Author: Eric Kohn / Source: IndieWire
Every chapter in Marvel’s sprawling cinematic universe speaks to a bigger picture with its delicate balance of epic circumstances and mindless spectacles. Even if comic book movies aren’t your jam, the rhythm of this decade-plus franchise is a monumental commercial feat.
It was only natural for the franchise to follow one of its most consequential installments with a light afterthought.The playful CGI-laced heist of 2015’s “Ant-Man” was a welcome respite from the messy gravitas of “Avengers: Age of Ultron” earlier that year; here, “Ant-Man and the Wasp” provides a blithe, forgettable antidote to the sprawling apocalyptic circumstances of “Avengers: Infinity War” just a few months earlier. It’s everything you might expect from a witty story about a shrinking superhero and gobbledygook involving the quantum realm, and it’s as ebullient and disposable as the last one.
Of course, much has happened since then. One of the more amusing aspects of Marvel’s ambitious storytelling is the need to acknowledge the ongoing growth of its world. In that regard, “Ant-Man and the Wasp” is actually more of a sequel to 2016’s “Captain America: Civil War” than “Ant Man” itself. In “Civil War,” ex-con Scott Lang (Paul Rudd) joins forces with a faction of the Avengers for a monumental battle in Germany that doesn’t go so well for his side. Equipped with a suit designed by genius inventor Hank Pym (Michael Douglas), Scott can shrink and enlarge himself with spectacular dexterity, but without it, he’s just a goofy divorced dad. Captured by the government and prosecuted for violating government laws regulating superheroes, Scott’s placed under house arrest for two years — right in time for “Ant-Man and the Wasp” to pick up the thread.
The irony is that the “Ant-Man” plot line doesn’t really need him at all. Instead, it’s Hank, the original Ant Man, and his daughter Hope (Evangeline Lily) who face big stakes: Decades ago, Hank lost his wife Janet (Michelle Pfeiffer) in action when she shrank to the quantum realm to stop a bomb. He had assumed she was gone for good, but after Scott survived a trip to the quantum realm at the end of “Ant Man,” Hank’s having second thoughts. They need to send Scott back, but he’s stuck at his Bay Area home with an ankle bracelet.
So begins a rollicking odyssey that starts as a rescue mission and dovetails into a convoluted crime story. “Ant-Man and the Wasp” loses momentum as it mucks up the plot with Walton Goggins as a two-bit criminal intent on stealing Hank Pym’s shrunken lab; it also struggles to make a new supervillain, the enigmatic Ghost (Hannah John-Kamen), into a compelling character. A nimble fighter whose body goes transparent against her will, she emerges as an unexpected threat early on, assaulting Hank and his daughter in the hopes of nabbing their research…
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