When a character who was mostly unknown to mainstream audiences. They quickly realized that the best way to go about it was to focus on the more comedic elements of the character and the interesting fights that could come as a result of shrinking,
In the end, a surprise hit. It manages to tell a hilarious but heartfelt story about a reformed thief who becomes a hero trying to turn his life around for his daughter.
Gag: I Got The Van
The first time the audience gets introduced to Michael Pena's character, Luis, is when he's picking Scott up from prison in a brown van that plays "La Cucaracha" when you honk the horn. After Scott asks him how he's been, Luis starts listing all the things that have gone wrong in his life since they last saw each other including his girlfriend breaking up with him, his mom dying and his dad getting deported.
But, still seeing the positive of the situation, Luis ignores all the things he said previously and instead expresses his excitement over receiving the van.
Action Sequence: Trial By Water
The first real action scene of the movie, aside from Scott breaking in and stealing the suit, is when the protagonist first tries the outfit on and decides to test it out in the bathtub without fully knowing what it could do.
Due to his inexperience with the suit, or shrinking in general, Scott ends up getting tossed around from place to place, chased by a mouse, and sucked up by a vacuum. The sequence ultimately ends with Scott landing on top of a car before managing to hit the button to grow again.
Gag: Scott's New Job
After being released from prison, Scott planned to get his life on track. Unfortunately, despite his Master's degree in Electrical Engineering, he struggled to find work and had to settle for working at Baskin Robins.
Unfortunately for Scott, according to his boss, Dale, "Baskin Robbins always finds out" and discovered that he had hidden his criminal record from them and was pretending to be someone he wasn't. Scott was then fired but was allowed to take a Mango Fruit Blast with him, leading him to pull off the heist that would result in him obtaining the Ant-Man suit.
Action Sequence: Ant-Man V. Falcon
After Scott got some more experience, he was told by Hank Pym that they need to get a signal decoy so that they could effectively pull off their heist from what they believed to be an empty warehouse. Unfortunately for Scott, what he and Hank didn't know until the former arrived at the location was that it was a new Avengers Facility. More importantly, Falcon was on guard.
Scott initially attempts to sneak past but Sam manages to see him and the two fight. Despite them having wildly different powers and abilities, the fight still did a great job of showing how far Scott had come in his training with him shrinking and trying to avoid Sam's enhanced senses before eventually managing to deactivate his jetpack
Gag: Training Montage
While it could count as an action sequence, the scenes of Scott training serve more of a comedic purpose. Viewers see him trying and failing to master the suit's abilities while being coached by Hank and Hope van Dyne, the latter of which punches Scott in the face while sparring.
In addition, Scott attempts to shrink through a keyhole but repeatedly slams into the door, ends up enlarging himself underground after being bombarded by the ants, and accidentally grows a garden gnome after throwing a Pym particle at it.
Action Sequence: Pym Technologies Fight
At its core, the Ant-Man films are heist movies. The main job of the first film was for the team – Scott, Hope, Hank, Luis, Kurt, and Dave – to try and get into Pym Technologies and steal the Yellowjacket suit at its official unveiling before Darren Cross could sell it to potential terrorist organizations like the 10 rings.
Scott would try and enter the building using the help of the ants, Luis would pose as a Security guard, Dave and Kurt would be in the getaway van hacking the security systems, and Hope and Hank would try and talk to Cross directly. Unfortunately, Cross caught onto their plan and was able to move the suit before Scott could get it.
Gag: Luis' Stories
Delivering complex exposition in a way that doesn't ruin the pacing is a problem that a lot of films have. Luckily, Ant-Man was able to find an interesting and engaging workaround by having the information be relayed by Luis.
The movie would show the characters talking to each other but then Luis would mimic their voices and repeat their words while inserting a bit of his personality into the dialogue. It's a running gag and is even used during the first film's climax when it's revealed that Captain America: Civil War.
Action Sequence: Helicopter Fight
This scene directly follows the team's failed attempt to steal the Yellowjacket suit, with Cross getting away with the technology. Scott chases after him using a swarm of flying ants but Darren shoots at them and manages to kill Ant-thony, the main ant Scott relied on.
Scott still manages to get on board the helicopter Cross was escaping on. After Cross tries to shoot Lang, the former dons the Yellowjacket suit and uses it to fight. The helicopter crashes while the two continue to exchange blows while trapped in a suitcase that fell from it.
Gag: The Giant Ant
Throughout the film, a lot of things were shrunken or enlarged thanks to wildly thrown Pym Particles. One of those things was a bullet ant that got hit during Scott's fight with Yellowjacket in Cassie's room.
The enormous ant then ran out of the house causing people to think it was simply a strange-looking dog. At the end of the film, it's revealed that the oversized creature was being kept by Cassie as a pet and being treated like any other house animal.
Action Sequence: Train Set Fight
The final battles of most superhero films see the hero and villain duking it out in the ruins of a destroyed city. However, unlike those movies, Ant-Man's final fight against Yellowjacket takes place in Scott's daughter's bedroom. The two characters use the toys in her room as weapons, which allows the film to do unique things like having the two pint-sized opponents using a Thomas the Tank Engine set as a weapon.
It ends with Scott almost sacrificing himself by shrinking between molecules to dismantle Darren Cross' suit, a process that sends the hero to the Quantum Realm.
