By Isaac Chapin
Arts Reporter
By now, you’ve had ample time to see both Marvel’s newest film, Ant-Man, and the mesmerizing psychological thriller, Inception. If you’ve watched them even once, you know they’re both great films.
But have you ever stopped to think about how similar they are?
WARNING: SPOILERS AHEAD
The main characters of each movie, Scott Lang (Paul Rudd) and Dom Cobb (Leonardo DiCaprio), are both semi-altruistic, semi-callous thieves whose unique talents have put a wedge between them and their children.
While Inception sees Cobb travel into people’s dreams in order to extract information and to manipulate their subconscious, Ant-Man’s Lang robs corporate fat-cats and returns the money to those they’ve wronged.
Both men are clearly talented at their work, but each film starts with them in dark places. Cobb has been framed for the death of his wife, which has forced him to leave the country to avoid prison. Lang, on the other hand, was not so lucky: The film opens with him getting punched in the face by his cellmate. He is serving the final day of his sentence for breaking and entering.
Both men long to be able to lead normal lives, but before the movie is over, both will be forced to use their skills like never before.
Cobb’s typical prerogative is flipped on its head when he is forced to plant an idea within someone’s subconscious instead of stealing one, while Lang must do what he does best after being shrunk to the size of a bug. Both men are motivated by the desire to be “the hero [his children] think he is.” Neither man seems to be able to escape his past, even if it might be all that saves them in the end.
Speaking of being saved, both characters somehow manage to narrowly avoid death, or more accurately, are able to resurrect themselves after descending to almost unprecedented lows.
In order to accomplish his mission, Cobb is forced to traverse the depths of his mind and eventually reaches Limbo, the dream state from which almost no one has ever returned (of course, he finds a way, though the level of his success must be determined by the viewer).
Lang, too, is forced to do the impossible when must shrink past the atomic level in order to save his family. No one has ever returned from the Quantum Realm, yet, as luck would have it, Lang happens to have a gadget that allows him to return to normal size and escape.
It shouldn’t be forgotten that both characters get hit by a train, though the significance of this differs widely between the films.
Though the movies have very different storylines, one can draw many parallels between the development of each of their characters.
