Campiness has gone out of vogue in superhero films, ever since 1997’s Batman & Robin rang a temporary, nipple-suited death knell for the Batman film franchise. But maybe, after years of grittiness, grime, and gun-toting raccoons, it’s time to bring some fabulous silliness back into films about men and women in skin-tight costumes punching each other in the face. And if you’re going to get involved in camp, it just makes sense to bring back its king: Liberace.
And so we have this video, put together by YouTube user Peter Wilson, splicing footage from the 2013 TV movie Behind The Candelabra into the recently released trailer for Marvel’s Ant-Man movie. And though the editing is a bit rough in places, the concept turns out to be a natural fit. After all, both films star Michael Douglas as an older man, widely considered a genius, who tempts someone named Scott into a life-changing transformation. It’s just that one of those metamorphoses was mesmerizingly bizarre, and the other involved Paul Rudd shrinking to the size of a bug. Is it kind of ridiculous? Sure. But no more so than hearing Douglas straight-facedly tell someone, “I need you to be the Ant Man.”