Movie Review: Ant-Man and the Wasp · 9:21pm Aug 7th, 2018
Another movie I've been meaning to write up. I saw it just before I shipped out on my trip out west...
Fun fact - this is the second Marvel Cinematic Universe film that I've seen on my birthday. The first one was Spider-Man Homecoming.
The sequel to 2015's unlikely superhero comedy/caper film Ant-Man, AND the first MCU movie to be released after the smash triumph of Avengers Infinity War, Ant-Man and the Wasp looked like it had a pretty tall order ahead of it, to stand up against one of the year's biggest and most successful superhero films...
Fortunately, director Peyton Reed was more than up to the challenge.
Ant-Man and the Wasp is a delightful joyride of a superhero movie. It's clever, fun as all hell, and displays some of the most inventive uses of superpowers put to the big screen.
Opening in flashback like its predecessor, Ant-Man and the Wasp begins with the memory of original Ant-Man Hank Pym (played by Michael Douglas) and The Wasp's (played by Michelle Pfeiffer) final mission together, trying to stop a nuclear missile strike on the US. Janet managed to save the day, but in the process was lost to the Quantum Realm - a subatomic level of existence that exists beyond comprehension of time and space.
(Like the opening scene of the original Ant-Man, this opening flashback uses some phenomenal computer effects to portray Douglas and Pfeiffer as looking like their younger selves. This is just one of many triumphs of visual effects to come in the film...)
Back in the present, the aged Hank and his daughter Hope (played by Evangeline Lilly) have hit a breakthrough in their efforts to find Janet and bring her back from the Quantum Realm. But to do so, they need Scott Lang (played by Paul Rudd), the man who took up the Ant-Man suit and survived a trip into the subatomic world...
The problem, though? Scott's still under house arrest, thanks to his participation in the events of Captain America Civil War. (And thanks to his helping Cap, Hank and Hope are also living on the run; a fact that Hank is not at all pleased with. XD) Right now, Scott would rather focus on waiting out the final three days of his sentence, and spend what time he can with his beloved daughter Cassie, but once again he is soon pulled into the world of costumed adventuring.
Thanks to his visit to the Quantum Realm, Scott shares a connection to Janet; one that Hank believes is the key to bringing his wife back. Hank and Hope have worked on constructing a tunnel device to access the subatomic realm, find Janet and bring her home... but they need some special components to complete their work in time...
And unfortunately for them, there's a lot of competition for the Quantum technology, from enjoyably-greedy black-market dealer Sonny Burch (played by Walton Goggins), to the much more serious threat of "The Ghost"... a woman named Ava Starr (played by Hannah John-Kamen) afflicted with molecular instability that allows her to phase through objects like a phantom.
Ghost exists as a consequence of Hank's past: she was the daughter of a former colleague of Pym's that he had a falling-out with (Hank claims that Ava's father was planning to steal his research; Ava claims that Pym had her father blacklisted out of jealousy - the audience is never told which account is true, so draw your own conclusions), and got her powers in a lab accident that killed her parents. Unfortunately, the ability to, essentially, phase-shift, left her in constant pain, and by the time the movie introduces her, she is days away from fading out of existence altogether... and thus, desperate to do just about anything to save herself.
Thus begins a rapid-fire game of back-and-forth improvisation, as Hank and Hope fight for the chance to save Janet, Scott fights both to help his friends, but also to avoid being arrested again (AND to try and help out his feckless ex-con business partners, chief among them Luis - played hilariously by Michael Pena)... while dealing with Ghost's efforts to steal the quantum tech for herself, along with further interference from Burch and his gang, PLUS government agents led by Scott's handler Jimmy Woo (played by Randall Park).
Throw in another of Hank's old colleagues, Dr. Bill Foster (played by Laurence Fishburne), and you have a wild ride of a plot that somehow manages to perfectly contain all of its elements and never once drop the ball. The story moves fluently and skillfully through its twists and turns, leading to a number of brilliant moments of adventure (a particular highlight being a wild car chase through the streets of San Francisco), along with plenty of standout comedic sequences as well.
A particular comedic gem is Scott's suit having a malfunctioning belt for his grow/shrink powers. Thus we get one of the funniest scenes in all the movie, where the astonishing Ant-Man gets stuck at the size of a nine-year-old 
But in addition to the laughs and the "wow" factor of the superpower sequences, Peyton Reed also displays a strong grasp of handling the more emotional moments of the film. From the end of the opening flashback where we see Hank grimly come back alone from his mission, to the reunion of Hank and Janet after so many years, there are some genuinely moving and emotionally affecting parts of this superhero sequel.
Another point I'd like to make, before I forget, is how impressed I was with how the film is able to portray Scott and Hope as equal partners in the field. Scott may suffer various embarrassments in action as Ant-Man, and Hope may be the more powerful fighter (thanks to her combat skills, plus the Wasp suit's stinger-blasters) but they work well together and cover each other's bases, sending a strong message about male and female superheroes and teamwork. Show, don't tell, that's the best result. Quite well-done, in my opinion. 
At the risk of making a pun, Ant-Man and the Wasp is a rather small-scale film in terms of the scope of its story. This is not a film about saving the world or even the city...
This is, ultimately, a movie about people mainly trying to do what's right with what they have, and trying to fix old mistakes of the past. It's well worth noting that The Ghost, despite being the "named supervillain" character of the movie, isn't out to kill anyone or cause mass destruction or conquest: she's just a woman desperate to put an end to the misery caused by her superpowers... misery that she's lived with since childhood. She's a highly-sympathetic character, even in her more ruthless moments (which are helped by the presence of Bill Foster, who tries to help her and keep her from going too far off the slippery slope), so you understand her desperation.
Really, the only truly bad people in the film are Burch and his gang, and in many ways they barely even count as threats, given how effective they usually are as normal gangsters up against people with superpowers. (In other words, not very effective at all. )
That fact about the movie - about Scott and Hope and Hank, and all their situations, plus Ghost's - definitely adds a unique twist to the superhero movie formula that I definitely appreciated.
Ant-Man and the Wasp may not be one of my all-time favorite MCU films like Infinity War or Guardians of the Galaxy, but it still has so much skill, heart and humor to it that I strongly recommend it.
The cast all deliver their performances with great ability, so in some ways it's hard to pick a special standout, but if I did, I'd probably have to give it to Michael Douglas as Hank Pym. Once again, I am in awe of the way that the film took one of Marvel's most contentious superheroes and made him a richly compelling, badass and yet deeply human character.
Not bad for a film about people who fight crime by shrinking and talking to ants, huh? XD
Ant-Man and the Wasp, everyone.
Definitely worth your time.
Would you say the stinger was very snappy?
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...Damn you.
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...it's still too soon.
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https://m.Thanos jokes aside, this was exactly what we needed after Infinity War. A relatively low stakes fun movie where the world's not going to die, nobody is going to blow up a continent, its fairly self contained, hell, I never saw the fist Ant-Man movie, but I understood what was going on just fine. It's a fun, silly movie, it's, a palette cleanser, after something as heavy as Infinity War, we get something fairly lighthearted.
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"A palette cleanser" is exactly the words I used to describe this movie too. It was a fun romp that was sorely needed after Infinity War and the Finger Snap of Doom.