After the success of 2015’s Ant-Man there was never a question that there would be a sequel, and here it is, Ant-Man and the Wasp. After Avengers: Infinity War and even Black Panther, Ant-Man and the Wasp is a much smaller movie, with way smaller stakes. Which is a nice change of pace. It is a fun little comedy in the middle of the rest of the MCU’s epic goings on.
It has been two years since Captain America: Civil War, but before Infinity War, and for his part in that little skirmish Scott Lang (Paul Rudd) is under house arrest. Unfortunately he didn’t tell Hope van Dyne-Pym (Evangeline Lilly) or Hank Pym (Michael Douglas) about his little trip to Germany, and since it gets them in trouble with the law as well, they are not supper happy with him, but when Scott has a dream about Hope’s mom Janet van Dyne (Michelle Pfeiffer) they will all be forced back together to try and save her from the Quantum-Zone (don’t ask me why Marvel hyphenated it).
Like I said in the opening, the stakes are very small. At worst a woman that everyone thought was dead, would stay probably dead. Not a great outcome sure, but compared to worlds ending or countries being taken over, it doesn’t rank very high on an average superhero’s emergency list. The plot also uses a lot of coincidences to drive itself forward. Now is the time a black market tech salesmen comes after Hank and Hope, and now is also the time that Ghost (Hannah John-Kamen) and her issues emerge. Not to mention none of this can wait three days for Scott’s sentence to be over? Sure. Thankfully the ride is enjoyable enough to gloss over all that stuff.
The cast is excellent. We all knew Rudd was good from the last movie, but this time Lilly gets a little more time to shine, which is nice, and I am always on board for more Michelle Pfeiffer, but I think she was too young looking for the age they wanted her to be, so they did some pretty distractingly bad aging makeup. She is Michelle Pfeiffer don’t mess with that!
After Infinity War it was nice to watch something more scaled back. To watch a little story in the MCU before things get crazy again, and if the after credits scene for Ant-Man and the Wasp is anything to go by, things are going to get nuts. If you have liked the average Marvel superhero movie, you will like Ant-Man and the Wasp. If not, this wasn’t a game changer. Just a fun little mid-summer popcorn flick to pass the time until the MCU comes unglued next year.