Superheroes come in all shapes and sizes, and now one is the size of an ant.  He is Scott Lang (Paul Rudd) and he is an ex-con, an industrial cat burglar.  Fate, in the form of Dr. Hank Pym (Michael Douglas) conspires to turn Lang into a tiny weapon in order to prevent Pym’s own company from mass producing tiny ant-people weapons to rule the world.  Better one than many, thinks Pym.

Pym’s nemesis, and former protégé, is Darren Cross (Corey Stoll), who has taken Pym’s secret research and developed it to sell to the highest bidder, which is bound to be Hydra.  Cross has no conscience, which, of course, is his downfall.  Corporate greed and ruthlessness is the evil presented here; although Pym was traveling down the same path, he saw what was inevitably to come and shelved his work for the good of humanity.  Now he must take action to prevent his worst nightmares from coming true.

Peyton Reed’s film is yet another brick in the superhero wall of entertainment that Marvel is constructing.  It is a mix of drama, action and amusing dialogue, with cool scenes of Lang learning to work with the ants that his suit allows him to control.  The real trick is switching back and forth between regular size and ant size, often in the middle of fights.  But for me not enough is explained or shown how tiny Scott, as the Ant-Man, throw people around and beat them up while remaining at least relatively stationary.  Sure, ants are super strong, but gravity and physics don’t seem to matter when he’s in action.

There are some real laughs to be had during the climactic fight between Ant-Man and Yellowjacket (Stoll in a similar suit) on the Thomas the Tank Engine train set.  The switches of perspective that director Reed employs are hilarious.  Yet that is not enough to lift this film out of the minor leagues of superhero movies.  The story is too insular and the setups too obvious and the ant-size action too zippity to really make a strong impression.  It’s not a bad film, but it still feels underdeveloped to me. As an origin film, it will do.  Hopefully Ant-Man will interact with the Falcon (Anthony Mackie) and the other Marvel wonders in more spectacular fashion in the future, where we can really see what he can do.  ☆ ☆ 1/2.  5 August 2015.