Ant-Man and the Wasp

Dir: Peyton Reed

2018

****

Edger Wright and co-writer Joe Cornish famously walked from 2015’s Ant-Man over differences they had with Marvel. It was a sad moment for us fans of Wright and Joe from the Adam & Joe show because we knew just how brilliant and funny Ant-Man could be under their guidance. However, Peyton Reed and Paul Rud did save the day and made one of the MCU’s most fun, funny, ridiculous and charming films of the series. Marvel’s films have gone from strength to strength with each film bettering the last, that is, until now. Don’t get me wrong, I loved Ant-Man and the Wasp but it was as good as the first film, not better. The best aspects of the first Ant-Man were the bits left over from Wright and Cornish’s script and they are credited accordingly. Years later, we now know exactly what parts of the film were theirs, and in my opinion they were all the best bits. In 2018’s Ant-Man and the Wasp those best bits are copied and repeated but never bettered. There were a lot of things that bothered me about the film if I’m being honest. The fact that the whole story wouldn’t exist without amazing technology is a given, but the detail surrounding said technology is poor. For example, Michael Douglas’s Hank Pym and Evangeline Lilly’s Hope van Dyne (aka The Wasp) work in a huge building that they shrink down and move where ever they go. They run around all over town with the building but it is never damaged and once restored to its normal size it stays standing, even though it has no foundations. It’s maybe an unimportant fact in the scheme of things – and I’m all for a bit of magic – but the MCU films are now well known for their attention to detail. They also have a collection of cars they can shrink at will. Their little box of Hot Wheels cars is cool and many of them are in the funky colours that Hot Wheels come in, but doesn’t that mean they would have had to get regular cars made to look like toys? Why would they do that? Two scientists obsessed with trying to save their wife/mother from the depths of the quantum realm are hardly going to go to the effort of pimping their ride, just in case someone searches their belongings and wonders why they have a case of plain looking cars in a Hot Wheels box, rather than actual Hot Wheels cars. It’s not even like Hot Wheel paid for product placement. It shouldn’t bother me but it does, I have no problem with the nonsense logic behind the quantum realm and the ability of shrinking and growing but I think if you are going to explore the science fiction you have to try and explain it convincingly and follow up on the process. I think they got the big Ant-Man aspect right but less so the small Ant-Man, which is a shame, seeing as it is Ant-Man and not Giant-Man (at least not yet anyway). The plot is a little too shaky for comfort, given that these people are geniuses and can’t work out very simple ways that they could use their shrinking/growing technology better to their advantage. Again, detail is key and sometimes the most simple of ideas is the best – just look at the first film of it’s kind, the one that influenced the comic in the first place – 1957’s The Incredible Shrinking Man. This is one MCU film where the comic is still marginally better than the film adaptation, although it was nice to see a few characters pop up from the comics, such as Agent Woo (who is an agent of S.H.E.I.L.D in the comics), Ghost (who is a man and Iron-Man’s rival in the comics), Bill Foster (who was Black Goliath before becoming the second Giant-Man in the comics) and of course Janet van Dyne (who was the original Wasp in the comics). I may sound as if I didn’t like Ant-Man and the Wasp but I don’t want to give you the wrong idea, I did like it, very much in fact. It is just that it has been unfortunately shoe-horned in between some already iconic Marvel films. In a post-Infinity War world, Ant-Man and the Wasp is something of a palette cleanser before we get Captain Marvel and Infinity War part II. This being the case, Ant-Man and the Wasp felt it was disjointed from the main story as well as being an episode in a series. I can see that Marvel probably wanted something like that but I don’t think it has been beneficial to any of the characters. The post-credits scene that brings in the Infinity War story arch is the film’s most interesting scene, which it really shouldn’t have been. It feels like a ‘Meanwhile….’ type story, rather than the stand-alone film that Ant-Man, Wasp and everyone else deserved. Again, I sound like I didn’t enjoy it but I really did, it’s just that Marvel have now set the standards so high that any slight imperfection becomes all the more obvious. I did think Ghost was more suited as an Ant-Man villain though and I like how Ant-Man is bringing in all the new Marvel characters as well as old forgotten favorites. The first film was cleverly told through the events of a classic heist but Peyton Reed has said that for the follow up he was influenced by films such as After Hours, Midnight Run and What's Up, Doc?. I totally get that and think, especially towards the end of the film, and I loved the scrappy madness each character goes through. I think each character is perfectly cast too, my wish now would be that one day Ant-Man’s daughter Cassie (played by Abby Ryder Fortson) will also suit up as she does in the comics and becomes a young Avenger. So in conclusion, I liked the film overall but I liked and disliked how the film had to work within the other Avenger films. The details niggle a bit but overall, my only real true disappointment was with The Wasp's suit – which I thought could have been a lot nicer and had just a little more yellow. Other than that, it’s another hit for Marvel. It also features one of my favorite Stan Lee cameos of the entire MCU series so far.