Ant-Man and The Wasp (2018)

In this second solo Ant-Man adventure, set before the cataclysmic events in the climax of The Avengers: Infinity War, ex-burglar Scott Lang (Rudd, Mute) is found serving out the final days of his two-year sentence under house arrest in San Francisco for his misdeeds committed at an airport in Germany in violation of the Sokovia Accords, as witnessed in Captain America: Civil War.  Lang jumps the gun on his release when he has a detailed vision of Janet Van Dyne (Pfeiffer, Dark Shadows), the wife of the original Ant-Man, Hank Pym (Douglas, Last Vegas), who has been missing, and presumed dead, within the Quantum Realm, where things exist at a subatomic level.  Feeling that he’s still somehow connected with Janet, Pym and daughter Hope (Lilly, Battle of the Five Armies) reunite with Scott in order to follow the trail back to the Quantum Realm to rescue Janet, but assisting them is tricky, as the FBI is closely watching him practically daily to be sure that he doesn’t literally slip out under their fingers.  Luckily, Hope has wings, literally, donning her new hi-tech suit to transform her into The Wasp.

Complicating matters further, there appears to be a few individuals out to try to steal Pym’s size-shifting tech, including one who appears and moves like a ghost, who is, in fact, called Ghost (John-Kamen, Ready Player One) in her powered suit, and Ava when out of it.  Not all of the bad guys end up being bad, and those that are don’t provide enough wattage to merit inclusion when talking about the MCU’s most dynamic villains.

Peyton Reed (Yes Man, The Break-Up) returns as director, having taken over for Edgar Wright to complete the first Ant-Man and bring it to financial success, and even garner a number of fans who would enjoy the goofy, low-wattage humor in their superhero adventures.  This one brings aboard the screenwriters of another jokey MCU film in Spider-Man Homecoming.  Those who read my site regularly will likely know that I consider Homecoming to be my least favorite of the MCU films, so that isn’t exactly a positive in my book.

Despite characters that can shrink down to a near atomic level, this is a movie that doesn’t go into great details about its back story offering up just enough to present conflicts to serve up the action and comedy.  The action would certainly be more exciting if we had a vested interest in these characters or their own back stories, but it stays on the realm of the superficial throughout, so our interest is primarily to observe Ant-Man & The Wasp for its visual flair, including car chases around the streets of San Francisco that will remind many of the remote control car chase in the final Dirty Harry film, The Dead Pool (which was also lifted by the video game, “Grand Theft Auto III”).  Meanwhile, the comedy is jovial and light, and yet one gets the sense that it is trying to be much funnier than it ends up being, straining to squeeze out a few laughs through a number of callback jokes and pop culture references to the 70s, 80s, and 90s.  The film works better as an action movie than as a comedy, so it does weaken the material when the makers of the film seem to think there needs to be more jokes, even if they often are a bit flimsy in their delivery.

Ant-Man & The Wasp is passable, but probably the most forgettable of the MCU films, filled with mildly amusing performances that somehow can’t quite generate much substantial laughter.  Great actors adorn the film, adding Laurence Fishburne, doing double duty by being in both the MCU and DCEU, and Michelle Pfeiffer, who herself was once in a DC Comics adaptation as Catwoman in Batman Returns, plus the comedic stylings of Randall Park (Snatched), to the mix, and while they all deliver fine in their respective roles, they don’t have a great deal of screen time, and what they’re given to do doesn’t afford them many chances to shine from a performance standpoint.  It’s an A-list cast that isn’t really allowed to bring their A-game for the MCU, playing on the level of a network TV family sitcom with stunningly realized action sequences.

The best thing I’ll say about Ant-Man & The Wasp is that it has the professional sheen we’ve come to know and expect from an MCU film, and a very likable cast who are certainly capable of delivering quality performances and good cast chemistry, if the makers of the film could figure out how to flesh them out a bit more than they’ve done so far.  There are some very good size-based visual effects in the film, bouncing back and forth between people, creatures, or objects in normal size, and either very tiny or very large.  The film, like its shrunken-person counterpart in Innerspace, also capitalizes on its San Francisco setting, not only in its street chases, but by finding inventive ways to use areas like Fisherman’s Wharf, the Bay, and garner a few gags based on the town’s stereotypes, including one tied in with Stan Lee’s cameo.

If you enjoyed Ant-Man, you’ll probably find enough of the formula you were entertained by in this follow-up to come away thinking it was time well spent.  If you found it too many empty calories, even for a popcorn film, Ant-Man and the Wasp isn’t likely to turn you around on the off-shoot, as it offers more of the same, except without some of the wittier moments from its predecessor, which retained some of Edgar Wright’s original script.  Compared to the other 2018 MCU films, the supremely entertaining Black Panther, and coming on the heels of the heavy-hitting events of Infinity War, this one just seems like it’s in the minor leagues when it comes to relevant chapters of the MCU worthy of discussion.  Even the nearly pure comedy effort in Thor: Ragnarok leaves more of an impact, and that one has the added benefit of generating actual guffaws. Ants are known for being strong as compared to their body weight, but this bench player in the MCU just barely has enough going for it to carry itself to the finish line for a momentary diversion, leaving Ant-Man and the Wasp feeling like the smallest players in the MCU, literally and consequentially.

— There is a scene during the credits and another one after the credits.