Summary
With the revelation that people can return from the quantum zone, Hope's eyes turn to Scott to help her rescue her mother. If only Scott wasn't under house arrest.
Expectations
A big part of any film going experience is how the film as actually viewed compares to the film as one expected it to be. Having seen the first "Ant-Man" film, I wasn't initially expecting much. I didn't really care for the first one, even though Edgar Wright (Guardians of the Galaxy) was a writer on it for a time and he had nothing to do with the new Ant-Man movie so it would probably be worse.
Then I saw the second released trailer for "Ant-Man and the Wasp" (AMATW) play before I saw "Deadpool 2." That trailer seemed pretty fun. I wasn't fully on board but it definitely gave me the bug to see the new one and hope it would be better than the first.
As the movie got closer, I rewatched "Ant-Man" and remembered how much I didn't care for it. My feelings toward AMATW cooled a little so that by the time I sat down in the theater to watch it, I was not expecting to like it.
Reality
I'm not sure if it was my low expectations or not, but WOW! I liked this movie. It isn't flawless by any stretch of the imagination but it managed to do a couple of things really well that I had felt were failings of the first Ant-Man outing.
For one, the humor in this movie works throughout. While I felt Paul Rudd was handcuffed in the first in AMATW they cut him lose to be the sort of funny character he is well capable of playing. Most films would probably make him super stupid and inept because that's how media treats dads in films. Her though, he is sarcastic, smart (but not the smartest), and not a bumbling oaf.
Add to Paul Rudd, a real unleashing of Michael Pena's comedy chops and a couple of supporting comedy sidekicks for him, and the laughs just keep coming in AMATW.
Another couple of things I didn't care for in the first Ant-Man was that the villain's main plot seemed recycled from "Iron Man" and the action sequences weren't that fun. Again, AMATW fixes those errors by involving more characters in the action scenes to make them more dynamic and a truly unique plot we haven't seen in a Marvel film before. In fact, trying to nail down who is the villain in this film is slightly more nebulous than one might think for a Marvel film.
Close But No
I wish I could just sing the praises of this film but, alas, I cannot. While there is a lot this movie improves on from its predecessor, the other elements that failed in the first one, still fail here, and on top of that, they add the biggest problem I had with AMATW.
There are too many plot lines running in this film that make it too long and leave certain plot lines feeling like afterthought which barely get lip service. I'm going to spoil bits of the film here so stop reading here is you want to maintain the mystery of a Marvel film.
SPOILERS BEGIN
So how many plot lines are there in this film?
Scott is under house arrest for 3 more days. If he leaves he gets 20 years in prison.
Scott and Luis (Michael Pena) have a security company called Ex-Con which has a big meeting with a 'white whale' client in 2 days.
Luis is hiding that the company is bankrupt.
Hank and Hope think they might be able to get their wife/mom back from the quantum zone, but the need a technology McGuffin to make the tech work.
They also need Scott to come to their lab, because he was connected to Hope in the quantum zone and could help them track her.
Ghost is an out of control phase shifter who needs that same McGuffin to save her life and then decides she needs to kill wife/mom to save her own life.
The person who sold the McGuffin double crosses Hope.
An FBI agent is tracking Scott because he doesn't trust him and keeps trying to catch him outside the house.
In a lot of ways, the plot feels similar to a Spiderman plot line. The whole, be a good dad while also being a super hero feels very Peter Parker/Spiderman esque. The problem is that it doesn't quite do what a Spiderman plot does to keep it simple and tight. In Spiderman, Aunt Mae isn't a scientist trying to transport Uncle Ben back from some Dead Zone. Mary Jane isn't a crazed phase shifter. The plots are simpler.
That's what AMATW needed. One less, literally one less, group of characters to keep track of or conflicts at play. Just drop the big meeting with a client plot line, or the double cross from the black market tech dude.
If you do that, the plot gets tight and the movie blows by in 90 minutes of laughter and ripping action sequences.
Verdict
Unfortunately, Marvel just can't get away from trying to do things epic and so AMATW isn't the fun ride it should be. It's a 2 hour film which while pretty well done, feels its length. Ironically, they really just needed to compress it, shrink it down, and it would have been more than just a run of the mill, 3 Star film.
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