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[Ant-Man is] a zany comedy with an actual comedian, Paul Rudd, in the title role – a refreshing change for those of us who aren't card-carrying comic-book geeks, though in truth it isn't much of a change... Is Ant-Man a smart entertainment? As smart as a film about an ant-sized superhero can be.

The fights are well choreographed and for once not overlong, and the shrinking sequences are intermittently brilliant; visual and rhetorical echoes of The Incredible Shrinking Man (1957) are presumably deliberate. Ant-Man is no masterpiece, but it is a plausible addition to the Marvel universe and a smart summer action comedy in its own right.

Compared with other recent superhero movies, Ant-Man feels neither bathetic nor excessively glib—it's a superhero movie played, for the most part, as light, character-driven comedy... Director Peyton Reed, with his background in film comedy, deserves some credit for the relatable vibe. The conversations have a pleasing flow, and the characters seem to be telling jokes to each other rather than the audience. Yet it's the lead performances—Douglas's in particular—that give the movie ballast.

Ant-Man is a bracing, giddy delight. It's a comedy, and a neoclassical one, more closely related to Alfred Hitchcock's "To Catch a Thief" and to hectically skimpy B-movies than to the other members of the Marvel family. It's the non-bombastic superhero movie.

This is the sort of movie where you see the effort and say, Thank god. It's good, sloshy fun, with the exact right proportions. The hero (Paul Rudd) has a personality. The villain (Corey Stoll) is loathsome without being over-the-top about it. The supporting black and Latino characters are stereotypes but played by energetic, charismatic actors (T.I. and Michael Peña). And there's a bite-size, perfectly basic caper plot and effects and art design that feel sprung from dreams.

A small consolation from the prospect of this near-megalomania is that Ant-Man is at least entertaining without overwhelming, and funny without the pomposity of the recent Marvel onslaught. Less is not actually more — less is tolerable, less is relief in the season of Brobdingnagian stampede.

The movie, directed by Peyton Reed ("Down With Love," "Bring It On") and starring Paul Rudd, isn't exactly or entirely fluffy, but it's pretty damn agile, and as a result provides the most pure, uncomplicated fun, and even joy, of any Marvel picture I've seen.

Director Peyton Reed (Down With Love, Yes Man) shows a knack for managing and integrating effects, though he occasionally seems thrown by the movie's competing comic sensibilities, which swing from improv-esque deadpan (Adam McKay assisted with rewrites) to complicated audiovisual gags, like the montages that accompany Luis' convoluted explanations of basic plot points. Both approaches yield their share of funny stuff, bolstered by good casting.

Its self-mocking, slightly absurdist tone would likely have been stronger if Wright (Shaun of the Dead, Scott Pilgrim vs. the World) had stayed on as director. Still, there's enough bubbly energy in the action sequences and enough irreverence in the dialogue to make this a likeable enough contrast to all those dankly self-serious comic book movies.

Marvel films tend to peter out as they build to their overstuffed climaxes, but Ant-Man subverts this structure... This sequence [where Ant-Man and Yellowjacket face off] and others like it are by far the most clever, visually adventurous, belligerently fun moments to ever happen in a Marvel movie, and if the rest of the film gave into their energy instead of the usual origin-story tedium, Marvel Studios might have had its first truly great film.

Directors of superhero movies should themselves be superheros, willing to put their neck on the line for an eccentric, long-odds play. But, for whatever the reasons may be, they so seldom do. Maybe I just need to stop thinking about things so much and "just have fun with it"? Yet why shouldn't I expect more? Why? ...It's not a bad movie. It's just one that lacked for something new to say.

In its very best moments, the film zings with an Aardman-esque zaniness that feels like pure Wright, even if his replacement as director, Peyton Reed, wisely resists the temptation to mimic his predecessor's hyper-caffeinated visual style. But Ant-Man's troubled genesis barely registers in the finished product.