
The last couple of months have been a healing process in the Marvel Cinematic Universe since the events of “Avengers: Infinity War”. I won’t go into detail here for those of you that still haven’t seen it, but I’m sure that, at this point, you have at the very least heard that it’s a pretty dark and heavy experience. Since there’s been a few months to process the experience, it’s time to move on and let the healing begin, and seeing how Marvel Studios is the perpetual machine that it is, there’s ALWAYS more story to tell. So now, we are faced with the last MCU offering for 2018 with the sequel to Paul Rudd and Director Peyton Reed’s pleasantly surprising “Ant-Man”. Given the fact that we are stuck between “Infinity War” and next year’s “Captain Marvel,” it seems like a nice change of pace to get reacquainted with Scott Lang and Hope van Dyne and their alter-egos “Ant-Man and The Wasp”.
Lang (Paul Rudd) is still serving his sentence on house arrest after his participation in the events that transpired during “Captain America: Civil War”, and having had NO contact with Hank Pym (Michael Douglas) and van Dyne (Evangeline Lily) as a condition of his probation, he has shifted his focus on becoming a better parent to his daughter Cassie (Abby Ryder Fortson) and keeping a low profile. After a strange dream, Scott reaches out to Hank, which results in Scott teaming back up with Hank and Hope that winds up opening brand new doors containing several ghosts from the past, putting them in a race against time, the law, and some shady tech dealers as they try to stay not only alive but out of prison and intact as a family.
Back in 2015, “Ant-Man” was a pleasant surprise, given its unique aesthetic of playing around in the newly developed “quantum realm”. As fun as that first film was, this film is fairly similar, offering the same generally light-hearted and playful atmosphere, especially when the relationship between Scott and Cassie are in primary focus. Watching the two titular heroes taking on the bad guys is exhilarating, but it doesn’t happen nearly enough with the two of them fighting side by side, creating a kind of letdown, considering that it IS the title of the film. Seeing new characters is refreshing, adding Michelle Pfeiffer as Janet van Dyne, Laurence Fishburne as Bill Foster (two former DC Universe faces for those of you keeping score), as well as Hannah John-Kamen as Ava, whom I believe we only scratch the surface here with how complex her character truly is. Walton Goggins as Sonny Burch seems wasted here, playing just another paper-thin redneck weasel stereotype that he’s done countless times before.
I’m anxious to see where all this leads in the grand scheme of things, and although I thoroughly enjoyed “Ant-Man and The Wasp,” it’s going to be even more intriguing to see how it all comes together once the next two chapters in the MCU play out.