The Adjustment Bureau

"I Guess The Lord Must Be in New York City"
or
"Dicking Around with People's Lives..."

The stories of Philip K. Dick have provided all sorts of story-fodder for the movies for both good or ill: Blade Runner, Total Recall, Minority Report, Paycheck, A Scanner Darkly, Next, and Impostor.

 

They feature the sort of high-concept story-spine that easily translates into genre-bending sci-fi/fantasy films that are the easiest thing to translate to the screen short of a superhero property. Just put a slight spin on a story concept—a police force that stops crimes before they happen, spies and detectives who are mentally undercover, a guy who can see into the future, but just eight minutes out—all odd concepts that illuminate the character dilemma in a way that a straight story might not highlight. You don't have to be a genius to "get" what the movie says. And the inevitable SFX look great on trailers.

So, here's The Adjustment Bureau, a paranoid conspiracist's validation of all things manipulated. Young senatorial candidate David Norris (Matt Damon) is about to lose an election big-time, due to some ill-considered party-decisions earlier in his life. In the men's room of the Waldorf, he practices his contrite, yet defiant acceptance speech, only to find that he is being overheard by Elise Sellas (Emily Blunt), who is evading hotel security after crashing a wedding upstairs.  It's a "meet-cute" as the two banter about Norris' loser-status and Elise becomes intrigued enough to plant a lip-lock on him. His campaign manager (the always welcome Michael Kelly) walks in just in time to catch this and bust it up to get Norris to the ballroom to admit defeat. I'd've fired him on the spot.

It's some time later and Norris is working for an investment capital firm with his manager. He's running a little late, so he doesn't notice a team of angular men in business suits and fedoras are shadowing him. One in particular—Harry (Anthony Mackie)—has an assignment: Norris must spill coffee on his shirt by 9:05 am, not any later. It's his job, says Agent Richardson (John Slattery), so don't screw it up. 

But, if he didn't, there wouldn't be a movie.

There's no use crying over un-spilled coffee, but as a result, the rest of the movie is the Team attempting to solve the mess the non-mess creates: Norris is able to catch his bus on-time, where he once again encounters Elise, and gets to work just in time to see the Pre-Destinators (my term) sweeping the office, the personnel frozen, and key players receiving a "mind-wipe." Norris catches on quickly, and tries to evade the invaders, only to find them around every office corner, calmly telling him that, really, he should take it easy and cooperate and "this" will all go a lot easier.

He wakes up in an empty warehouse, with his pursuers deigning to tell him the truth about things: "You've just seen behind the curtain you never knew existed."  They're a team of agents who manipulate events among humankind—a kind of Uber-illuminati ('"sometimes it's chance, sometimes it's us")—at the behest of "The Chairman." They lay down the law: He can't have a relationship with Elise, which David objects to ("Your entire world just changed and you're thinking about a woman?") as it's not in "the plan," and if he tells anybody about what he's seen, they'll make everyone think he's crazy, and "reset" him, leaving him basically lobotomized.* 

Norris is too much a free-thinker to obey the "button-down men of Fate" and the rest of the movie entails him "changing the curtains," as it were. It's very clever and director George Nolfi, (who wrote the screenplay for the similarly time-trippy Timeline, had fun adapting his screenplay "Honor Among Thieves" into what would become Ocean's Twelve, and was one of the team who wrote—and re-wrote—The Bourne Ultimatum) ingeniously keeps things moving at a good clip, while also staying one jump ahead of the story-complications inherent in the plot...while also doing enough cinematic sleight-of-hand to keep the Doubting Thomases in the audience from falling into plot-holes. He gets good performances out of everyone—allowing enough ad-libbing in the scenario to make it seem real and fresh, sort of a real-life version of the film's conceit of re-writing History in pencil before the Cosmic Ink dries. It's fast, fun, and fresh and avoids pretentiousness or taking itself too damn seriously. It is only after a little Time has passed that it feels a bit slight, but who could have anticipated that?

One thing is for sure: I gotta get me one of them hats!

* At that point I flashed on former CBS news-anchor Dan Rather walking down a New York Street and being attacked by men and all they said was "What's the frequency, Kenneth?"  Everybody acted like Rather had had "a spell," but I wonder if his attackers were wearing hats.

Underdog

Underdog (Frederik Du Chau, 2007) Cute little adaptation of the humorous (which is the polite word when something is not funny) cartoon show of the 60's that featured Wally Cox as the voice of the anthropomorphic pooch, "Shoeshine Boy," who becomes the crusading canine of courage whenever Society is threatened by the Forces of Evil--personified by the mad scientist Simon Bar Sinister. "Underdog" was limited animation of the "Rocky and Bullwinkle" codec, and one would have mistaken "U-dog" as a Jay Ward Production if it had managed to produce even a half-hearted chuckle or two.

As it is the film struggles mightily to work as a live action quickie--the effects work starting with Babe and continuing on with every talking animal movie since probably convinced the producers to not go the expensive CGI animation route. Plus, they'd miss another opportunity to star Jim Belushi in a lackluster movie. I kid, but actually...okay, I don't like Jim Belushi. But casting is not the film's problem. As the designated audience surrogate Alex Neuberger isn't all that bad--he does have to play most of his scenes with a dog (that, hate to break it to you, isn't really talking), but there is much joy to be had in the way the villains have been cast. As Simon Bar Sinister, Peter Dinklage gets to show off his comedy chops, and given that his sidekick is played by the dry as dust Patrick Warburton, one begins to pine whenever this mutt-and-jeff act is not on-screen.

Along the way, the filmmakers do some nice little parodies of Superman's greatest hits--scaring a cat-burglar off his suction cups, taking a flight among the stars with his favorite bitch (look, sorry, it's accurate), and because it's Disney, even throw in a plug for Lady and the Tramp. With Jason Lee providing U-Dog's voice and the ubiquitous Amy Adams as gal-pal Polly, it's pretty good for a talking dog movie, and quite good for a flying, talking dog movie.

As anything else...well, there's a need to fear.

 

The Battles of Iwo Jima (directed by Clint Eastwood)

Written at the time of each film's release...

Photo Opportunism

Every year, like clockwork, Clint Eastwood makes a new film, and they become instant Oscar-bait. His last one was Million Dollar Baby (Hilary Swank won Best Actress-her second award, and Morgan Freeman won Best Supporting Actor) The year before that, Mystic River (winning Oscars for both Sean Penn and Tim Robbins). Eastwood shoots movies fast in a calm environment and leaves actors alone to do their job. And while most directors are making movies that jump and whirl just to prove they're doing their jobs, Eastwood sets up the shot, does a take or two and moves on. He's efficient, fast, and doesn't do any fancy cutting or post-production. 

In this way, he's very much like his mentor, Don Siegel. Siegel, too, wasn't afraid to throw a little controversy into the mix. Eastwood, a moderate Republican, has made movies recently that have condemned vigilante violence and lack of process (Mystic River), and turned a sympathetic eye to euthanasia (Million Dollar Baby). His recent work is not for the complacent, and Flags of Our Fathers is just as impatient with easy myths and lazy thinking. 

Saving Private Ryan can look at "The Greatest Generation" and sentimentalize them while acknowledging their sacrifice. Eastwood's film has the audacity to question blind patriotism and that sentimentality for the purposes of hucksterism. I'm sure when some neo-con blowhard actually sees this movie there's going to be as much controversy as there was around Million Dollar Baby among panicky right-to-lifers. As it is, I've already heard some CBS radio reporter in Iraq talking about the stationed soldiers "fighting for each other, rather than the cause," a line right out of the movie. How quickly this stuff travels...

Performances are top-notch from a bunch of actors never given their due--here, they shine. Guys like Robert Patrick and Neal McDonough, good actors (whom you know from other things) with odd faces that will never be leading men are revelations here. Gordon Clapp from "NYPD Blue" has one scene of such comic ferocity that you'll never see him the same way again. Ryan Phillipe, thought of as the less-talented of a Hollywood marriage (and ironically they split up right after this film came out), belies that here. Barry Pepper, from Ryan plays an "old vet" of 25, with the slightest veneer of gravitas and bravado. And Adam Beach, of Smoke Signals and the Tony Hillerman adaptations on PBS, has never displayed the potential of his performance here. He has one devastating scene that will get him nominated him for an Oscar and probably win it for him. The day I saw it, there wasn't a dry eye or a nose unsniffled after it. The story of Ira Hayes has been told before on screen and in song, but never so effectively as here.

Eastwood's next movie will be coming out quickly, as he shot it simultaneously with Flags.... It's also about Iwo Jima...from the Japanese perspective-Letters from Iwo Jima.

Eastwood is so good, he's scary.

 -------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

"See you on the other side!"

Somewhere in the planning stages of Flags of our Fathers, Clint Eastwood had a thought—What was on the minds of the Japanese soldiers who also fought at Iwo Jima? What of the commander who took such a different approach that the badly out-numbered troops could hold off the Americans as long as they did? So with the same crew, and a completely different cast he made another movie on the heels of the previous one that showed the situations and motivations of the defenders of Iwo Jima, based on writings contained in the book "Picture Letters from the Commander in Chief," written and illustrated by the Iwo Jima forces' commander Tadamichi Kurabayashi.

The results, Letters from Iwo Jima won the National Board of Review's "Best Picture." It's nominated for a Best Picture Oscar, and it incongrouosly won the Golden Globe for "Best Foreign Language Film" ("I guess I have to learn a foreign language now," said Eastwood laconically).

The film is 98% in Japanese with subtitles. Played by a terrific cast (assembled with Eastwood's knack for picking interesting faces) led by Ken Watanabe who after stealing The Last Samurai from Tom Cruise and going to waste in Batman Begins shows how thoroughly he can carry a film. He suggests no one less than Gregory Peck in his portrayal of the American-schooled Japanese tactician who knows the impossible task of defending the last stop to Japan and does so to the best of his ability.

Like that defense strategy Letters is an excavation. In a present day prologue the letters are unearthed by Japanese archaeologists. Flash back to war-time Iwo Jima and the soldiers are digging trenches for the initial beach attack strategy, then digging the elaborate system of tunnels that would prove to be the core of their final strategy. Letters follows several soldiers of various ranks in the days between Kurabayashi's arrival and the fall of the last man. The film wheels between the scenes of the island (filmed in a bleached monochrome broken only by the reds of the Japanese flag, the orange flame of explosions or blood), and of the men's past lives filmed in vivid technicolor. Technically, the film is a wonder. The effects by Digital Domain are photo-realistic, even amidst battles that are shot hand-held and face-close. The explosions singe.

Given the structure, the film is very much in lock-step with such traditonal war-films as, say, The Sands of Iwo Jima, where the personal lives of the individuals in the troop manifest themselves on the battle-field. But the war film it most resembles is the B-movie WWII drama Hell is for Heroes directed by Eastwood's mentor, Don Siegel. Like Letters, Hell... is a view from the trenches, where the conceits of heroism and honor--a constant hook in the dialog of the Eastwood film, everyone talks of honor...or mocks it ("Kashiwara died from honorable dysentery," says a grunt about the whereabouts of a comrade) have no place in the grime and destruction of war. The picking-apart of the hero myth has been the most frequent Eastwood subject. But not even Eastwood has gone as far as Siegel's film to suggest that the maladjusted make the best heroes.

It's interesting that Eastwood has made these two films now: Flags of Our Fathers with its focus on propaganda and the selling of a long war in the face of a populace's flagging enthusiasm, and Letters with its hollow talk of honor and pride in the worst of circumstances. At one point Kurabayashi bitterly reacts to a wire from his superiors, "The Imperial Headquarters is not only deceiving the people, but us as well." The similarities cut across time as well as the disputed borders of the combatants.

And there is a constant reminder of what unites the combatants rather than divides, managing to make the standard war-film trope of "we're more alike than different" that goes all the way back to All Quiet on the Western Front fresh and surprising (that lesson is never hammered home more than in films about the Civil War). The American-trained commanders drink Johnny Walker while grousing about the food, the conditions and their superiors. At times in the dim light the features of the participants blur--it could be any army. Eastwood and his screenwriters--the ubiquitous Paul Haggis and first-time scripter Iris Yamashita work overtime on the ironies, but one stands out. Watch the ivory-handled revolver that Karabayashi wears on his hip. "He must have taken it from an American," says one of the admiring soldiers. He did. But like so many of the twists in Letters from Iwo Jima, it's not in the way you'd think.

Letters from Iwo Jima is an extraordinary film, however, it feels 20 minutes too long (though I've struggled where one can cut it).
Of the two Eastwood Iwo Jima films, I prefer Flags of Our Fathers for being less traditional in its story-telling, and for taking up two subjects--propaganda and the selling of war and patriotism, and survivor's guilt, the practical and mysterious faces of war, that are rarely touched on despite the reels and reels of film that have been dedicated to the subject of battle.

Spotlight

Let Us Prey (How Do You Solve a Problem Like Pariah?)
or
The Feast of the Epiphany

Spotlight has been getting a lot of Oscar buzz (worthy, I'd say) for its depiction of the journalistic tracking of the systemic abuse of the Catholic Church in its shuffling of known sex-offender priests from one parish to another in order to avoid local scandal. The film is not prurient, not sensationalistic. If anything, it just concentrates on the story of getting the story in the tradition of most "press" movies—a genre usually sneered at by the press. Scrutinizers don't like to be scrutinized in the same way doctors don't like to go under the knife.

Or, as William F. Buckley chortled when asked why he supposed Senator Robert F. Kennedy refused to appear on his conservative discussion show "Firing Line": "Why does baloney reject the grinder?"

But, the reporters of the "Spotlight" feature of The Boston Globe praise Spotlight, even if it does not show them in the best of lights (other than being portrayed by film-stars) because ultimately, through fits and starts, sins of omission and hubris, they did get the story that had been buried under bureaucracy and doctrine and a "gentleman's agreement" between power brokers of government and clergy. They dared to shine a light on the dark corners of the church that had been sheltered in stained glass and "community good" while incidents of sexual misconduct had occurred against the very parishioners most vulnerable and in need of the church. Those victims were lambs to the slaughter, against wolves in shepherd's clothing.

It's enough to shake your faith...in everything.

Keaton, Shreiber, Ruffalo, Adams, Slattery and James...scrutinizing.

The only reason the scandal came to light was due to outside influence. Inside influence had been going on for so long it was routine. The film begins with one such incident where a priest is in lock-up, distraught mom and kids are talking to detectives, and a lawyer drives up and is escorted into the back-rooms. Then a priest rushes in. The cops out in front treat it like another day at the office. "And then this happens..." The priests and lawyer skulk back out into the night and drive off, leaving a witness, silently observing. We never learn who that is. It doesn't matter who sees. Nothing will be done about it.

At The Boston Globe, an editor is retiring, and we see his farewell party, the guy getting joshed good-naturedly by owner Ben Bradlee Jr. (John Slattery) and "Spotlight" editor Walter "Robbie" Robinson (Michael Keaton). The "Spotlight" staff hangs back, they're in the middle of doing a piece on crime stats in Boston, and it's not going well: Mike Rezendes (Mark Ruffalo) is on the phone with the Boston PD getting "no comments;" Sacha Pfeiffer (Rachel McAdams—thoroughly making up for her role in "The Hunger Games" series) and Matt Carroll (Brian D'Arcy James) are at the party having cake and gossiping about the new editor coming in. That seems to be the topic of conversation—Bradlee and Robinson are having the same discussion as well, with Robinson doing the reporter thing—he's taking him out to lunch...to scrutinize. The new editor, Marty Baron (Liev Schreiber) is not from "around here." So, the townies have to size him up, see who's going to be doing the most bending, them or him.

Baron has been around, and he sees how the newspaper market is changing—the internet is taking over classifieds, other media are faster even though less reliable—so he has it in his head that The Globe has to matter to the people of Boston (not unlike Charles Foster Kane wanting his newspaper "The Inquirer" being as "important" as the gas in a lamp). It has to provide a service that no other source can provide. If the Globe isn't "essential" it will not survive. The "Spotlight" team is one of the things that make the paper stand out, even though "Spotlight" has a reputation for taking things slow, slow, slow in order to do a thorough, grinding job of reporting. Baron spikes that crime report in favor of reviving the old "Geoghan case."

Geoghan had a history of sexual abuse of young boys and was the subject of 87 civil law suits, all public records of which had been suppressed by a court order asked for by the Boston Archdiocese. It is Rezendes' job to get those records, and Baron says he will ask for a court order to release the public records. To a person, the response to this action is: "You want to sue the Church?" No, that's not what he wants to do. But in the Boston bubble, it amounts to the same thing—The Church doesn't want the records released, so to petition to have them make the public records actually public, you have to "fight" The Church.

Rezendes also tries to get more background from prickly lawyer Mitchell Garabedian (Stanley Tucci, who is brilliant in this, as he usually is in everything), who has been representing sexual abuse victims for years, and is reluctant to give anything to the press, as they've been ignoring his entreaties for years. Plus, he has a reputation for being difficult. He's one of the lawyers accused of "turning child abuse into a cottage industry."

Pfeiffer goes another direction: she starts to interview victims of the attacks, provided to her by an organization (SNAP-The Survivor's Network of Those Abused by Priests) that has been cataloging and offering support to abuse victims—the head of the organization also has a reputation as flighty, unstable and a flake, but his distrust of the press is even greater than Garabedian's, as he's sent information to the Globe in the past, only to see nothing for his efforts. The kids, now adults, are reluctant to come out of the shadows, left with psychological issues, shame, self-loathing, and a sense of betrayal that makes them suspicious of everyone. Robinson oversees the project, throwing his weight around so that Pfeiffer can talk to the local prosecutor (Billy Crudup) who settled most of the cases in court and out of the public eye. He also meets with a friend, attorney Jim Sullivan (Jamey Sheridan), who has represented the Church in some cases, and who advises him Robinson that "off the record, I can't talk about it."

Meanwhile, a pattern starts to emerge: by checking the yearly publication of priests and parishes on record in The Globe's archives, the accused priests that have been shuffled off to other parishes, or taken to "treatment centers" are listed as either on "sick leave,""absent" or "unassigned"—official code words to avoid scrutiny or investigation. A telephone interview with a psychologist (an uncredited Richard Jenkins) studying the problem says that it's estimated that 6% of all priests are chronic abusers, a figure the Spotlighters don't believe, until they go through those records and find that, statistically, they add up—87 of Boston's priests have been coded, made to "lie low," then re-assigned to other parishes by the Archdiocese. It's a conspiracy done behind closed confessional doors, orchestrated by the Church, carried out by the courts in secret. As one character remarks "If it takes a village to raise a child, it takes a village to abuse them."

For the staffers, it is a growing nightmare that they are slow to accept—except for Baron, they're all Catholics, and being in the Boston social circles means they have frequent business with Church hierarchy, and the representatives from sectarian institutions and charities associated with it. Plus, the Archdiocese's Cardinal Law (Len Cariou) is a highly political man who makes sure he is well-connected in the Boston community, even requesting that Baron meet with him when he's first starting his editor job. All the better to influence and manipulate. Manipulation is a strong tool in the Catholic Church...or any church, for all that.

It is the staffers' crisis of faith that is the most interesting aspect to Spotlight. And it's not just faith in their Church that is troubling them (although that is articulated frequently by the Catholic staff, that sense of betrayal). It is also faith in themselves as reporters and "guardians" of the public trust. This is not articulated—by them, but is brought up by Garabedian, by the victims with a "Where were you?"—but is shown in stray looks at each other, by a wordless scene where Pfeiffer shows an old Globe clipping from the archives to Robinson, for whom that failure is very personal. While they're strutting around, thinking themselves noble arbiters of truth, at best they are only making up for lost time, reporting on a cold case, the damage being done long ago. That sense of guilty futility is done without words, eked out by a brilliant cast under the unpretentious direction of Tom McCarthy (he directed The Station Agent, Win Win, The Visitor, all superb films—he also wrote the story for Up with Bob Peterson and Pete Docter). This is a great film, and not in the "hoo-rah" easy kind of crowd-pleasing way. It is tough, in subject matter and on its subjects, and it is one of the best films of the year.

Bradlee, Rezendes, Carroll, Pfeiffer, Baron, and Robinson

Ant-Man

Let's Get Small
or
"We Haven't Worked Out All the Bugs Yet"

Superhero movies are, in and of themselves, absurd. They're two-dimensional entertainment thrust into 3-D with real human beings squeezed into the form-fitting costumes that seem to defy logic and gravity.

The norm of the superhero movie has become explosions and crumbling masonry. It's become the superhero cliché: it doesn't matter the power, it doesn't matter the skills. Pretty soon, the walls come tumbling down, no matter how much power you have. What DOESN'T happen is for these movies to differentiate between these heroes; it doesn't matter who or what these super-beings or meta-humans are, the results are the same and it's become a movie cliché. You can't tell a Bat-man from an X-man anymore, because the results are all on the outside, you never get the experience of what it would be to be able to DO these incredible things.

Except for Ant-Man. It's the first movie in a long, long time (since we first believed we could accompany Superman in flight back in 1978), where you get the visceral sensation of what it must be like to wield that power, to be a part of the world that we are thrust into in the adventure.  It's a matter of perspective, and Ant-Man doesn't shrink from the task.

Let's face it: Ant-Man, as a character, is pretty silly. Like Aquaman-but-thirstier, he can talk to and command a veritable picnic of ants (you in the back, stop laughing), and like Doll Man and The Atom, he can shrink to a tiny size while maintaining his weight and strength. His playing-field is the horrifically out-sized one of The Incredible Shrinking Man, which has traditionally been one of the ordinary made predatory, the insignificant made insurmountable—spools of string are tank-busters, sewing needles become spears, and the normal becomes terrifyingly demeaning, bone-crushing in its impact, both physically and psychologically. It's a sci-fi concept rife with metaphor. Ever feel small in this world? Problems feel insurmountable? Well, imagine being mouse-size in a world of cats. There's something about these shrinking violets that appeals to the disenfranchised, feeling apart from the norm and even belittled by it.

If you've got a disenfranchised audience, you might as well make a franchise. Despite his role as a "minor" Marvel character, despite his being a long-standing member of the comics version of The Avengers (it was actually the original Ant-man, Hank Pym, who created "Ultron" as opposed to the story in the film), but the character is relatively minor in the Marvel pantheon. But, in an upside-down world where "Iron Man" is king of the Marvel Film Universe and The Guardians of the Galaxy does better business than Thor...or Captain America...or Hulk, a character like "Ant-Man" just might catch on.

Speaking of "catching on..."

Except his name is "Ant-Man" (the current shrinker even asks at one point "Is it too late to change the name?") and has mental control over ANTS, fer cryin' out loud. Handy at a family reunion, maybe, but fighting crime? Unless you send carpenter ants to destroy the foundation of a villain's HQ, ants make a pretty ineffective army (no matter what Stan Lee says)—easily distracted by sugar, for instance. And frankly, you can slow them down by the interference of Ant-Man's arch-nemesis, Orkin Man. 

"Raaaaaaaaaaaid!"

Ant-Man (the movie) does not care. It knows deep down in its thorax that it is a silly concept, and still thinks it's the coolest thing on Earth. It communicates the absurd glory of it (and this is evidently due to the early conceptual work of Edgar Wright, who co-wrote and directed Shawn of the Dead, Hot Fuzz, Scott Pilgrim Vs. the World. Wright left over "creative differences" with Marvel Studios (and that can be anything from casting, script changes to changes in the costume so the action figures sell). It's always dangerous to speculate, but the director-change occurred about the time Marvel put its "franchise" mitts into it, linking "Ant-Man" to the larger Film Universe. That might be well and good for the suits at Disney—really, can rights to the Marvel/Disney unifying "Mighty Mouse" be that hard to acquire?—but it doesn't play too well in the film. This "Ant-man" isn't much of a "joiner."

New meaning to the term "gun-runner"

Getting back to disenfranchisement, Ant-Man's characters are full of it. Both past and present Ant-men are free-thinkers who don't fancy themselves "team-players." They are not little men. Hank Pym (Michael Douglas, giving his strongest performance in years, surprisingly) is your prototypical genius who has perfected the "shrinking-people-down" thing without subsequently blowing them up and had operated for years as the original covert "Ant-Man," but has strenuously avoided giving the patents to his partners at Stark Industries and S.H.I.E.L.D. (an early scene has John Slattery as Howard Stark, Hayley Atwell as the time-ubiquitous Peggy Carter, and an impressively de-aged Douglas, doing a version of "Take This Job and Shove it"), seeing them as a threat to peace and security. Current Ant-man Scott Lang (Paul Rudd) is an ex-con, who was incarcerated for performing a "brilliant" hack on his former employer, and finds his chances of employment somewhere between miniscule and microscopic.  

Outcast by society and by his own family—divorced by wife Maggie (Judy Greer), distrusted by her new husband, officer Paxton (Bobby Cannavale), but adored by daughter Cassie (Abby Ryder Fortson)—he's fired from his job and decides to become part of a burglary ring consisting of Dave (T.I.), Kurt (David Dastmalchian), and his old cell-mate Luis (Michael Peña, displaying a suspected, but under-utilized flair for comedy), who are a sort of bargain-basement "Mission: Impossible" team. Luis hears of a great job—in one of a trio of nicely pulled-off exposition scenes—that turns out to be the secluded mansion of Hank Pym, where there are no vast quantities of valuables—only a goofy suit that ends up throwing Lang back in the slammer, and an eventual surprise visitation by Pym.

What Pym proposes to Lang is no small feat: breaking into Pym Labs and stealing the prototype of an element essential to the company's years-long attempts to match Pym's experiments in shrinking, which are being designed for weaponization to be sold to the highest bidder, with a corporation's indifference to anything but the viability of the coinage. So, a plan is hatched between Lang and his cohorts and Pym and his daughter (Evangeline Lilly, who manages to make a great performance out of a part that is usually played mawkishly—one doesn't know if it's the part that is written well or just her playing of it that makes it exceptional)—who has managed to win the loyalty of the arrogantly sociopathic new head of Pym Labs (Corey Stall) to infiltrate the facility and keep the monopoly (so to speak).

It wouldn't be a good heist movie (as director Reed calls it) if everything went smoothly. It doesn't, but on a decidedly concentrated scale, albeit one that incorporates most of the cast. Where most superhero movies go global with city-wide destruction, crumbling sky-scarpers and flowering orange explosions, Ant-Man takes it small, which, at the least, is refreshing. It also pays off in wonderful perspective-based moments of comedy, of the like not seen since the "Men in Black" series. There's a giddy joy in Ant-Man, no matter how schizy the villains, no matter how "angsty" the drama, the filmmakers know that they're working with a superhero that is not all-powerful, and from the looks of it may be under a severe handicap. They then proceed to milk all the coolness from it, showing us the bizarre perspective of being the tiniest thing in the room, and having a great deal of fun with the yin-yang of POV.

One could quibble about that: how much of a threat could Thomas the Tank Engine be if the "Yellowjacket" can control his weight and density? And as soon as you ask that you realize that you're not having nearly as much fun as you should and probably should shut up and take the movie (and life) a little less seriously. It's enjoyable, and surprisingly enjoyable—which Marvel tends to do when the chips are down and they HAVE to make a hit against the odds—The Avengers (but not its sequel), Captain America: The First Avenger, and Guardians of the Galaxy). It is when they don't play it safe and go against the grain and the current trends for success that the studio has the best success. Artistically, anyway. And Ant-man is as entertaining as any of the movies that Marvel has produced.

That is no small feat.