Movie Review: A Bug’s Life Seems Pretty Fun in "Ant-Man and the Wasp"

Ant-Man and the Wasp doesn’t think too far outside the box, but it does tick a few for Marvel.

The latest Ant-Man improves on its gentle and amusing predecessor, with director Peyton Reed growing in confidence as a visual stylist and action choreographer (though, he’s no Edgar Wright; we never forget).

It also, significantly, gives Marvel its first female hero in the title, with Evangeline Lilly's Wasp clearly delighted to play with her own super-suit, even when faced with the gravity of her task. And it only took 20 films.

To that end, Ant-Man and the Wasp reminds us how, sometimes, the Marvel Cinematic Universe isn’t merely a genocidal, dust-filled hellscape, but a toybox eager to be opened, and fun to fall into. You’d be amazed how often superheroes forget, personal burdens aside, that their job is a bit awesome. And in the case of Paul Rudd, it apparently makes you ageless as well, which is a nice bonus.

Rudd is back as Scott Lang, the ex-con who was redeemed by a chance robbery of Dr Hank Pym (Michael Douglas) and a transformation into Ant-Man, thanks to Pym’s special, size-shifting suit. (The last movie went to greater lengths to explain how exactly the physics worked; this sequel, mercifully, just tells us to go with it, and then starts shrinking suits, cars and buildings with abandon.)

Unfortunately, Scott's follow-up cameo in Captain America: Civil War—in which he helped the fugitive "Cap" battle Iron Man—got him arrested again and placed under house arrest for two Thanos-dodging years.

(For those desperate to know—AKA anyone slightly invested in the MCU—Ant-Man and the Wasp takes place a bit before the events of Avengers: Infinity War. Mostly. No spoilers.)

We check in days before Lang’s release, with him at risk of facing 20 more years in jail after he breaks house-arrest and reteams with Pym and Pym’s daughter, Hope (Lilly). She’s got her own suit now—call her ‘The Wasp’—and is keen to rescue her mother (Michelle Pfeiffer) from the Quantum Realm. However, a walking "Ghost" (Hannah John-Kamen) and a scheming underworld figure (Walton Goggins) are both intent on stealing the necessary technical equipment that will let Hope and Scott shrink to the molecular level, dive into the Quantum Realm and return in one, regular-sized piece.

The various screenwriters—there are five, including Rudd, who co-wrote the first, and Chris McKenna, who helped pen the similar-in-tone Spider-Man: Homecoming—don’t quite break the mould a’la Thor: Ragnarok, nor do they deliver a villain with motives that couldn’t be quelled by a rational conversation. Still, this otherwise-samey sequel contains a clean, standalone narrative, and a frantic final chase that recalls caper flicks like Midnight Run and Ruthless People, if that means anything to you.

Even more than he did in the last Ant-Man, Reed turns typical action sequences into imaginative, playroom dioramas, with ‘Hot Wheels’ reduced and enlarged as they race through San Francisco’s streets, and Lang’s fritzing suit frequently making him the exact worst size for any operation. (We’ve seen ‘Giant-Man’ before, but my new fave is ‘Toddler-Man’, which is Scott with three-year-old’s physique.)

Rudd and Lilly are a reliably watchable pair, yet the picture’s secret power is a stacked supporting comedic cast, from Michael Peña’s returning Luis, a business partner of Scott’s who can spin a hell of a yarn, to incoming Randall Park, as an unsure-of-himself S.H.I.E.L.D. agent on Lang’s case. Bobby Cannavale, Judy Greer and future president T.I. are back too, while Laurence Fishburne, never unwelcome, plays a frenemy of Pym’s. Douglas and Pfeiffer, meanwhile, get the ultimate gift: being de-aged—as Marvel is wont to do—in an early sequence, and bringing the ‘90s back to life.

Nonetheless, the funniest part of Ant-Man and the Wasp is the fact Marvel followed their despairing Avengers: Infinity War cliffhanger with a disposable side-adventure. Are they having a laugh? Yes, and loving it.

4/5

In Australian cinemas 5 July. Rated PG for mild science fiction violence and coarse language.

Header Image: Disney