Ant-Man and the Wasp

History’s ‘what if’ in the Marvel Cinematic Universe is the ‘what-if’ of Edgar Wright’s version of Ant-Man. Peyton Reed stepped in at the last minute to direct with some script doctoring with Paul Rudd (who plays Scott Lang). This new film, Ant-Man and the Wasp, is entirely of the creativity of Peyton Reed, Rudd and others, and makes me wonder what benefits Wright would have bestowed upon this light-hearted Marvel franchise.

This review is going to be short, or small, or tiny (haha). I don’t really have much to say about Ant-man and the Wasp because for me, there really wasn’t much that I got from the film. It follows Scott Lang (Paul Rudd), currently under house arrest from the events of Civil War, suddenly enlisted to assist Hank Pym (Michael Douglas) and Hope van Dyne (Evangeline Lilly) in getting Janet van Dyne (Michelle Pfeiffer) out of the Quantum Realm. Along for the ride, are Ghost (Hannah John-Kamen), a molecularly unstable super woman, trying to find a way to heal herself from her unstable existence using Quantum technology.

Ant-Man was a fun movie, but in the greater scheme of Marvel, it was certainly forgettable compared to what had come before. I found Ant-Man and the Wasp even more so, although it does present some interesting connective tissue from the events of The Avengers: Infinity War, which I won’t explore here. Most of the action was unfortunately ruined by the trailers that showed just about every action scene in the film – which is unfortunate because they were fairly creative. Michael Peña as Luis is once again hilarious, although they use similar comedy tropes from the first film. Actually, most of the cast is really good (although Walton Goggins is fairly one-dimensional) and Evangeline Lilly is easily one of the most beautiful women in the world (I developed a mad crush on her after the dreadful Hobbit films).

People have described Ant-Man and the Wasp as a nice light-hearted ‘breather’ from the heaviness of Infinity War. A similar thing was said of the first film in light of The Avengers: Age of Ultron. It’s also a fun film, but a forgettable one. It almost feels too safe at times and risk free. This is unfortunate after the risks and deaths of Infinity War, and makes me genuinely wonder what Edgar Wright would have brought to the role had he the creative freedom to bring his zaniness to the character.

I recommend going to see it if you enjoy Marvel Studios movies. I’m a fan and see every film the studio puts out, but not from the point of view of any particular brand loyalty. I didn’t think Infinity War was amazing, but I was satisfied with it. What I did respect about it was that it had real stakes, which has been one of Marvel’s greatest weaknesses. This film had stakes, but nothing too high, nor did it really need to.

It was a decent time out at the movies.