Ant-Man and the Wasp

Anty Hero

Ant-Man and the Wasp
2018 USA Directed by Peyton Reed
UK cinema release print.

So... hot on the heels of Avengers - Infinity War (reviewed here) we have the new Ant-Man movie kinda filling in on what was happening to this character just before the events depicted therein (for most of the movie... aside from two post-credits scenes here).
 
Ant-Man And The Wasp reunites Paul Rudd as the Scott Lang version of Ant-Man/Giant Man with Evangeline Lily as the Hope Van Dyne version of The Wasp. We also continue to catch up with both the original Hank Pym incarnation of Ant-Man, played once again by Michael Douglas... and the three ‘crooks turned honest businessmen’ friends of Scott, highlighting Michael Peña’s character Luis front and centre.

We also get a few new villains played by Walton Goggins as a business tycoon who was a character from the Iron Man comics and also, another character from Iron Man, The Ghost, is the main super powered problem for our intrepid hero’s here... although curiously, the character has had a sex change and is played by Hannah John-Kamen. That being said, she’s one of the most compelling and interesting characters in the movie so I had a good time with her here. Two other old school Marvel superheroes also, technically, make their first and second cinematic appearances...

First up we have Lawrence Fishburne playing the original Black Goliath, although he’s never referred to that on screen, only by his secret identity. Secondly, we have Michelle Pfeiffer playing the original Janet Van Dyme version of The Wasp. It has to be said she looks nothing like the original character (although, strangely, Evangeline Lily really does) but she does a really good job with the small amounts of screen time she has in this and brings a much needed gravitas to certain sections of the film.

Okay, so I didn’t enjoy the first movie all that much the first time around... although it kinda grew on me a little later. I did, however, enjoy Scott Lang’s appearance in Captain America - Civil War (although I liked that movie less than many of the others... my review here) and it’s the events of that film which lead to the set up in this one. After the ‘happy ending’ of Ant-Man (reviewed here), Scott Lang is no longer on speaking terms with Hope and Hank. Sure, he’s just about to end his two year house arrest and is not allowed to be speaking to them anyway, as they are wanted fugitives since Scott used the Ant-Man costume to help ‘Team Cap’ in Civil War. However, due to those events, they have fallen out anyway but, luckily, a certain incident from the first movie, where Scott visited the Microverse (sadly without finding any of the Micronauts), means they actually need certain information inside Scott’s head so they abduct him to help while an ‘ant’ covers for him wearing the security tag the FBI have put on him.

And then things escalate really quickly as the various characters I mentioned above start to appear and... well never mind quantum entanglement... everybody is getting tangled up in this adventure which has a fast pace and is hugely entertaining. In keeping with the characters, the film focuses a little more on the humour in various situations than the majority of the Marvel movies of late and when you inject that into some quite well choreographed action sequences where various vehicles, people and everyday household objects are shrunk or grown to giant size at the flick of a switch, the film just keeps buzzing along without ever really getting dull or outstaying its welcome.

Pretty much all the performances are fantastic and we also have Christophe Beck returning to composing duties although, and this is a really bad move again from Marvel, you can only get this thing as an electronic download rather than on a proper CD with a high quality recording (so they’ve lost this soundtrack buying customer with this poor decision).

Now when it comes to the ‘shrunken houses’ which Hank and Hope lug around with them... well first of all I will say that if you look around at various little characteristics of this, you’ll realise that it’s an expanded model rather than a shrunken building. This doesn’t, however, explain why you can just cart it around with you wherever you go without having the plumbing fixed up and electricity working. Nice idea but credibility is out the window here (as much as it could be when we have characters who can survive being shrunk and expanded at a fast rate without any lasting physical side effects to their well being).

Now, one thing I was disappointed with is in the differences between the trailers and the final presentation of the film. At least three of my favourite trailer moments never made it into the final cut of the movie and this is somewhat unfortunate. Maybe film companies should hold up on constantly promoting upcoming releases so early and instead wait around a few more months until they know roughly what footage from the final movie they have to play around with. I was waiting for lines and scenes which didn’t drop and this can be frustrating when you’re viewing a film for the first time.

The other thing is there are no great revelations in this one. My cousin in Australia saw this a few weeks ago and I pretty much described to him my predictions for the mid/end credits scene because it just seemed so obvious to me what was going to happen. Sure enough, the one thing you are expecting to happen here, if you’ve been keeping up with the Marvel Cinematic Universe, does. However, even the obvious ending (which I won’t spoil here for you but I suspect most of you will have figured it out long before you sit down to watch this one) is tempered with a certain amount of tension because, ‘the thing that happens” comes at the actual worst time it could for these characters and gives a little more of a cliff hanger than the audience might have been expecting here (or at least, it did for this audience member).

The really nice thing about this movie, though, is that the main problem of the story is not conquered by opposition but by the spirit of camaraderie and kindness. Apart from Walton Goggins, all the other characters who take the darker route in this film are never portrayed as anything other than complex shades of grey and the denouement of certain situations, before the two post credit scenes, is pretty well put together and went exactly where I was hoping they would go. I think between The Ghost, Thanos and another character from this I won’t mention, Marvel are getting much more out of their villains than pretty much anyone else and they are not there purely to be just another antagonistic force anymore. So well done to Marvel for making this work.

And that’s me done on this one. Not much else to say here. A sequel which is certainly respectful to the first film in the franchise and I sincerely hope a third installment is on the cards. One of the post credits scenes gets a bit like a certain end scene in the 1980’s Flash Gordon movie and this tries to, by way of homage (I suspect), cast doubts on whether there will be another chapter in the saga. I’m pretty sure we’ll be seeing more of this crew in the next Avengers movie, to be fair. One last thing though... very well done to the writers/director etc for the very last, post credits scene. Here, we have a potentially hilarious scene showing something quite fun but, because of events witnessed and a chilling message on a TV screen, the whole last moments of the film are a truly interesting juxtaposition of humour and post-apocalyptic terror, so to speak (you’ll know what I’m talking about once you’ve seen the film... if there’s anyone left still to see it after it got a, bizarrely, very delayed release in the UK). Kinda looking forward to seeing how the next year of the Marvel Cinematic Universe is handled because... well, I think it will be an interesting one, whether the films work tonally or not. As for Ant-Man And The Wasp... a huge slice of fun. Go see it.