Master storyteller George R. R. Martin, the brains behind the highly popular "Game of Thrones" series, is apparently a huge fan of Marvel. He is very pleased with the production company's latest offering, "Ant-Man," and can't stop raving about it.
"'Ant-Man' has a proper balance of story, character, humour, and action, I think. A couple of reviewers are calling it the best Marvel movie ever. I won't go that far, but it's right up there, maybe second only to the second Sam Raimi/Tobey Maguire 'Spider-Man' film, the one with Doc Ock," he wrote on his blog, ironically called "Not A Blog."
The biggest concern he had before watching the film was that Scott Lang would be Ant-Man and not Hank Pym, since he is more familiar with the latter. In fact, he loved the dynamics between Pym's Ant-Man and Janet Van Dyne's Wasp in the comic books, so he initially thought that choosing Lang to put on the suit was a mistake.
But after watching the movie, Martin was happy to report that "they did it right."
"Scott Lang is the featured Ant-Man, yes, and Paul Rudd makes him a sympathetic and engaging protagonist, but due honour is done to Hank and his own career as the first Ant-Man as well, with Michael Douglas turning in a fine performance as Pym," noted Martin. "There's a lot of humour in this film, but it is not a farce, as I feared it might be. There's a lot of action too, but not so much that it overwhelms the plot and characters, which was my problem with the last 'Avengers' and the one before it, to think of it."
The only complaints he had was that there was not enough Wasp screen time, and that Marvel villains have become boring and predictable. Martin noticed that the bad guys always have the same powers as the superheroes, and he cited a few examples.
"The Hulk fought the Abomination, who is just a bad Hulk. Spider-Man fights Venom, who is just a bad Spider-Man. Iron Man fights Ironmonger, a bad Iron Man. Yawn," he noted. "I want more films where the hero and the villain have wildly different powers. That makes the action much more interesting."
