In a way, the first Ant-Man film was a throwback to the early days of the Marvel Cinematic universe when it was released in 2015. It was a solo film with smaller stakes that introduced the world to a bizarre hero. It was good, not great. And it was soon followed up with its main character appearing in a team up film. However, will Ant-Man and Wasp continue to follow in the footsteps of their Marvel Cinematic Universe counterparts, and produced a sequel better than the first?
Paul Rudd (“Clueless,” “Anchorman”) remains as charming as ever as the goofy Scott Lang, an ex-con turned superhero dealing with the repercussions of his decisions in “Civil War.” But his story is not the focus here. Evangeline Lilly (“Lost,” “The Hurt Locker”) helps to transition the character of Wasp away from a nagging two-dimensional daughter figure from the first film and into a fleshed-out superheroine here.
Her story is clearly the focus, and the ongoing struggles of her and her father play wonderfully against the carefree nature of Scott and his own struggles. There are a lot of elements at play all at once here, and while not all of them are done as well as others, the fact that they're all happening at once helps to add to the sense of urgency and to the film's time component.
That's right, in a wise move, the film is mostly on a time limit, and it helps to raise the stakes on an otherwise small-scale adventure. It adds some wonderful tension to the proceedings as well as create moments for humor. And there are a lot of humorous moments.
It’s as if Marvel saw the reception to the first film and simply gave the writing team of Chris McKenna (“The Lego Batman Movie,” “Jumanji: Welcome to the Jungle”), Erik Sommers (“The Lego Batman Movie,” “Jumanji: Welcome to the Jungle”), Andrew Barrer (“Haunt”), Gabriel Ferrariand, and Rudd and director Peyton Reed (“Yes Man,” “Down with Love”) more room to get weird with the character and the humor. It ends up being funnier than the first film because of this, and probably one of the weirdest Marvel movies yet.
Ghost, played by Hannah John-Kamen (“Black Mirror,” “Game of Thrones”) makes for an extremely interesting antagonist, especially when her motives and goals become revealed. This aren’t always as black and white as they seem, and the writers clearly enjoyed pitting these different minds and motives against each other.
Shrinking and growing around within the action is still extremely cool, and the crew continues to take advantage of the size differences for some visually engaging battles. It never gets old to see them jump around a wall at the size of an ant, only to grow to a building a moment later. Most scenes play out like Rube Goldberg machines of tiny action and they’re a joy to watch.
Overall, it’s just a more solid film than the first. The script is tighter, the story is more fleshed out and original, and the humor is brighter. Rudd really struts his stuff in the third act with some truly weird bits (“Oh, jellybean.”).
It also helps to show that Marvel still understands the importance of smaller scale stories. It’s fun to roam around the universe and save the world from Hydra death bombs, but it’s also perfectly fine to not do that. It helps create a sense of ease and carefree enjoyment within these smaller adventures.
However, that does lead to the fact that the film is weak in quite a few spots. The pre-Marvel logo scene feels like it unnecessarily talks down to the audience and second set of villains really feel undercooked. Again, the film does have a smaller scale and focus than past Marvel films, and some will also see that as a negative.
None of this can change the fact that “Ant-Man & the Wasp” is still a bunch of fun. It’s a funny film that isn’t afraid to get weird and let its incredibly charismatic stars just let loss and do their thing. Couple that with some excellent action and emotional arcs, and you get a film that is just an incredibly solid adventure. Nothing huge, but then again, that’s not really what Ant-Man or the Wasp do. Small scale enjoyment is their specialty. 4/5
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