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Tuesday, August 14, 2018

Ant-Man And The Wasp Review

Ant-Man And The Wasp (7/10)

Director: Peyton Reed

Runtime: 118 Minutes


Image result for antman and wasp

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After seeing the events that unfolded at the end of Infinity War, it’s strange to go back to the light hearted, humorous Marvel that we’re used to seeing. I was a big fan of the first Ant-Man, in fact it’s one of my favourite Marvel movies. It was more of a heist comedy and that’s what I loved about it, just like Winter Soldier is much more of a mystery thriller than a typical superhero flick.

Ant-Man And The Wasp is obviously set before Avengers: Infinity War, as well as being set two years after Civil War. Scott Lang (Paul Rudd) is under house arrest due to his actions in Civil War, until Hope Van Dyne (Evangeline Lilly) and Hank Pym (Michael Douglas) need his help once more. They have a plan that could potentially bring back Hope’s mother from the quantum realm, whilst also wrangling with the movie's villain called Ghost.

I was actually a little disappointed with this movie, the issue I thought I was going to have I did end up having by the end. We know exactly what’s going to happen and because of this there never feels like there’s any true danger. But take away Infinity War and Ant-Man And The Wasp still lacks in some kind of danger. The plot is as straightforward as it gets, everything runs pretty smoothly without any implications. There’s a few plot points that don't really advance the story but there’s enough subplots to keep it from being boring. Scott is a bit of a mixed bag, I felt as though he was torn between two minds. Sometimes he behaves like a sulky child, then other times he can be a mature, responsible adult. Ant-Man And The Wasp doesn't do enough to separate these two aspects of Scott’s personality.

The storytelling in this movie isn't brilliant, there is however many other aspects that are really well done. Most noteworthy being the villian (If you can call her that) Ghost, she isn't doing what she's doing out of anger, revenge, or to conquer the world. She’s slowly dying and everything she's doing is to save her own life. I felt this added a great layer of empathy to the character. I know this is going to be a controversial thing to say that I much preferred her motives over Killmonger from Black Panther. Killmonger (Although a cool villain) did his actions out of revenge, and although lodes of people called it new and unique for the Marvel Universe I personally never saw it.

The choreography during the action scenes is really well crafted, there’s a few brief hand to hand fight scenes but the majority of them are CGI. Allowing the director much more creativity over how he wanted to showcase the action scenes. The comedy can be very hit or miss this time around, whereas I thought most of the jokes landed in the first Ant-Man, this isn't the case with its sequel. There’s a lot of call backs to similar jokes from the first movie which weren't exactly appreciated, the only one I chuckled at was Luis doing his overly long monologue flashback as he was being interrogated. Most of the jokes can out stay their welcome, such as one where Scott keeps asking questions and replies with “I knew that”. Evangeline Lilly and Paul Rudd have good chemistry and Michael Douglas is always fun to watch.

Overall, Ant-Man And The Wasp is a good entry in the Marvel Universe. Far from as good as the first, it does enough to stand on its own by delivering some impressive action sequences, fun chemistry between its main leads, and a memorable villain. Of course it lacks the sheer scale of Infinity War, but it makes for a fun distraction whilst we wait for Avengers 4.

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