Main cast: Paul Rudd (Scott Lang/Ant-Man), Evangeline Lilly (Hope van Dyne/Wasp), Walton Goggins (Sonny Burch), Hannah John-Kamen (Ava Starr), Abby Ryder Fortson (Cassie), Judy Greer (Maggie), Bobby Cannavale (Paxton), Michael Peña (Luis), Tip “TI” Harris (Dave), David Dastmalchian (Kurt), Randall Park (Jimmy Woo), Michelle Pfeiffer (Janet van Dyne), Laurence Fishburne (Bill Foster), and Michael Douglas (Hank Pym)
Director: Peyton Reed
Wait, didn’t I just watch Avengers: Infinity War yesterday? It feels like it. However, unlike with some other movie franchises, I never get this series fatigue feeling when it comes to Ant-Man and the Wasp. I’m probably too busy having fun. Whatever Kevin Feige is doing, he’s still doing it right, bless his cunning, iron-fisted, tyrannical soul.
Now, if you have watched Avengers: Infinity War, you’d know that Ant-Man’s absence was explained by him being under house arrest. Well, this movie will let everyone know of an adventure that happens three days before Scott Lang’s house arrest is officially ended. This takes place before Thanos came and owned everyone, of course.
Now, Ant-Man was arrested shortly after his adventures in Captain America: Civil War. The budget for that movie couldn’t accommodate Evangeline Lilly’s and Michael Douglas’s salaries Apparently he joined that party without informing Hope and Hank, and when Scott submitted to the authorities mostly for the sake of his daughter Cassie, those two are not too pleased especially as Scott nabbed the Ant-Man suit for use without informing Hank. Hope was also annoyed that Scott didn’t ask her to come along, as she’d been training to be the Wasp all that time and they had both been officially dating too.
Well, that was then. Scott spent two years in jail before being placed under three years of house arrest. He isn’t allowed to communicate with his buddies, which include Hank and Hope, and he has to wear an ankle collar that goes off whenever he leaves the perimeters of his house. So he spends time with his daughter before trying valiantly to kill time while she is at school. He also spends two hours in the bathroom every day, as Hope points out (she and her father have been tracking him too all this while), but let’s leave it at that. And now, with three days left to go and with Cassie off to spend the weekend with his ex-wife and her husband, he is left to his own devices. And that’s when he has this weird dream of being Hope’s mother, Janet the original Wasp who was lost in the quantum dimension (long story, don’t ask), and playing hide-and-seek with Hope. He has to call Hank and leave a short message about the dream before quickly hanging up.
Well, for the last few years, Hank and Hope had been working on a device to help them rescue Janet from that dimension. You see, Scott went into and came back safely from the quantum dimension during his last solo outing, something that Hank never thought was possible, so now that man is galvanized to pull out all stops to rescue his beloved wife. Just as they succeed in opening the doorway to the quantum dimension for the first time, Scott’s call comes in. Realizing that this cannot be a coincidence, those two bring Scott – without his permission, of course – to their lab to grill him further about his dream.
The reunion isn’t an uneventful one. FBI agent Jimmy Woo, Scott’s parole officer, is determined to catch him in violation of his house arrest, while mob boss Sonny Burch is determined to get hold of Hank’s lab (it can be shrunk down in size into a hand-held cube-like thing), while the mysterious Overwatch‘s Tracer Ava Starr is determined to get that lab too. Ava has a problem: her body’s molecular composition keeps disintegrating and coming back together, which allows her to phase through solid objects easily, but at a high cost: she is constantly in pain and she is also dying. She blames her problem on Hank: her father was sacked by Hank once upon a time, that idiot continued to conduct experiments in his house (it’s a persistent habit of mad scientists in the Marvel Cinematic Universe), the experimental device blows up and kills her parents while leaving Ava with her current condition. Hence, she sees that it is only fair that she uses the device to bring Janet back to the world, only to extract her… essence or something to get Ava to become consistently solid again. Can’t she just get Winston to make her some device to stop that phasing thing?
So there you go. Ant-Man and the Wasp is basically a long, fun chase scene as everyone tries to get his or her hands on the lab and the machinery it holds inside. There is nothing really groundbreaking here – it’s another “Haw, haw… action… haw, haw!” Marvel Cinematic Universe movie right down to the obligatory scene of the heroine kicking the rear ends of random mooks (GIRL POWER!) and the hero appearing shirtless in one scene. But that’s okay, because the comic timing is on point, and the blending of humor and action feels perfectly right. There is no tired and forced Whedon-esque wannabe vibes to the quips and one-liners here, as everything feels organic.
The characters don’t have any depths at all. Scott is just repeating the same old “I’m a screw-up… until I help save the day after being given a prep talk by my daughter!” shtick again while Hope, despite given a more prominent role here, can only be summed up in four words: “I want my Mommy!” Still, Paul Rudd and Evangeline Lilly have an easy, natural chemistry here playing the admittedly clichéd couple with the goofy man and more sensible woman, and they make the movie so much more enjoyable because of this. Their relationship works, no matter how shallow it may be, because the chemistry is believable and fun to root for.
Sure, the plot has so many holes and let’s not even touch on the bad science. At the same time, though, this movie makes it easy for me to just sit back and have fun without thinking too hard about the finer details of the plot. So yes, I’ve had so much fun. It looks like 2018 is indeed a good year for the Marvel Cinematic Universe.
That mid-credit scene though… ouch.
