In “Avengers: Age of Ultron,” the mega-superheroes are taken out of their usual hi-tech, urban surroundings and brought down to Earth when they hide out at a Midwestern farmhouse. It’s a scene that writer/director Joss Whedon had to fight to keep in the movie, and it’s one of the best.

In Marvel’s “Ant-Man,” the titular character (played by Paul Rudd) suffers an even more ignoble juxtaposition: He’s wearing his retro-cool, ’60s spacesuit-looking outfit in a bathroom. While he hides from his roommates behind a shower curtain, and suddenly shrinks down smaller than the tub stopper, running away from the water on filthy porcelain, trying not to get washed down the drain.

One of the biggest pleasures in the tonally challenged “Ant-Man” is its overall subversion of the superhero genre. The movie still feel like a Marvel product — and it suffers from a typically one-dimensional bad guy (Corey Stoll) — but it also has a lot of fun turning expectation on its head.

The irony of “Ant-Man” is that while its action scenes and characters feel small and insignificant in the larger picture of Marvel superheroes who consistently save the world, the piece of new technology introduced in the film couldn’t be bigger.

The “Pym particle,” named after its inventor Hank Pym (Michael Douglas), is a game-changer for the entire universe, and something Pym has been hiding from the military ever since trying it out himself in secret.

When his protege Darren Cross (Stoll) develops a suit called Yellowjacket some 25 years later and is eager to give it up to the highest bidder, Pym chooses a good man in a desperate situation to wear his original Ant-Man outfit and stop the sale.

That man is Scott Lang (Rudd), a hacker/cat burglar with a master’s degree in electrical engineering. After a brief stint in prison, he’s trying to “go straight” for his daughter but he can’t even keep a job at Baskin-Robbins.

He eventually gives up and plans a heist with a group of criminals specifically designed for comic relief. Rudd is his usual likable self, and he’s perfect for a role that requires a lot of exasperation. He’s an everyman that’s easy to root for from the get-go, and his droll sense of humor allows him to comment on the stranger goings-on with the appropriate amount of “WTF?”

The script for “Ant-Man” was written by original director Edgar Wright and his collaborator Joe Cornish, and then was re-written by Rudd and Adam McKay after Wright left the project. It’s full of Wright’s signature surreal comic touches, especially in the action scenes, which is where “Ant-Man” at once feels like an extension of and departure from the Marvel Cinematic Universe.

When it tries to explain things such as how Ant-Man can summon a colony of ants, Pied Piper-style, however, the script doesn’t really stick the landing. As “Team America” so eloquently put it: “We’re gonna need a montage!”

Reed has some trouble balancing the more ridiculous aspects of a character that most people wouldn’t go near, but that’s also part of the fun of “Ant-Man.” Marvel proved last year with a talking raccoon in “Guardians of the Galaxy” that the studio isn’t afraid to get weird, so it’s nice to see it still taking some chances.

What “Ant-Man” is missing that “Guardians” had is a certain level of confidence. “Guardians” established a smart-alecky tone from the get-go that was reinforced by those characters during their journey, while “Ant-Man” feels a little more all over the place.

Still, it’s refreshing to see a Marvel movie that has the opportunity to end with a big action climax in a sleek, hi-tech facility and then purposefully move away to a polar opposite environment. If you’ve seen the trailer, this part of the movie has probably already been given away, but I hadn’t, so I when Ant-Man fought Yellowjacket, I was giggling like a schoolboy throughout.

“Ant-Man” is 2 hours and is rated PG-13 for sci-fi action violence and various sidekick buffoonery.

‘Amy’

Now playing at Liberty Hall is “Amy,” the documentary that rode huge buzz from the Cannes Film Festival into breaking box office records in the U.K. and near-universal acclaim.

“Amy” follows the short, tragic life of British pop singer Amy Winehouse, and has caused quite a stir. The film has been disowned by her family, especially her father, who does not come off in a good light.

“Amy” was directed by Asif Kapadia, whose extraordinary 2010 doc “Senna” exclusively used archival footage to tell the story of Brazilian car-racing champ Ayrton Senna. The result was a “you are there” experience that felt like a Hollywood narrative unfolding before your eyes.

“Amy” doesn’t follow the same strategy, but does contain plenty of material never seen before by audiences, as it follows Winehouse’s music career alongside her history of bulimia, alcoholism, drug abuse and deliberate self-harm.

“Amy” is 128 minutes and is rated R for language and drug material.