Trailer Park: Our First Full-Sized Look at Ant-Man

In which I discuss the latest movie trailers.

As I already mentioned yesterday, with Age of Ultron well in-hand, it's Ant-Man's turn for a Marvel-branded marketing push.  And after introducing us to Yellowjacket, and teasing us along with a months old teaser trailer, we finally have our first full-length trailer for the movie.  Check it out here:

While the first trailer was fine and all, the overwhelming consensus on it was that it was far too generic.  It was advertising itself as another fatalistic-sounding, "all hope riding on one man" narrative in a world where there's clearly more than just some broken down con in a super suit to call upon in dire straits.  It didn't help anything that Paul Rudd is a pretty samey-looking, generically handsome leading man.

The thing is, though, that that was the teaser trailer.  All it was meant to do was to get our attention with a first abbreviated look into the movie.  And regardless of its uniqueness, it did exactly what it set out to do.  Ant-Man's costume is probably the coolest bit of cinematic hardware since the Iron Man suit, the shrinking effects are extremely convincing and him riding off into battle on a flying Ant was absurdly awesome.

For everything that the first trailer did "wrong," the full-length version does right.  Michael Douglas doesn't proselytize from on high about how Paul Rudd was fatalistically destined to become the Ant-Man.  Instead, he's a socially conscious scientist in desperate need of a thief.  Paul Rudd just happens to be the right scum bag in the right place at the right time.

We also get more of a plot to go along with our technical sequences.  Yes, we see more shrinking, more ant-based powers and even a little bit of combat, but we also get to the nuts and bolts of what's going on.  It appears that Hank Pym, fearful of the implications of wide-spread superpowers, enlists good-natured thief Scott Lang to steal the technology in question, which in turn brings down the wrath of Darren Cross (Yellowjacket).

The trailer also confirms that Ant-Man's going to be an action-comedy along the lines of Iron Man and Guardians of the Galaxy.  Not only do we see more digs into the stupidity of the name Ant-Man, but we also see some of the gag potential of pint-sized heroes and villains.  The trailer's most memorable sequence features a battle between Ant-Man and Yellowjacket in a little girl's room.  The two fight epically atop the train before Yellowjacket is caught on the tracks and run over by it.

I really do think that this is a movie that's going to sneak up on people.  The franchise's lower profile outside of the comic world, its sheltered position behind Age of Ultron and the absolute potential to own its silly premise is going to take a lot of people by surprise.  If this new trailer is any indication of what we can expect from the movie, I'm on board with it.

So what are you hoping to see in Ant-Man?  Share your thoughts in the comment section below.

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