7 & 7 Review: Ant-Man and The Wasp

Directed by Peyton Reed
Written by Chris McKenna, Erik Sommers, Paul Rudd, Andrew Barrer and Gabriel Ferrari
Starring: Paul Rudd, Evangeline Lilly, Michael Peña, Walton Goggins, Bobby Cannavale, Judy Greer, Tip “T.I.” Harris, David Dastmalchian, Hannah John-Kamen, Abby Ryder Fortson, Randall Park, Michelle Pfeiffer, Laurence Fishburne and Michael Douglas

Ant-Man and the Wasp is the sequel to 2015’s Ant-Man and the 20th film in the Marvel Cinematic Universe. It follows 2 years after the events of Captain America: Civil War, which sees Scott Lang finishing the final days of his house arrest while Hank Pym and Hope van Dyne attempt to retrieve Janet from the Quantum Realm.

  1. Ant-Man_TheWaspThe Dynamic Duo – There’s so much fun to be had when Rudd and Lilly’s character are on-screen together. It’s a shame that they had to essentially reset the relationship for the movie, but some decent progress is made in their development.
  2. Bigger and Smaller – The sequel is clearly more adventurous with the usage of their shrinking and growing abilities. Some really fun set-pieces including miniature cars and a giant skateboard. There’s also the notion of a portable base which is adorable.
  3. More is Less – The film’s story isn’t as quite as streamlined as the power usage. We get, if memory serves me right, at least 4 scenes in which other characters are seated (for a multitude of reasons) to drop exposition to the audience. Backstories on characters, filling in the events of the past 2 years and the sort. It’s rather lazy.
  4. Too Many Cooks – I think most people would say that Marvel has been turning it around with their villains between Black Panther and Avengers: Infinity War well the bad news is that streak is over. There are roughly 3 villains in this movie, one gets a backstory, one is essentially a running joke and the other I guess exists to be a moral compass for the first? Honestly, by the end of the movie, I wasn’t quite sure why they included Goggins character in this film. The movie would have flowed a lot better without his inclusion.
  5. Glitch in the System – Scott gets a new suit in the movie, but it’s a prototype so of course doesn’t work as intended, which causes some fun moments. But halfway through the movie he retrieves the original suit, which should still function properly and no point is made as to why he continues to wear the glitchy suit. Especially when it comes to the film climax and the suit still betraying his intentions. GiantMan
  6. Heart and Humor – Much like the original Ant-man, Ant-Man and the Wasp gets by a lot on its humor and it mostly works. There’s a great running gag involving truth serum in the film and some up-close magic which is cute to see. And of course Rudd, Lilly and Douglas all bring top-quality timing to their roles.
  7. The Quantum Realm –  We don’t get to spend a ton of time here, but much like when Doctor Strange or Black Panther embraced the other-Earthliness of some of Marvel’s larger concepts, it is a visual delight and hope to see more in the sequel.

Review 4 (Out of 7)Ant-Man and The Wasp feels like a movie created in a bit of a void having to tie-in to events of Civil War but set before Avengers: Infinity War, it goes much smaller in scale which works for it, but introduces way too many players with no sense of how to juggle them all. 

 

Earl Rufus

The owner of this little chunk of the internet. Enjoys having a good time and being rather snarky!

You may also like...

Leave a Reply

Your email address will not be published. Required fields are marked *