‘Ant-Man’ Is Starting To Feel More Like ‘Hulk’ Than ‘Guardians’ [Opinion]
After watching the official Ant-Man trailer, I can honestly say that I am in no way a Marvel fangirl.
I know this because my knee-jerk reaction after failing to be wowed by the nearly two-minute trailer wasn’t to assume that I would be wowed by a later trailer or by the movie itself in July.
Instead, after looking at this first real glimpse of Peyton Reed’s vision of Ant-Man, I shook my head for Edward Wright fans and sighed at what could have been.
Because it feels like whatever it was would have no doubt been better than the Ant-Man that will hit theaters this summer.
And if I were Marvel, I’d be worried right now.
The last thing I should have been reminded of after sitting through the Ant-Man trailer is the Hulk’s first outing.
First Look: Marvel releases teaser for ‘Ant-Man’ movie http://t.co/1g7u2EOEe4 pic.twitter.com/lgDB5m3TH2
— Action News on 6abc (@6abc) January 7, 2015
I’m not talking about the forgivable and underrated sequel The Incredible Hulk starring Edward Norton.
No, I mean Hulk. While that movie wasn’t a complete and total disaster, everyone associated with it would be lying through clenched teeth if its earnings and public reception were anything less than supremely disappointing.
Ant-Man gave me a strong feeling of deja vu, as it also has the vibe of an orphaned movie which shuffled from director to director and script to script. All those years of writing and rewrites resulted in a needlessly “dark” and “gritty” concept that inadequately fit the character and concept.
It doesn’t help that for the Ant-Man trailer, Marvel lazily strung together generic action scenes with a bit of CGI that hardly sells Ant-Man as a hero that anyone wants or needs.
This is so unfortunate when you stop to consider how many unimpressed non-comic book fans have NO CLUE just how amazing Ant-Man’s abilities really are.
Did you see how Ant-Man totally beat the crap out of those two guys despite being too small for them to see him?
Wasn’t that way more impressive than Ant-Man riding a wasp in an impromptu tribute to FernGully: The Last Rainforest?
Whoever is responsible for this “teaser” trailer” really should go and watch both the Avengers: Age of Ultron and Guardians of the Galaxy teaser trailers.
Please watch them until you realize how wronged Ant-Man fans must feel are after viewing an underwhelming and rather generic looking preview.
The Ant-Man teaser simply wasn’t good from an objective standpoint (that is, the point of view of anyone looking at Marvel with something other than blind faith….).
If anything, it strongly suggests that Ant-Man is in danger of being the movie that many critics and onlookers thought it would be: A movie about a character no one asked for and the Marvel Cinematic Universe doesn’t actually need.
Of course, that’s putting it politely.
In more blunt terms, Ant-Man is looking like the Marvel movie that will make moviegoers turn to each other and go, “They killed any chance of a Black Widow movie for this?”
I hope my instincts about this movie are wrong, and that it’s not an inevitable flop; I really would love it if somehow Ant-Man rises to the challenge of fun summer blockbuster.
But even if I’m not wrong about Ant-Man, Marvel will know it’s fallible. Hopefully, that revelation would get the studio to tighten up in terms of writing, plot, and casting in the future.
Were you impressed with the Ant-Man trailer? What could have (and probably should have) been done differently?
[Image Credit: IGN Official YouTube]
