Ant-Man review: How does it impact Infinity War?
By Alex Hodgson
What did not work?
Production Issues
During development of the film, Marvel had to quickly find another director after Edgar Wright pulled out. Though he’d been trying to make a film based on the character since 2003, Wright left because of creative differences with Marvel.
This led to Peyton Reed taking the reigns of the film and, as a result, a fairly substantial rewrite. Though the bulk of Wright’s story remained, Reed enlisted Adam McKay to help adapt the script. McKay worked alongside Paul Rudd for six weeks to change the script and one of the main changes was increasing the role of Hope van Dyne.
There were occasional moments in the film that didn’t quite gel together and this was probably due to the production issues.
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Hope van Dyne deserved better
Though the rewrite did favor Hope van Dyne, there’s still a feeling that she deserved better in the film. One of the big questions that could very easily be asked is: “Why didn’t Pym give Hope the suit?”
Simply put, van Dyne is a badass who’s more than a suitable candidate to wear the suit. She clearly knows how to do it as she’s heavily involved in training Scott. Why bother to go through all of that training montage? Surely, the logical thing to do would have been to allow Hope to take the role.
While Pym himself would argue that it was out of fear of losing his daughter in the same way he lost his wife, why would he go to the lengths to make sure she could take care of herself? Obviously, we see that he’s planned on eventually giving Hope the technology from the post-credits scene. It does seem very strange that he suddenly becomes very overprotective during the film.
Thankfully, Ant-Man and The Wasp seems to be her reward for being undersold in Ant-Man.