Rating: 3.5/5
Classification: PG
Year of release: 2018
Run-time: 1 hour 58 minutes
Director: Peyton Reed
Cast: Paul Rudd, Evangeline Lilly, Michael Pena, Walton Goggins
Genre: Action, Adventure, Sci-Fi
This review contains NO SPOILERS
Ant-Man and the Wasp is the twentieth movie in the Marvel Cinematic Universe and is directed by Peyton Reed who also directed the first Ant-Man film, and is Paul Rudd’s third time playing the title role. This film is about Scott Lang/Ant-Man (Paul Rudd) who is nearing the end of his 2 year house arrest sentence because of his violation of the Sokovian Accords in Captain America: Civil War (2016). However since Scott entered the quantum realm in the first Ant-Man movie and managed to survive and escape. Hank Pym (Michael Douglas) and Hope Van Dyne (Evangeline Lilly) have been questioning whether Hank’s wife and Hope’s mother Janet Van Dyne (Michelle Pfeiffer) could still be alive after Janet was lost in the quantum realm thirty years ago. If you were disappointed with Ant-Man’s absence in Avengers: Infinity War (2018) I’m sure you’ll be very happy that he gets another solo movie in the same year. If you’re looking for a more cheerful, fun, not so heavy movie after the humungous scope, stakes and ambitions of Infinity War, Ant-Man and the Wasp will also fulfil your needs in that department.
While Ant-Man and the Wasp was not amazing but enjoyable, I do have some minor complaints about the movie, while most if not all Marvel movies have jokes and a good sense of humour, most of them do succeed at being funny. However there are some that don’t or some movies where the jokes are hit and miss, Ant-Man and the Wasp was funny at times however there were some jokes that I thought did fall flat and tried to make audiences laugh a few too many times. As I said before if some Marvel fans are looking for a film that gives you a breather after the high stakes of Infinity War, Ant-Man and the Wasp does have lower stakes and is much lighter and less stressful to watch Infinity War. Despite the fact that those were some big reasons why I enjoyed Infinity War, if you are looking for a much lighter, enjoyable and no fate of the entire universe being at risk, this film is definitely a smaller skirmish and should satisfy a decent amount of Marvel fans. There are Infinity War connections in this movie but not until the after credits scenes.
Ant-Man and the Wasp won’t change your life and isn’t a game changing benchmark or a defining movie for the Marvel Cinematic Universe. It’s a fun and entertaining movie that has many of the same positive aspects that the first Ant-Man had such as Paul Rudd’s charming performance, entertaining action scenes and suitably lower stakes. As always there are after credits scenes, one half ways through and the other at the very end, I believe you should stay for both.