Anghus Houvouras is getting deja vu from Marvel’s Ant-Man…
Like many of you, I watched the trailer for Marvel’s Ant-Man this week. I’ve been curious about the film every since Edgar Wright was first attached to the property. And I’ve been morbidly curious ever since he departed and was replaced by Peyton Reed. Because who didn’t watch Down With Love and think ‘I want to see what this guy would do with a superhero’?
In all seriousness, the Ant-Man trailer felt… familiar. Plot points and themes cribbed from other Marvel movies. It felt a lot like I was watching Iron Man 2.0, and here’s why.
1. The sarcastic, well meaning hero not living up to his potential
We’ve seen this before. Iron Man excelled because it gave us a likable, authority challenging protagonist who was reluctant to assume the role of a hero. Eventually he learns that he has a responsibility to try and make things right. The Ant-Man trailer gave us a heaping helping of the same succulent story. Now we get Scott Lang; the less tech-savvy version of Stark. Quick with a quip and someone who doesn’t believe himself to be a hero fro the onset. Take away the billions, the technical genius, and the goatee and you have the lo-fi Tony Stark in the form of Scott Lang.
2. We invented this amazing technology… Now we must stop anyone else from having it
This is something that has appeared WAY too often in Marvel movies. Tony Stark duplicates the ARC reactor technology from his father into a portable unit that fuels his Iron Man armor. The military wants a crack at, but the hero (or heroes) decide that they are the only ones responsible enough to wield this power. For Hulk, it was more of a curse than a blessing. The Incredible Hulk marketed the concept in their trailer with Banner yelling “If we lose this we’ll never get it back”. Iron Man’s choice to not let the Government use his tech was a major plot point of Iron Man 2. The Amazing Spider-Man had Peter Parker’s father willing to die to protect all the awesome technology he developed at Oscorp. Now we have Hank Pym (Michael Douglas) who has created amazing technology that, SURPRISE, needs to be stolen so that no one gets their hands on it.
Hell, even Batman ripped this gimmick off in the Dark Knight Rises. Remember the all clean fusion reactor that had to be hidden from the public so no one every turned it into a bomb that leveled Gotham. Until someone did that very thing.
Being a genius in the world of superheroes must be difficult. You spend your life creating awesome technology and then immediately regret your decision spending the rest of your life as a paranoid recluse debating the morality of your choices.
3. The villain is just the hero in a different suit
Iron Man vs. Iron Monger in Iron Man. Iron Man vs. Whiplash in a giant suit of armor in Iron Man 2. Iron Man was the laziest film when it comes to villains. Ant-Man gives us a hero with a super powered shrinking suit, and a villain with… the exact same powers with the exception of lasers. Because Marvel superhero movies are required to have villains that are the exact same as the hero. The aforementioned Iron Monger example. Abomination from Incredible Hulk. Even Captain America uses the same basic principles. In the First Avenger, Red Skull is the product of the first round of imperfect Super Soldier serum. The Winter Soldier sees him facing down his old partner Bucky Barnes with a similar set of powers and skills. Ant-Man continues this trend.
4. Anyone else getting a real ‘Pepper Potts’ vibe from Evangeline Lilly?
She’s got a little more bite than Pepper did in the first film, but the tempo and the dance steps feel the same.
The finished film will answer a lot of these questions, but there isn’t a lot in Ant-Man that feels fresh. This feels like Marvel looking to replace some of it’s existing franchises with similar version of the same character type.
Am I the only one seeing the similarities?
You can read our preview of Ant-Man in the first issue of the Flickering Myth Magazine…
Anghus Houvouras is a North Carolina based writer and filmmaker. His latest work, the novel My Career Suicide Note, is available from Amazon. Follow him on Twitter.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pnc360pUDRI&list=PL18yMRIfoszFLSgML6ddazw180SXMvMz5&feature=player_embedded
Originally published April 15, 2015. Updated November 29, 2022.
