'Ant-Man' Spoiler-Filled Review; End-Credits Scene Explained

Marvel's Ant-Man is currently out now in theaters nationwide, and most of you who watched it probably liked it like I do. Not only does the movie exceeds my expectations to how fun is gonna be, it surprises me how tied-in this character in the shared Marvel Cinematic Universe though the hero has nothing to do with any of the Avenger in his back-story. It's a stand-alone movie which may hint to bigger and possible connections to future films in the Marvel line-up, and is best to talk about it with spoilery goodness. So if you haven't seen the movie (you should definitely see it), please leave this page and go ahead to my spoiler-less review here, watch the movie and come back again while I go in-depth to the film and try to explain those fantastic post-credit stingers.

This will likely be a staple in the coming films in Marvel, the pre-logo scenes like in Guardians show us a flashback that sets up the character of Michael Douglas. We see Douglas' Hank Pym in a impressively CGI'd younger version rushing to the S.H.I.E.L.D. headquarters after knowing Iron Man/ Tony Stark's father, Howard Stark secretly stole his Pym Particle, a substance that enables a person to shrink in the size of an ant. Along with Howard Stark is Peggy Carter, previously seen in the Captain America films and her own spin-off show. The short clip made it obvious of Pym's relationship with S.H.I.E.L.D., his hatred to the Starks, and the big reason why Ant-Man wasn't present in the Avengers, which ironically he is a founding member of in the comics. Hank Pym's involvement with S.H.I.E.L.D. might also involve a concept of an artificially-intelligence computer that Tony Stark might base his ideas of Ultron in Avengers: Age of Ultron. It's just pure speculation but an evidence will have to be the fact that we see Tony having the concept already in AOU on its first few minutes, and the rest of it we already know about.

From all the main characters of the movie, Paul Rudd's Scott Lang is the most crucial of all since we'll have to deal with him for more movies in the future. With most of the characters in the Avengers, Scott Lang is going to be one of the main players in the MCU Phase 4 films. Since Rudd was confirmed in next year's Captain America: Civil War (we'll talk about that later.), and soon-to-be Avenger (?), it's clear Rudd has more films in his contract than these two and possible departure of original players like Chris Evans, Robert Downey, Jr., etc. Just like Hank Pym passing his mantle to Scott as the Ant-Man is a tease of our favorites leaving their chairs to the newcomers.

The main theme of fatherhood was probably the best part of the movie story-wise. Though it's all over the place, it's the most coherent of the whole. You got Scott and his daughter Cassie, Hank and Hope (Evangelline Lilly), Hank becoming a father figure to Corey Stoll's character Darren Cross, and Hank's relationship with Scott as a mentor. Bobby Cannavalle, the cop/ husband of Scott's ex-girlfriend has a nice touch at the end too, with him willing to save Cassie in the climactic duel between Ant-Man and Yellowjacket. I really think it works for the movie, providing most of its emotional pulls from the characters.

As I briefly said in my non-spoiler review, the movie was at its core a heist film. The recent Marvel films are very genre-based with Guardians of the Galaxy being a space opera, The Winter Soldier as a spy thriller to name a few. With Ant-Man, it's a flat-out comedy and also a flat-out heist movie. I love me some heist film, but only when it's done right. The smarter you get with the rules of the heist, the better it will be. The movie spends half of it dealing with the basics and planning of the heist, and the full third act being its execution. The first half was dialogue-heavy and almost no action sequence at all, and it's never boring. Paul Rudd and Adam McKay did an excellent job in their screenplay and I love how they managed to make this movie a full comedy while still becoming a great superhero film. Michael Pena and his narrations had the biggest punches in the theater from my three separate viewings of the movie. I also love his surprise connections, one hilariously being Falcon.

Speaking of Falcon, his fight with Ant-Man was amazing. The TV spots spoiled his cameo for me but the brawl was completely unexpected. It's very redundant to the film's story, but it is to Civil War. The cameo was completely out-of-nowhere, but hey Ant-Man has the capacity to beat the shit out members of the Avengers and a great showcase of his bad-assery. It's a welcome treat.

The scene where it really goes ambiguous was during Ant-Man goes "quantum zone", a place as Hank Pym describes it makes you enter an "alternate reality and everything you know is irrelevant". It's a very weird and trippy sequence and it really is a effed up place to go to. I saw a kid next to me at my screening completely shocked of how creepy and bizarre it gets. This is a possible tie-in to Phase 3's Doctor Strange and Miss Marvel, Marvel's first full-on venture on the sorcery and magic. I didn't catch all details on this scene because it went too quick, but Director Peyton Reed said that there's an easter egg somewhere the shrinking scene. Also, with the original Wasp trapped in this alternate reality, I could see her return, and Cumberbatch might (getting geeky here) be involved with Hank Pym to make it happen, since we never get to see the actress' face once they tried to show it at the end of the movie.

Ant-Man nailed it big with its post-credits scenes, shown before and after the long crawl. The first one teases our first taste on the new Wasp (Evangeline Lilly). It's very expected of Lilly's character becoming this character, but the costume is still a question... not until now. Complete with the signature wings, I can't wait to see when are we going to see her in costume. Evangeline Lilly was neither confirmed nor denying on her appearance in Civil War, it's very unlikely anyways so i'm putting my bets on Avengers: Infinity War.

The other one was what I was looking forward to see after the movie. Didn't expect this movie to have Captain America: Civil War references throughout, but there's gotta be a reason why Marvel decided to put this movie before the 2016 epic. Going back to Falcon's cameo, he expressed his interest of Ant-Man becoming a part of the Avengers and that Captain America will be happy to know about him. If you're unaware of the Civil War storyline, there's a superhero registration act and the response got divisive: Tony Stark was on it while Steve Rogers don't liking this newly passed law. So they got separated and forming own teams side-by-side. We all know Falcon will be indeed on Cap's side, so Ant-Man is an obvious new entry to the allegiance. Another reason is Hank Pym's hatred on the Starks has to do with it. Forgot to mention, Winter Soldier/ Bucky Barnes was present here, looking like he came off a fight. The Winter Soldier's post-credits scene has Bucky realizing his past/ connections with Cap. I would love to see his story go out, but I really think we'll get a Falcon/ Cap - Bucky brawl in the first act of that movie after that beat-up look.

Ant-Man was fun and exciting, and a very welcome addition to the Marvel Cinematic Universe. I'm interested to see how Scott Lang will be squeezed in future installments, and for sure he will be a main player in this shared world not very soon. Edgar Wright's departure was a real bummer, but Peyton Reed did an excellent job and made it as good as he can.

'Ant-Man' now showing!