Ant-Man and the Wasp is a 2018 production by Marvel Studios. It is the second standalone Ant-Man movie, with direction once again from Peyton Reed. This time around the writing team existed of Chris McKenna, Erik Sommers, Andrew Barrer, Gabriel Ferrari and Paul Rudd. The last of which also plays the main role alongside other actors such as Evangeline Lilly, Micheal Peña, Walton Goggins, Hannah John-Kamen, Michael Douglas, Laurence Fishburne, Randall Park and Michelle Pfeiffer. The movie scores a 7.1/10 on IMDb and received a 70 Metascore.
A Summary
Scott Lang (Paul Rudd) is under house arrest after violating the Sokovia Accords when he fought alongside Captain America during the events of Civil War. Nowadays he is not much more than a great father to his daughter and a security specialist. He is under constant monitoring from the FBI with agent Jimmy Woo (Randall Park) being especially keen on catching him.
After a weird dream seemingly connected to him going to the quantum realm, he calls Hope (Evangeline Lilly) and Pym (Michael Douglas) for more information, although they are not on great terms after he used their suit in Germany when he was violating the accords. Not much later, Hope kidnaps him and brings him to their shrinkable lab. Don’t worry, a giant ant is copying Scott’s daily movements to make sure the FBI’s monitor doesn’t go off.
Hope and Pym are trying to bring Janet Van Dyne (Michelle Pfeiffer) back after 30 years in the quantum realm. When they set out to buy the last part of their tunnel to the quantum realm, they run into trouble with the seller, Sonny Burch (Walton Goggins). Hope kicks his ass and takes the component. However, at that moment a figure in a full white suit appears, named Ghost (Hannah John-Kamen) at this point. Ghost can phase through objects and therefore can’t be easily hit by Hope’s punches.
She takes the shrunken lab and leaves the squad injured behind. Since the lab was their only hideout, Scott takes Hope and Pym to the office of his new security firm: X-Con, led by Luis (Micheal Peña). They seek help from a former colleague of Pym named Bill Foster. They didn’t part on the best terms but he does have a good tip for finding the lab.
When they find the location of the lab, they also find Ghost’s hideout. She outsmarts them though and captures all three of them. At that moment we learn the backstory of the girl behind Ghost, Ava. Her father worked with Hank Pym but after he was cast out he tried to build his own quantum tunnel and failed. The resulting blast killed Ava’s parents and permanently altered the molecules in her body, giving her the ability to phase through objects. But she is dying and needs a cure. She was working with Bill Foster all along since he took her in as a child, who promised to save her life.
After a smart trick by Pym, some enlarged ants help the three escape with the lab. They set up the lab in a hidden location in the woods but Scott tells Luis where they are so he can help with a work-related problem. However, mister Burch is still looking for the lab to sell the equipment for a billion dollars. He goes to Luis and gives him a sort-of truth serum to make him give the location of the lab.
Ava hears this as well and therefore Burch decides to let the FBI take care of it, giving a crooked agent orders to bring the lab to him. After the lab goes back and forth between the three parties involved it ends up enlarged. At that point, Pym goes into the quantum realm through the tunnel, quickly after which the lab is shrunken again. After some heavy fighting and a thrilling car chase, the lab is enlarged again and Pym comes out of the quantum tunnel, together with Janet.
She is able to stabilize Ava’s condition with new-gained powers from the quantum realm. Burch and his buddies get apprehended with some help from Luis and Co, who make it to live television. Scott is able to get home, just in time for Jimmy Woo to see him in his house arrest. To previously struggling X-Con gets a large influx of clients after they reached the news and Scott’s two-year house arrest is finally over.
In a mid-credit scene, we see Scott go into a smaller version of the quantum tunnel to capture some quantum healing particles. When he is in the quantum realm, the events from the end of Infinity War happen and Hope, Janet and Pym are dissolved, leaving Scott behind in the quantum realm.
The Story
The story of Ant-Man and the Wasp starts a bit strange. For unexplained reasons Hope and Hank are on the run for the FBI and extremely mad with Scott. While it is said that it has to do with the events of Captain America: Civil War, it still seems a bit far-fetched that those events led to these consequences. Especially since Hope and Hank were both unaware of Scott’s plans in Germany and therefore should be treated more like witnesses than enemies.
Luckily, as the movie progresses they learn to cope with it each other and get along to achieve the greater goal: saving Janet Van Dyne. However, this is more a side-story in the broader aspect of the film. The movie ends up being more about Ava and her fight with Hope and Scott. That is not necessarily a bad thing though, as Ava’s story proves to be more engaging and interesting than saving someone from the quantum realm. That was one of the problems with this movie, in my opinion, they got far too deep into the scientific background. Explaining this and that, while we are never going to understand what’s happening.
I do think the movie does a great of portraying the family guy Scott Lang. It is really fun to see him engage with his daughter while being under house arrest. He is always thinking about her and what he needs to do to keep her safe and happy, that creates a really powerful personality for Scott. Alongside his hilarious moments and some excellent acting by one of my favourite actors, Paul Rudd, it boosts this movie to a higher level.
I also was a fan of the plot twist, Bill Foster turning out to be helping the antagonist. For me, it came out of nowhere as there seemed to be no hints towards this earlier in the movie. Foster being the caretaker of Ava for most of her childhood was a good story, although the accident in Ava’s past which killed her parents was definitely not well worked out. Her father wanted to prove himself and took to many risks to achieve that?
The Characters
I wanted to start out this section with a shout-out to Scott’s security company friends, in special Luis. While they may only be playing a small part in the events of the story, their humour and actions provide the movie with some great laughs.
Scott Lang / Ant-Man
As I said earlier, I am a big fan of Scott Lang, Ant-Man and Paul Rudd. All three of them combined into one character makes this movie a joy to watch. While other characters may be lacking in certain departments, I feel like Scott Lang is one of the better-developed characters in the Marvel Cinematic Universe, whilst featuring in fewer movies than other heroes.
Ava / Ghost
Her backstory was a bit bleach and her motives ungrounded. In the end, she was helped by a simple touch of Janet’s fingers. If that is possible, all her selfish plans to take her energy seem a bit unnecessary. And since you can’t really say Sonny Burch was a threat to the protagonist’s plans, there wasn’t really any good opponent. I do think that Ava’s skillset and abilities were a better choice for an Ant-Man movie than her predecessor Yellowjacket’s.
The Van Dyne-Pym family
In the first Ant-Man movie, the Hope-Hank relationship always made the bests parts of the movie. Meantime, that relationship seemed to have changed since Hope became the Wasp. Now, their internal fighting has stopped and they just do everything together, no questions asked. It seems like they are in perfect sync without any problems. While that may be great for them, it creates a bit of a dull dynamic and therefore boring moments.
The lack of interesting interactions between them also didn’t give either Evangeline Lilly or Michael Douglas any chance to show their acting capabilities. At least these two were of importance to the plot. The same can’t be said for Janet, who seems a bit out of order to me. She is mentioned a lot over the two movies but still, they didn’t manage to capture my attention to her rescue. It also doesn’t help that, the moments she gets out, she immediately saves the day by fixing Ava’s problems.
The Production
I think the writing team has done a great job in some parts of this film. The scenes where Scott’s regulator was broken and he needed to walk through his daughter’s school as a tiny child-man was hilarious. Those funny moments also made a place for some action when needed, with a few quantum-boosted car chases. Last but not least, a visually stunning landing on the surface of some quantum world.
It not all great though. I noticed a few scenes that seemed to stop very abruptly. One scene earlier in the movie where you have like a 3-second clip of the van driving away. It was really short and didn’t any value whatsoever, so it felt really out-of-place. Besides that, there was a scene where they escape Ava’s capture by using some enlarged ants. The scene starts out great and makes you want more giant ant-action but then it just abruptly stops, without showing how they got out or how they managed to keep Ava from capturing them again.