The Facts:
Synopsis: As Scott Lang balances being both a Super Hero and a father, Hope van Dyne and Dr. Hank Pym present an urgent new mission that finds the Ant-Man fighting alongside The Wasp to uncover secrets from their past.
Stars: Paul Rudd, Evangeline Lilly, Michael Pena, Michael Douglas, Michelle Pfeiffer, Bobby Cannavale, Judy Greer, Abby Ryder Fortson, Tip “T.I.” Harris, David Dastmalchian, Laurence Fishburne, Hannah John-Kamen, Walton Goggins, Randall Park
Director: Peyton Reed
Rated: PG-13
Running Length: 118 minutes
Trailer Review: Here
TMMM Score: (7/10)
Review: Now that we’re 20 movies into the Marvel Cinematic Universe, it’s clear where every character sits in the franchise family tree. While Iron Man is the father figure, the Guardians of the Galaxy folks are the Cousin Eddie’s of the group and Spider-Man is the kid brother. Black Panther has been established as the cool uncle and that leaves Ant-Man as the fun-cle, the one all the kids run to when he arrives because they know he’ll be good for a laugh, a jolly distraction while the other relatives are busy setting the table. The problem is that fun-cles eventually have to sit at the adults table when dinner is served and that can be an awkward fit.
Same goes for Ant-Man.
Introduced in 2015 right after Avengers: Age of Ultron, Ant-Man came on the scene right when we needed him most. Things were getting too serious and some levity was needed to save the superhero series from wallowing in too many apocalypse-like battle royales. Director Peyton Reed and Paul Rudd’s first outing felt a welcome deep breath of air…it may not have been totally fresh but it zapped some energy at a critical point.
What winds up being too bad about the timing of Ant-Man and The Wasp is that it’s coming on the heels of two widely (and wildly) talked about entries (Black Panther and Avengers: Infinity War) and the film can’t help but feel a bit diluted by its bigger and better siblings. Make no mistake, it’s a perfectly fine bit of popcorn entertainment that works more often than not…but it doesn’t feel like a solid enough chapter in the overall story Marvel is trying to tell.
Taking place around the same time as the events in Avengers: Infinity War, Ant-Man and The Wasp opens with a flashback prologue that introduces us to Janet van Dyne (Michelle Pfeiffer, Dark Shadows) and shows us how she winds up lost in the same Quantum Realm Scott Lang/Ant-Man (Rudd, Wanderlust) escaped from at the end of the first film. We learned in that movie no one had come back from this other dimension but with Scott’s return there is a possibility of the long-last Janet being saved. Now seemingly connected to Janet, Scott has to get an S.O.S. message to her husband (Hank Pym {Michael Douglas, And So It Goes}) and their daughter (Hope van Dyne, {Evangeline Lilly, The Hobbit: The Battle of the Five Armies}) before a thin opening of escape closes forever.
Standing in the way are several roadblocks the film juggles during its economical running length. Due to his involvement in the battle featured in Captain America: Civil War, Scott is under house arrest (a clever explanation of his absence from Avengers: Infinity War) and has just three days left on his sentence. The FBI is tracking Hope and Hank as well so how can the three join together to decode Janet’s message and bring her back from the Quantum Realm? Then there’s a toothy villain played by Walton Goggins (Tomb Raider) who keeps popping up at the most inopportune time and the mysterious Ghost (Hannah John-Kamen, Ready Player One) with her own reasons for wanting to find Janet.
With so many characters running around the film can feel a bit overstuffed, especially considering none of the villains make much of an impression. I found the original film to be a nice little burst of fun and was able to feed off the manic energy of the proceedings. Here, the sequel tries to recreate that feeling to mostly the same results, becoming a movie that’s quick on its feet, but one that has less of an impact by the time the credits roll. While the stakes are high on a personal level for these characters there’s nothing that rises to the importance of anything on a global scale so in the end your enjoyment factor becomes a matter of how invested you get in the performances.
All the actors that have retuned for the film pretty much pick up where they left off. Rudd has had the benefit of another Ant-Man appearance under his belt so he coasts along nicely. Though Rudd isn’t your typical choice for a super-hero, like Ryan Reynolds in Deadpool and Deadpool 2 he’s mined his comic talents for good and made a believer out of me. Douglas, Lilly, and Michael Pena (End of Watch) all bring individual strengths but I was left scratching my head at Laurence Fishburne (Last Flag Flying) and his drastically underwritten man-splaining role. Goggins is a bit of a bore by this point, having played this type of smarmy dude in one too many movies. He’s easily outshone by John-Kamen as a more layered foe for Ant-Man and his pals. Though she disappears after the prologue for nearly 90 minutes, when Pfeiffer returns to the screen she arrives ready to play — I’m looking forward to seeing what the future holds for Pfeiffer and this pfranchise.
Those who have been riding a Marvel high on the two previous movies released in 2018 are best directed to lower the bar a little when approaching Ant-Man and The Wasp. I can see why Marvel positioned it as they did but with the ending of Avengers: Infinity War causing such drama and emotion I found it a bit of a tough sell to go into a movie that’s so dramatically different in theme. Here’s your frequent reminder to stay for the credits…I found the mid-credit scene to be one of the more meaty and imperative-to-see sequences yet.