ANT-MAN

Speaking of performances, Rudd and Douglas are good, but not mind-blowing. As mentioned above, their motivations are clear cut, and there’s very little nuance to their characters. Rudd flexes his comedic muscles and does so very well. Lilly is a little more interesting, but isn’t given as much scope to really play the character as she should be. If you stay for the post-credits scene, you may get a clue as to an increase in that scope.

The writing is pretty darn good, with snappy dialogue, genuine laugh-out-loud moments, and some excellent one-liners. Artfully woven into the main story are rather a lot of Marvel tie-ins, including appearances by Peggy Carter (Hayley Atwell), and Howard Stark (interestingly played by his ‘Iron Man 2’ alter ego, John Slattery). If you’re not a Marvel Universe fan, you’re going to miss a lot of these references, including mentions of Hydra and SHIELD. Like ‘Avengers: Age of Ultron’ this film is aimed squarely at the fans, but unlike that film, you’re still going to enjoy it without being up-to-date on the other instalments. You won’t get that little fan thrill of seeing more pieces of the puzzle fall in to place - but really, what’s that matter? There’re plenty of pop culture asides to satisfy comic book virgins, and apart from that, it’s simply good entertainment.

This is a Marvel heist film, and really, melding those two genres had to be a winner. This works by playing into those heist film tropes of montages and voice overs, while adding the right amount of modern and comic book spice. There are more than a few familiar elements that put us in mind of the first Iron Man film, and who didn’t love that? The effects are good, the soundtrack is good, and the 3D is good, without being distracting. Sensing a theme there? Yeah, this film is pretty good. The only thing that stops it from being great is that it's a tad predictable, and doesn’t quite have that special something that some of the other Marvel films have had.