Trailer Trashin’: Putting the New Ant-Man Trailer Under the Microscope
It’s almost here, dear readers. Our long wait is nearly over, because Avengers: Age of Ultron finally opens stateside this Friday. But more than that, I’m going on vacation! I’ll be out of town for the next couple weeks, and in order to not deprive you of Trailer Trashin’, I’m going to write four columns that will make their way to you over the next 
week or so, covering four of the biggest trailers that dropped in the later part of April. The first is the new full trailer for Disney and Marvel’s upcoming July release Ant-Man.
Premise: Thief Scott Lang (Paul Rudd) must aid his mentor Dr. Hank Pym (Michael Douglas) in safeguarding the mystery of the Ant-Man technology – which allows its user to decrease in size but increase in strength – from various new threats, and plot a heist that will save the Earth.
My take: The trailer starts with a shot of the Golden Gate Bridge and San Francisco skyline, a city we haven’t seen in any previous films in the Marvel Cinematic Universe (MCU). We then cut to inside a high-tech building and see Darren Cross (Corey Stoll), our villain. In voiceover, he says “Imagine a soldier, the size of an insect. The ultimate secret weapon.” As Cross speaks, we see a miniature Ant-Man flipping through the air and landing on what looks like the floor of an office. This is followed by the outside of a large house in a tropical environment, and a guy in fatigues with a Kalashnikov rifle being slammed into the wall by an unseen force, and the nearby light bulbs are shattered. According to rumors, an early scene will be set in the 1960s, and show a younger Hank Pym suited up as Ant-Man on a mission for S.H.I.E.L.D. somewhere in Latin America; if that’s true, these shots must be from there. Next is another shot of Darren Cross, in front of a Pym Technologies sign and addressing a crowd of people, who clap as he finishes speaking. Near the back of the crowd, we can see Hank Pym himself, clearly not happy about the direction that Cross is taking the company that used to belong to Hank. As the applause continues, Cross holds up his hands in a show of mock humility.
We cut to a shot sweeping across water toward the Pym Technologies building, as we hear Hank Pym say in voiceover “If you give godlike powers to everyone, there’s gonna be chaos.” This is followed by explosions going off in that same tropical setting from earlier. Cut to Hank talking to Hope Van Dyne (Evangeline Lilly), his estranged daughter. “So how do we stop him?” she asks, presumably referring to Cross. “I know a guy.” Hank replies.
After the Marvel Studios logo – which gets shrunk down and then surrounded by ants – we see Scott Lang in prison, receiving a beating from a fellow convict. We hear Hank say “Scott, I’ve been watching you for a while,” accompanied by a shot of Hank sitting in front of a bank of computer and video monitors. “You’re different.” Scott cooling his heels in his cell. “And I believe everyone deserves a shot at redemption.” Now we see that Scott and Hank are sitting across from each other in a police station interrogation room; I assume this is their first meeting, with Hank coming to bail Scott out of prison before extending the offer to be the new Ant-Man. Hank finishes by asking Scott “Do you?”
Hank enters his old lab, followed by Scott. He hear Scott say “Absolutely. My days of breaking into places and stealing stuff are over,” with a shot of him doing exactly that. Back in the lab, Scott asks “What do you want me to do?” Hank replies “I want you to break into a place and steal some stuff.” “Makes sense,” Scott says after a beat. A hand pulls a door handle, a door opens, and we see Hank’s old Ant-Man suit sitting in storage. Hank asks “Are you ready to become the hero?”
Scott examines the suit’s helmet as we hear Hope explaining to Scott how the Ant-Man suit works. “Now the suit has power.” Inside a car, Scott watches as four ants lift a penny up onto its edge and start it spinning in place like a top. “You have to learn how to control it.” Inside a bathroom, a now suited-up Scott stands inside the bathtub, preparing to test the Ant-Man technology. He shrinks down and disappears from our view. We cut to a miniature Scott in the suit looking down a weird tunnel of some kind. “And these are your greatest allies,” says Hope as a small red ant appears. “You’re kinda cute,” Scott says as he kneels down next to the ant. We hear Scott say “Whoa,” as he confronted with an army of fully-grown black ants. We then see Scott running through the tunnels of what must be the ant colony, among and ahead of the swarm of ants.
Hope explanation continues: “When you’re small, you have superhuman strength.” We see Scott in the Ant-Man suit inside what must be the Pym Technologies building, using his size-changing power to suddenly appear in front of two security guards, shrink down again and leap through a bullet hole in a glass door, grab the tie of one of the guards, and then change back to normal size and use his momentum to flip the guy over his shoulder and throw him through a different glass barrier. “You’re like a bullet,” Hope says, as we see tiny Scott jump onto the front of the other guard’s pistol, leap on top of it just before the gun fires, then run along the top of the gun. The guard looks at the tiny Scott running up his shoulder, not sure what to do, when he suddenly gets floored by a super-strong hit from the miniature superhero. We then see Hope and Scott in what looks like a rundown gym. “So you need to know how to punch,” she says, finishing her explanation. “You wanna show me how to punch?” Scott asks, sounding rather incredulous. He holds up his open palm and says “Show me how to punch,” and gets decked in the face by Hope just as he finishes the sentence. Scott staggers back and puts a hand to his face. “That’s how you punch,” Hope says with a smirk. We then see Scott clipping some kind of cable line to the belt of his suit, before jumping off an edge and plunging down into a strange illuminated shaft, possibly the inside of a big machine.
Over a shot of the city skyline at night, we hear Cross speak again. “You tried to hide your suit from me,” he says – I assume to Hank – as we see him flanked by two bodyguards on an open-air walkway. Cross is missing his suit jacket, carrying a briefcase, and looks quite pissed off about something. We see some glowing machinery, which might be the reactor at Pym Technologies which creates the “Pym particles” needed for this size-changing technology to work. Next we see Hope and Hank looking into a vault, on a pedestal inside which is the miniaturized Yellowjacket suit that Cross will eventually use. “Now, it’s gonna blow up in your face,” Cross says, “and destroy everyone you care about.” As he says this we see both Hank and Hope embracing, and Scott kissing the forehead of his young daughter Cassie Lang (Abby Ryder Fortson).
Darren Cross and Paul Rudd in “ANt-Man.” Photo Credit: Film Frame..© Marvel 2015.
We next see Cross suited up in his Yellowjacket armor; it looks like he’s actually standing in Cassie Lang’s bedroom, which must mean that Cross goes after Scott’s family. The two robotic arms on the back of the Yellowjacket suit point at Scott, but it then cuts to a shot of Yellowjacket in a completely different environment, as he fires blue energy beams from his suit’s arms. We then cut to an outside shot of a massive explosion at what might be the Pym Technologies building, although most of it is obscured by the fireball. We then see a damaged helicopter, with fire burning in its cockpit, spiraling downward over the city. Hope shouts “Scott, get out of there!” A tiny Scott skids along the floor of the chopper and is pulled out by the winds, but manages to stop himself by grabbing a line and returning to normal size at the last second.
As the music ramps up, we see a tiny Scott riding on a winged ant. Cross bellows “Did you think you could stop the future?” as he – at full size – aims a punch at the tiny Scott, then shrinks down as he throws the punch, resulting in a midair battle as the two exchange blows in free-fall. “You’re just a thief!” Cross says as he looms over Scott, beam cannons armed; in a nice detail, you can see a giant electrical plug behind them in the shot. This is followed by a shot from a different sequence, as a tiny Scott is pushed down a drainpipe by water, among a huge swarm of regular ants that are clinging together for protection. “No,” Scott says, and we cut to him and Cross outside, both at normal size and wearing their suits, “I’m Ant-Man.” Cross gives him a look, and Scott deadpans “I know. Wasn’t my idea.”
We cut back to the fight in Cassie’s bedroom, as Scott shrinks down and lands in a model toy railway set on top of a table. The tiny Scott jumps and dodges as the full-size Cross fires energy beams at him, blasting chunks out of the playset. Scott leaps toward the camera fist-first. After the “Ant-Man” title card, we cut to another part of the fight, as Scott lands on top of the toy train cars, accompanied by the sounds of a real locomotive – maybe the toy train set has a sound chip that’s providing the noise? This is followed by the single best moment of the trailer, as the tiny Cross is on the tracks and holds up his hands as the smiling face of Thomas the Tank Engine bears down on him. Cut to a wide shot of the toy train set, as Thomas and his train cars fall off the track with a half-hearted whistle sound effect. This is followed by two more quick shots of the tiny Scott and Cross fighting, with Scott picking up and throwing the train set’s caboose and Cross blasting a wooden-block car to pieces with his beam cannons.
I liked the first trailer for Ant-Man, but it did leave a number of questions. But after this one, I’m really stoked. This looks like a really fun entry in the Marvel Cinematic Universe, and if it’s as good as I hope, I’m sure we’ll see more of Scott Lang and company in future MCU films. When the middle of July rolls around, I’ll definitely be checking out Ant-Man.
ANTICIPATION: Heroes don’t come any bigger, and superhero movies don’t get more fun than this.
Starring: Paul Rudd, Evangeline Lilly, Cory Stoll, Bobby Cannavale, Michael Peña, Judy Greer, Tip “T.I.” Harris, David Dastmalchian, Wood Harris, Jordi Mollà, Michael Douglas, Abby Ryder Fortson, John Slattery, and Hayley Atwell
Director: Peyton Reed
Writers: Adam McKay, Paul Rudd, Edgar Wright, and Joe Cornish, based on Ant-Man by Stan Lee, Larry Lieber, and Jack Kirby
Timothy Monforton
