Story

Scott Lang (Paul Rudd) is a burglar recently released from San Quentin prison. He can’t find a job that lets him earn enough to pay child support to his ex-wife and to see his daughter. So he agrees to help his former cellmate Luis (Michael Pena) burgle a rich old man, Dr Hank Pym (Michael Douglas). Years earlier Dr Pym invented a superhero suit that shrinks the wearer down to ant size while giving him superhero strength and speed, and the ability to communicate with and control ants.

Scott successfully breaks into Pym’s safe and steals the suit. After discovering what the suit does, Scott tries to return the suit to Pym but is arrested for the theft. 

It turns out that Dr Pym has been watching Scott for some time and has decided that Scott would make the perfect recruit for his Ant-Man suit. Rather than sending Scott to prison, Pym offers Scott redemption if he wears the suit and becomes a superhero crime fighter. Pym’s daughter Hope van Dyne (Evangeline Lilly) will train Scott. 

Dr Darren Cross (Corey Stoll) is Dr Pym’s nemesis. Cross is also known as Yellow Jacket and has been trying to get his hands on the secret of Pym’s suit for years. Ant-Man, Hope and Pym must put a halt to Cross’s plans for world chaos.

Themes

Superheroes; crime; redemption

Violence

Ant-Man has frequent action violence, peril, some gun-related violence, several violent deaths, threats against a child, harm to animals and animal death, and some mass destruction. There is minimal blood and gore. Here are some examples:

• A man violently slams a co-worker’s face into a desk, leaving the man with a bloody nose and face.
• Some prison inmates stand in a circle around two men, who punch each other in the face and chest. Following the fight one of the men says that the fight was a prison farewell ritual.
• A flashback scene shows animated footage of a miniaturised superwoman disarming a nuclear missile. The woman shrinks to subatomic size and enters the missile. Later Pym tells his adult daughter that her mother died as a superhero while disarming a missile.
• A man shoots a second man with a miniaturisation gun. This reduces the second man to a small glob of pink jelly, which the first man wipes up and flushes down the toilet.
• A man is shot in the shoulder, leaving a small circle of blood where he is shot. The man later wears a sling.
• After a man asks a woman to show him how to punch, the woman punches him hard in the face. The man bends over, holding his face in pain.
• A couple of scenes show a man and woman sparring, using stylised martial arts fighting moves with punches and kicks to the body and head.
• In one scene a villain grabs a terrified young girl as a hostage to intimidate the girl’s father. The child isn’t hurt.
• Ant-Man surfs down a flooded pipe on the backs of an army of ants then climbs up a chain of ants to emerge out of a sink plughole as the ants swarm over and attack a guard. Ant-Man then climbs onto the back of a flying ant and flies off with a swarm of flying ants. Guards with handguns and rifles fire at the swarm, but neither Ant-Man nor any of the ants are hurt. Ant-Man and the swarm enter some machinery, which makes it short-circuit and explode. The swarm also sets off miniature explosive charges, which make a high-rise building explode in flames.
• In one scene a toy Thomas the Tank Engine is enlarged to the size of a normal train. It breaks through the attic wall of a house, then crashes down and destroys a police car.

Sexual references

Ant-Man has some sexual references. For example:

• A man says a school girl’s breasts were ‘the first pair of boobs I ever touched’.
• Some characters talk about women being ‘hot’.

Alcohol, drugs and other substances

Ant-Man shows some use of substances. For example:

• A woman talks about drugging three men with Xanax.
• Characters drink socially.

Nudity and sexual activity

Ant-Man shows some partial nudity and sexual activity. For example:

• There is a rear view of a man urinating in a toilet.
• Pym opens a door to discover his daughter and a man kissing passionately. The man jokes that the woman grabbed him and kissed him.
• A man is shown with a bare chest.
• A superhero woman wears a form-fitting body suit.

Product placement

The following products are displayed or used in Ant-Man:

• Thomas the Tank Engine toys
• Brand-name cars, phones and computers.
  
  Also, merchandise associated with the movie is being marketed to children.

Coarse language

Ant-Man has some coarse language and name-calling.

Ideas to discuss with your children

Rated PG, Ant-Man is a Marvel Comics superhero movie targeting younger teenagers and other fans of Marvel comics and movies.

The movie’s focus is more on comedy and action than on violence, so it’s more suited to a younger audience than other Marvel movies. But there are still plenty of violent and scary scenes, including violent deaths and violence to a child and animals. For these reasons, we don’t recommend the movie for children under 10 years. And we strongly recommend parental guidance for children aged 10-13 years.

The main message from this movie is that everyone deserves a chance to redeem themselves.

Values in this movie that you could reinforce with your children include forgiveness, redemption, trust and team work.