ANT MANScott Lang (Paul Rudd) has just served his last day at San Quentin State

Prison. Waiting to pick him up is his old cellmate, Luis (Michael Pea), who offer
s to let him stay at his apartment. Scott is unable to find a legitimate job wit
h his criminal record. He had found out that the company he worked for had been
overcharging their customers, so he hacked into the system and transferred milli
ons of dollars back to the customers, and then stole five million for himself. L
uis introduces him to Dave (T.I.), a getaway driver, and Kurt (David Dastmalchia
n), an identity theft specialist. Luis has a tip about a robbery they could do t
ogether. In the room with them is an ant with a video camera.
In a restaurant, Hope Van Dyne (Evangeline Lilly) is sitting with Darren Cross (
Corey Stoll), as he reminisces about their jobs working for Hank Pym (Michael Do
uglas).
Scott borrows Luis' van and drops in on the birthday party of his daughter, Cass
ie (Abby Ryder Fortson). He runs into Cassie's soon-to-be stepfather, Jim Paxton
(Bobby Cannavale) , who is not happy to see him. His ex-wife, Maggie (Judy Gree
r) tells him that he has to find a legitimate job and pay off his delinquent chi
ld support before she'll allow visitation with Cassie. Jim and his partner, Gale
(Wood Harris) insist that Scott leave the party after saying goodbye to Cassie.
At Pym Tech, Hope and Darren are trying to shrink sheep to microscopic size. The
ir experiment fails, and a sheep is killed. Darren insists they press forward wi
th another sheep.
Scott realizes that it will be more than a year before he can see Cassie again i
f he takes a minimum-wage job, so he takes up Luis on his offer. Luis' cousin, E
rnesto (Nicholas Barrera) had a friend, Emily (Lyndsi LaRose), who was a houseke
eper and was dating Ernesto's friend, Carlos (Carlos Aviles). She told Carlos th
at the man whose house she was cleaning has a giant safe that's sure to be holdi
ng valuables. Scott agrees to help them with the robbery, and then notices sever
al ants, all looking at him.
Scott goes to the house, which belongs to Hank, jumps the fence, and cuts the ca
ble line. He knocks on the door, posing as a cable repairman. Hank lets him in,
and he plants a camera in the cable box. Hank presents himself as a perfect mark
for the robbery.
Luis picks up supplies for the break-in, and Kurt steals a communication technic
ian's uniform. That night, Kurt climbs up a pole outside Hank's house and blocks
the electrical circuit, cutting off all phone communication. Scott climbs the f
ence and takes out the window sensors, then pries open a window and heads to the
basement. He unlocks the basement door only to find a second door that is finge
rprint-coded. Using tape, he lifts Hank's print and opens that door. When he get
s to the safe, he realizes that he'll need some ingenuity to break the steel doo
r. He drills small holes around the lock, then squirts in water and uses nitroge
n to freeze it. The frozen water warps the steel and causes the bolts to shoot o
ut. When he opens the safe, the only thing inside is a weird-looking body suit a
nd helmet. He grabs that and heads out. Meanwhile, Hank has been watching the wh
ole episode upstairs.
Darren Cross finally has success at shrinking a lamb. He envisions himself takin
g over Pym Tech.
Dejected at not having gotten anything valuable, the group heads back to Luis' a
partment. Scott goes into the bathroom and examines the suit he stole, wondering
why it was so heavily guarded. He notices tubes full of red and blue liquid. Ou
t of curiosity, he puts it on and steps into the bathtub to get a better look at
himself in the mirror. Noticing a red button on the glove, he pushes it and ins
tantly shrinks, becoming a half-inch tall. Luis comes into the bathroom, and he

wonders where Scott went. Luis turns on the water in the tub, which is like a ti
dal wave for tiny Scott. He tries pushing a blue button to return to normal size
, but it's broken. Panicked, he jumps away from the water and finds himself sail
ing across the room. He lands in a crack and falls through to the apartment belo
w. In that room, there's a party going on, and Scott realizes he's on a record p
layer, with the needle moving toward him. He jumps free and lands on the floor w
here people are dancing. Avoiding the giant footsteps, he gets under the door an
d into the hallway, where he is promptly sucked up into a vacuum cleaner. When t
he dust bag gets emptied, he jumps again, this time landing on a rat. He runs aw
ay, but lands on a mouse trap. When it's triggered, it sends him flying out thro
ugh a window and into the rainy night. He sees raindrops as big as his head, bef
ore landing on a car. The impact jarred the blue button free, and he grows back
to normal size. He realizes that he now has a super power.
Scott spends several days fixing up the suit, and then uses it to slip inside an
ATM and rewire it to spit out all its money. He goes to Maggie's house and pays
up all the child support he owes, plus the next year. When Luis, Dave and Kurt
go to a casino, Scott shrinks himself and hides on the van. When they are playin
g craps, Scott would secretly turn the dice to make them win. He also uses the s
uit to see Cassie at school. When a bully tries to bean her in a game of dodgeba
ll, he grabs the ball and causes it to whack back into the bully's face. His nex
t plan is to rig the lottery by grabbing the balls he needs and causing them to
be sucked up into the chute. This plan fails when he's unable to get the last ba
ll in time. In Paxton's office, he uses a rubber band launcher to fling paper cl
ips at Paxton. Seeing an armored truck outside of a bank, he realizes he could r
ob it without anyone getting hurt.
He goes to see Cassie at her home, and she is getting ready for bed. Cassie tell
s Maggie that she heard people say Scott is a bad man. Scott hears a voice ask h
im if he really is a bad man. He realizes that the voice is coming from an earpi
ece inside the helmet. He races home and returns to normal size, then takes off
the suit. Realizing that someone had been tracking him all along, he decides to
return the suit to Hank's safe. He easily breaks into the house again and puts t
he suit back. But when he gets out, he's surrounded by cops. He is arrested and
brought to prison, where Paxton is waiting for him. Gale tells Paxton that Scott
's lawyer is there. Confused, Scott goes to see the lawyer that he hadn't asked
for and didn't know.
The "lawyer" waiting for him is Hank. He offers Scott two choices, life in priso
n or follow his instructions. Scott is thoroughly bewildered, so Hank tells him
that he allowed him to steal the suit. Scott is taken back to his cell, and an a
rmy of ants brings him back the suit. He puts it on and shrinks, and then quickl
y escapes from the prison. One of Hank's ants spreads its wings, and Scott climb
s on and flies over the city.
Hank tells Scott that he invented the suit, but was afraid it would be misused,
and so he had locked it away. Darren had found out about the shrinking technolog
y, but when Hank wouldn't give it to him, Darren forced Hank out of Pym Tech. Ho
pe is Hank's daughter, and when she realized how dangerous Darren was, she teame
d up with Hank to stop him. Hank tells Scott that he needs him to become "Ant-Ma
n" to stop people like Darren. Scott realizes he has a chance to become a true h
ero, the kind of father his daughter deserves.