Antboy (2013)
6/10
Spider Man meets Kick-Ass
15 September 2014
Warning: Spoilers
And the result is Antboy in this danish superhero movie aimed at younger audiences. Of course, it does not have the financial possibilities of the real huge superhero blockbusters (despite winning the prestigious Visual Effects award at the Danish Film Prize, hear hear), but it makes up for these with lots of charm and humor. The kids all give good performances and the main character is pretty likable. My favorite part was how his interest changes from the Barbie-like girl that everybody adores to her adventurous sister. The little Barbie wants Ant Boy to kiss her, but he suddenly has no interest in her anymore and asks for the other girl, after which the Barbie girl, just reacts in a bit of a bitchy way that she calls her sister and that somebody wants to visit her.

The main villain (Nicolas Bro, one of Denmarks most famous actors right now worked with Spielberg and von Trier recently) to Antboy is huge mixture between human and flea, kinda perfect, a bit scary, but not too much and also mostly in a funny weird way. Quite a character this flea. The final message on friendship is a nice one, although it appears a bit random and only included for the sake of it without really much convincing story dependence, especially as the other boy was much more of a friend to Antboy than to the main character.

In Denmark this film must have been quite a success as for Christmas 2014, there will be a sequel coming out. Hopefully they manage to make this work too. Nicolas Bro will be back, so maybe the ant and the flea will clash again. Antboy 1 is the first feature film, after some short film work, for director Ask Hasselbach. The writing staff is prominent too and has been featured before on the original "Girl with the Dragon Tattoo" for example. If you like superhero movies, this one deserves definitely a look. It's very different and at the same time refreshing. In Germany there is quite a few decent children's movies based on books coming out and here finally is one from north the border. The runtime is clearly under 90 minutes, so it's even a good choice for those who struggle with movies that drag a lot. This one does not and I would not want to cut out a single scene. Recommended.
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