And no, it’s not Doctor DOOM! (thank you, thank you, I’ll be here all week!)
So now that the director fiasco around the controversially Edgar Wright-less Ant-Man has been resolved, we can stop speculating about who’s going to be behind the camera, and start speculating on what’s going to happen in front of it. Since it was management-mandated script changes that forced Wright out the door, we don’t know just how much of his original vision has been changed and what the focus of the story will be now. The guys over at JoBlo think that they do know though, claiming to have two very reliable and trusted sources who apparently attended a Disney event recently where storyboards, concept art and plot details for a number of high profile movies were revealed. These include a number of costume and character appearance details for Avengers: Age of Ultron (which you can read about later), and some set design tidbits for Star Wars: Episode VII.
The real meat of the story though, is a detailed outline of Ant-Man‘s premise and just who Paul Rudd’s Scott Lang will be going up against.
Now while none of this has been confirmed by external sources, it could very well all turn out to be true. So while none of this really gives away the film’s plot, I still have to put up a big SPOILER WARNING for those of you that prefer to know nothing about a movie before you see it.
.
Last chance. Stop reading now if you don’t want see any potential SPOILERS.
.
.
Okay, I warned you guys, so here’s what JoBlo had to say:
“Story begins with Scott Lang (Paul Rudd) being a thief and single dad who has fallen on hard times and one day breaks into Hank Pym’s apartment and steals the Ant-Man suit.
“The main villain’s name is Darren Cross who, in the comics, runs Cross Technological Enterprises, a competitor company for Stark Industries and Oscorp. His cousin is the villain known as Crossfire. It’s unknown if this role will be played by Patrick Wilson or Corey Stoll. He will have a suit with a similar feel to Ant-man’s but more miltary style, yellow and black in color, and with a tendril-looking apparatus coming off it’s back (like with Agent Venom). It’s to note that in the comics Cross looks more like a pink Hulk, so there may well be some merging of attributes from other characters for this role or multiple villains at that.
“The Ant-Man suit will be much more elaborate than we’ve seen so far with the helmet being able to open and close much like Iron Man and an assortment of red lights all over the suit, again in Tron fashion. The helmet eyes will also glow red when closed. It’s said to be a much more complex and futuristic suit than we’ve seen so far.
“Ants (the actual insect) are the main ally and superpower for Ant-Man in the film. Lang will speak to the ants via his helmet, just as in the comics, which is said to be a special element to the overall story.”
Right, let’s start at the top. Supposedly one of the issues Marvel higher-ups had with Wright’s script was his emphasis on Scott Lang’s criminal origins. Either that aspect has been toned down significantly enough in this version so that his morality is not in question any longer, or JoBlo’s info is completely out of whack. For the sake of the rest of it, let’s go with the former.
While I am a gigantic comic book geek, I’ve never really read much of the Scott Lang Ant-Man’s solo adventures, so I don’t really know his rogues gallery well. A quick look on Marvel.com though reveals that Darren Cross is actually the reason that Lang initially steals the Ant-Man suit from previous Ant-Man Hank Pym. In trying to save himself from a heart defect, Cross inadvertently mutates himself into a Hulk-like creature who needs to continuously replace his heart as keeps burning them out. He kidnaps cardiac specialist Dr. Erica Sondheim to help him overcome this problem.
At the same time, Scott Lang’s daughter Cassie is diagnosed with a fatal heart problem, and when he finds out that Dr. Sondheim is missing, he steals Hank Pym’s tech to use it to rescue the doctor, so that she can save his daughter. There are obviously no other heart doctors who can help, or anyway for Lang to alert the authorities, because comics, that’s why.
If this aspect of the story is legit (and it certainly sounds that way) I would be willing to bet good money that Evangeline Lilly has actually been cast as Dr. Sondheim. I would also be pretty okay with Cross not looking like Hulk laid in the sunbed for too long, although him just being an evil Ant-Man in military duds sounds pretty boring to me.
As for Ant-Man’s look and abilities, I have to say that I’m also not liking what I’m hearing here. Wright’s concept designs of the suit that we’ve seen thus far have nailed the look, looking close enough to its comic book counterpart while still keeping it fairly realistic and modern. The Tron lights just sound unnecessarily garish. As for the ants, it is undoubtedly the silliest aspect of Ant-Man’s abilities, and I really liked how thus far we hadn’t seen a single mention of it. Wright had repeatedly explained and shown off how he instead intended to focus on Ant-Man size-changing abilities, and how his ability to shrink or grow but still maintain his mass/energy could be used to devastating effect in a fight, a la this test reel that was showed at Comic Con last year.
That certainly looks a hell of a lot cooler and just more visually interesting than talking to some ants over your helmet’s radio and convincing them to, oh I don’t know, go ruin the villain’s picnic by getting into all his peanut butter and jam sandwiches.
As good a director as Peyton Reed and as accomplished a writer as Adam McKay is, there’s just no denying that neither of these men possess the action choreography genius or visual flair that Edgar Wright did. And just based on these descriptions alone (if they turn out to be true), I’m already getting the vibe from a movie that’s playing it a bit safe instead of pushing for something unique and awesome. I feel that Marvel is too well oiled a machine at this point to produce a truly terrible movie, but we may just have to settle for just an okay movie.
Last Updated: June 20, 2014
