Where You’ve Seen Them Before: The Cast of Ant-Man

“Ant-Man” has great special effects and a fun storyline but its real strength is the cast, several of my favorite performers.  They may look familiar.

Paul Rudd has been one of the most appealing actors in Hollywood since “Clueless” came out 20 years ago this week.  He is most often thought of as a likeable comic actor in films like “Anchorman” and “Role Models,” and as a light leading man in romantic comedies from the awful (“Dinner for Schmucks,” “Wanderlust”) to the ambitious but not entirely successful (“How Do You Know”).  He is game for just about anything, as shown in micro-budget and experimental films like “Prince Avalanche” and the web series parody of reality dating shows, “Burning Love.” He appeared in “Romeo + Juliet” as Paris, the guy Juliet’s parents wanted her to marry, and as Nick Carraway in the TV version of “The Great Gatsby.”  He was outstanding in the challenging role of an insecure but very sincere man who is transformed by a manipulative art student in “The Shape of Things.”  I think his most neglected gem is “I Could Never Be Your Woman” (horrible title), a very smart romantic comedy with Michelle Pfeiffer.

Evangeline Lilly spends a lot of time in “Ant-Man” wanting to get in on the action.  Not surprising given her earlier role in “The Hobbit,” where she is a full-on action heroine.

I’m a huge fan of Corey Stoll, who plays the villain in “Ant-Man.”  I first noticed him as Ernest Hemingway in Woody Allen’s “Midnight in Paris,” a performance of great wit and verve.

He played a compromised but not evil Congressman in “House of Cards” and a sympathetic administrator of a jobs program for refugees in “The Good Lie.”

Michael Douglas is Hollywood royalty, a two-time Oscar winner (for producing “One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest” and acting in “Wall Street,” husband of an Oscar winner (Catherine Zeta-Jones), and son of an Oscar winner (Kirk Douglas).  His career took off with the 1970’s television series “The Streets of San Francisco.”

This speech is not only an icon of movie history, it is a telling prediction that if anything understated what was ahead in the financial markets.