Following the revelation that D.C. only makes comics for 45 year-olds, it is good to see that there are some stories still made for the geeky child within us all. I would have never been interested in comics if my 5-year-old self had not been curious of what that colorful rack of newspaper-like books were all about in the grocery store. My geek history started there. Antboy is a new Danish film about a twelve-year old boy who becomes a superhero after being bitten by a “special” ant. Yes, it does happen to take several cues from American superhero films, but seems like in the fashion of parody, which I think is great. Elements of Spider-man, Batman, and more are very evident in the trailer, but with the main character being so young, it takes on a different feel. Every kid wants to be a superhero so it will be nice to see a movie where that dream is actually realized. Yes, since the film was not made for American audiences, there are subtitles, but I think that’s a great byproduct in this case as the movie is made more similar to the comic book format in which you actually read the words on the page. I find many foreign films to be surprising and often far better than similar movies from America. I was last very surprised and pleased with the very original child vampire film Let The Right One In, which was a Swedish film, and the Norwegian Nazi zombie film Dead Snow, so I have high hopes for this one as it looks very fun. Antboy is set to premiere at this year’s Toronto Film Festival, and hopefully will be targeted at young viewers.
