Rent Antboy (2013)

Antboy review by George Hooper - Cinema Paradiso

While the superhero genre is one that has been done to death in modern Hollywood it hasn’t been taken advantage of in foreign cinema and while its good to see a new take on a genre dominated by Marvel there is not much to Antboy, a film designed for children and nobody else as the film fails to commit to providing a film accessible for all ages.

Antboy follows Pelle, a child who is bitten by an ant and develops powers because of it. Not only does he gain powers but when he tells his friends he is persuaded to become a masked hero, saving people. However when a villain called The Flea starts causing havoc it is up to Antboy to deal with the problem once and for all.

Although the film is colourful with a fast pace and plenty of silly moments to go around it also never really makes a lick of sense, it feels rushed and confusing as Pelle does things purely for the sake of plot, not because he has any smarts to be detected. The whole picture feels like it is still being worked on and while a major rewrite may have been necessary the film mostly suffers from the look of the film as it never really feels like a superhero movie.

When it comes down to it Antboy is a disappointing attempt at taking advantage of a genre long since lost to most filmmakers and while it's admirable that they tried to ambitiously make a childrens film out of the whole mess it didn’t feel like the effort that was required was actually put in making this a shocking waste of time, money and to some extent talent.In the end it’s probably best if you stick with Marvel for the forseeable future instead of branching out into territory like this