Ant-Man (film)

Ant-Man is the twelfth film in the Marvel Cinematic Universe and the final film of Phase 2.

Plot
In 1989, the original Ant-Man Hank Pym goes before Howard Stark, Peggy Carter and Mitchell Carson at the incomplete Triskelion and angrily tenders his resignation to S.H.I.E.L.D. after discovering that S.H.I.E.L.D. attempted to duplicate his shrinking technology. Pym believes the technology is dangerous and vows to take the secret to his grave.

In the present day, several months after the events that transpired in Sokovia, Scott Lang, a well-trained electrical engineer, has been released from San Quentin State Prison after serving three years for stealing from his former employer, VistaCorp, and returning the funds to ripped off customers. He rejoins his old cellmate, Luis, who introduces him to Dave and Kurt. Luis tries to offer Lang a lucrative burglary job, but Lang no longer wishes to live that life. Lang visits his ex-wife Maggie's house for his daughter Cassie's birthday party, where he finds that she is engaged to a cop, Paxton. Maggie agrees to grant visitation rights to Lang if he can successfully straighten out his life.

Pym pays a visit to his old company, Pym Technologies, where the current CEO and Pym's disgruntled former protege, Darren Cross, reveals that he is aware that Pym was once Ant-Man, and hid the secret of the technology from him; he goes on to unveil the prototype The Yellowjacket, an experimental size-altering suit that Cross believes will revolutionize warfare and espionage. Pym is horrified at the development, although he is unaware that Cross has been unable to apply the shrinking technology to living organisms.

Lang loses his job because of his criminal record, so he reluctantly agrees to go back to crime. Lang breaks into a wealthy house and cracks a series of safes in the basement, only to find nothing but an old suit which he carries home. He tries on the suit and accidentally presses a button that makes him shrink to the size of an insect. Terrified by the experience despite Pym's attempt to calm him, he returns to the house and replaces the suit, only to be met by police and arrested on his way out. Pym, pretending to be Lang's lawyer, meets Lang in the police station, and offers Lang the option of working for him rather than going back to prison. With the aid of some ants, Pym smuggles the suit into Lang's cell and helps him escape, although Lang loses consciousness during the flight.

Lang wakes up in Pym's house, where he meets Pym's daughter Hope van Dyne, a senior executive at Pym Technologies Lab, and Pym's estranged daughter. Despite their difficult relationship, van Dyne is secretly monitoring Cross's development for her father. Pym reveals that he has been monitoring Lang since the VistaCorp incident, and manipulated him into stealing the suit; he has chosen Lang to become the new Ant-Man in order to steal the Yellowjacket technology from Cross. Pym and van Dyne train Lang to fight and to control ants which culminates in a raid on a forgotten Stark bunker in upstate New York- which, upon Lang's arrival, he discovers is now the Avengers' headquarters. There he comes into conflict with Sam Wilson, and is eventually able to disable Wilson's flight and visual gear, allowing him to escape. Once Lang returns, Pym then tells them the truth about the death of van Dyne's mother: she was once Ant-Man's sidekick, the Wasp, and also possessed a size-altering suit. During a mission to disable a Soviet nuclear missile, she bypassed her suit's safeguards and shrunk to a subatomic level. While she was ultimately successful in disabling the missile, she was unable to halt the shrinking process and was lost in a subatomic "quantum realm" from which there is no escape. This revelation allows Pym and van Dyne to reconcile their relationship.

In his lab, Cross manages to safely shrink a lamb to the size of an insect, meaning his Yellowjacket suit is perfected. He personally invites Pym to attend the official unveiling, meaning Lang must steal the Yellowjacket that night. After leaving Pym, Cross calls van Dyne and tells her that he suspects Pym is planning something, and that he is increasing security for the unveiling. Lang is then forced to bring his gang in on the job and along with the assistance of a swarm of flying ants, Lang infiltrates the Pym Technologies building, sabotages the servers and plants explosives. When he attempts to to steal the Yellowjacket suit, he instead is aught in a trap by Cross, who had anticipated the theft. Cross, having both the Yellowjacket and Ant-Man suits, plans to sell the technology to Mitchell Carson, who is revealed to be a Hydra agent. Lang manages to break out of the trap and kills the Hydra agents. As Cross escapes in a helicopter, the explosives go off, destroying Pym Technologies.

Infuriated, Cross dons the only remaining Yellowjacket suit. Lang attacks the helicopter and starts a fight with Cross. After falling out of the helicopter, Lang is able to trap Cross in a bug zapper, but is arrested by Paxton before he can destroy the suit. Cross proceeds to attacks Maggie and Paxton's home, in a hope to lure Lang to him by threatening Cassie. Lang arrives, and as they fight, Lang manages to defeat the Yellowjacket by shrinking to subatomic size and sabotaging its circuitry from the inside. This causes Cross to shrink uncontrollably to nothingness, but Lang is unable to stop shrinking, as Pym as warned, and is apparently trapped in the realm. Lang is able to return to normal size after tinkering with the suit's mechanism. In gratitude for Lang's heroism, Paxton covers for Lang to keep him out of prison. Seeing that Lang survived and returned from the quantum realm but is unable to recall anything about the experience, Pym wonders if his wife is alive too. Luis informs Lang that an Avenger is trying to find him, and this is revealed to be Sam Wilson.

In a mid-credits scene, Pym shows his daughter a partially upgraded Wasp suit that he and his wife had been building; he now believes the suit was meant for her, which causes her to smile. In a post-credits scene, Wilson and Steve Rogers have managed to trap the Winter Soldier and are discussing what to do. After deciding not to inform Tony Stark, Wilson states that he knows who to contact.

Cast

 * Paul Rudd as Scott Lang/Ant-Man
 * Michael Douglas as Hank Pym
 * Dax Griffin as Young Hank Pym
 * Evangeline Lilly as Hope van Dyne
 * Corey Stoll as Darren Cross/Yellowjacket
 * Michael Peña as Luis
 * David Dastmalchian as Kurt
 * John Slattery as Howard Stark
 * Abby Ryder Fortson as Cassie Lang
 * Bobby Cannavale as Jim Paxton
 * Judy Greer as Maggie Lang
 * Wood Harris as Gale
 * Gregg Turkington as Dale
 * T.I. as Dave
 * Martin Donovan as Mitchell Carson
 * Hayley Lovitt as Janet van Dyne
 * Hayley Atwell as Peggy Carter
 * Jordi Mollà as Castillo
 * Lyndsi LaRose as Emily
 * Anthony Mackie as Sam Wilson/Falcon
 * Chris Evans as Steve Rogers/Captain America
 * Sebastian Stan as Bucky Barnes/Winter Soldier
 * Stan Lee as Bartender
 * Anna Kay Akana as Journalist
 * Garrett Morris as Cab Driver

Continuity and References to the Marvel Cinematic Universe

 * A Pingo Doce Soda poster appears. The bottling company Bruce Banner worked for in The Incredible Hulk bottled Pingo Doce Soda.
 * Howard Stark appears.
 * Peggy Carter appears.
 * S.H.I.E.L.D. appears.
 * Pym Particles are introduced.
 * Pym Technologies is introduced.
 * Cross Technologies is introduced.
 * The Avengers are mentioned.
 * The Ten Rings are indirectly mentioned.
 * Hank Pym is introduced.
 * Janet van Dyne/The Wasp is introduced.
 * Scott Lang is introduced.
 * Hope van Dyne is introduced.
 * Darren Cross is introduced.
 * Mitchell Carson is introduced.
 * The Iron Man armor is mentioned.
 * Tony Stark is mentioned.
 * Sam Wilson/Falcon appears.
 * Steve Rogers appears.
 * Bucky Barnes/Winter Soldier appears.
 * The Quantum Realm is introduced.
 * The Kosmos Dimension is introduced.
 * The New Avengers Facility appears.
 * Spider-Man is mentioned.
 * HYDRA appears.
 * The Triskelion appears.
 * New Avengers Facility appears.
 * Sokovia is mentioned.
 * The Accords are introduced.

Production
The film was shot in San Francisco, California and Fayette County, Georgia.