low, not because of the turmoil during production, but because the last few Marvel films have left me cold, unimpressed and unfulfilled. However Ant-Man is the first Marvel film I've enjoyed since the first Avengers film.

* NO SPOILERS AHEAD *

Ant-Man starts a little weak with a flash back, and when I say weak it's because of some awful CGI (Just don't stare at Michael Douglas' face!), but as the film continues into Present Day it gathers into a more steady pace of character and arch development, and maguffin establishment. Paul Rudd was surprisingly convincing and didn't try to carry all of the humour in the film, in fact Michael Pena's character Luis provides most of the big laughs. The villain of the piece, Darren Cross, is played by Corey Stoll, who is thankfully sporting his natural baldness (That wig he has to wear in The Strain is TERRIBLE) and Evangeline Lilly (Hope van Dyne) and Michael Douglas (Hank Pym) round off the main cast.

The film is littered with Marvel universe in jokes, my favourite of which was when Scott Lang (Rudd) first dons the Ant-Man suit and gets sucked up by a Kirby vacuum cleaner.

All in all, it's a great film and does well to not get mired in establishing future Marvel films, which has proven to be the ruin of EVERY Marvel sequel to date, and can be viewed as a standalone without having to watch Phase One and Two first.

And being a Marvel film, the credits and post credits are littered with mouse watering (episodic) snippets, so remember to watch until the end of the credits.

Optimum viewing order:

Captain America: The First Avenger

Thor

Captain America: Winter Soldier

Guardians of the Galaxy

Avengers: Age of Ultron