Review – Marvel shrinks things down for the lighthearted Ant-Man and the Wasp

The MCU is taking a breather. Following the world-shaking consequences of Avengers: Infinity War, Ant-Man and the Wasp arrives as a breath of fresh air, a self-contained story that focuses on the goofier side of the Marvel Universe.

Three years after the first Ant-Man film, the titular hero is once again on the wrong side of the law. As the sequel opens, Ant-Man / Scott Lang (Paul Rudd) is under house arrest, following his trip to Germany to assist Team Cap during Captain America:  Civil War (he’s sure doing some hard time for a quick cameo role). Sentenced to two years house arrest for breaking The Sokovia Accords superhuman registration act, Lang spends his days creating elaborate indoor play sets for his daughter, while pursuing his security business with his partner Luis (Michael Peña).

On rocky terms with Dr. Hank Pym (Michael Douglas) and his daughter Hope (Evangeline Lilly) following his superhero bash-em-up in Germany, Lang reconnects with the pair following a vivid dream he has of Pym’s wife Janet (Michelle Pfeiffer), who was lost in the quantum realm two decades earlier after shrinking down to microscopic level to disable a missile. While getting the team together (and avoiding detection from the police, led by the great Randall Park), Lang and his cohorts must contend with Ghost (Hannah John-Kamen), a mysterious masked woman chasing after their technology with the ability to phase through matter. To pile it on, the team also has to deal with Sonny Burch (Walton Goggins), a dangerous arms dealer desperate to get his hands on Pym’s incredibly valuable technology.

Director Peyton Reed returns to the helm for this sequel, and his breezy, uncluttered style makes Ant-Man and the Wasp feel distinct from everything else in the increasingly dark MCU. While the stakes in Avengers: Infinity War couldn’t have been higher, with the entire known universe in peril, the stakes are much more grounded here — at its heart, this is simply a film about a family trying to reunite, albeit with some major superhero impediments thrown in their way.

Much like Alice in Wonderland, most of the action here is derived from things blowing up and shrinking down (and various combinations of the two). While the film likely features less action scenes than any MCU film to date, the battle sequences here are memorable and inventive, including a great scene with a miniaturized Wasp running along the end of a thrown knife. Peyton injects these scenes with a dose of slapstick that lightens up the action and keeps things fun —  supersized Pez dispensers and salt shakers become weapons of destruction, while a multi-story building hosting a huge research lab gets shrunken down to the size of carry-on luggage. If you ever played with Hot Wheels as a kid, this movie is essentially your childhood dream come true.

Ant-Man and the Wasp moves along at a crisp pace, coasting on the fun tag-team of Rudd and Lilly, intercut with plenty of gags that derive from the pair’s chemistry, as opposed to random pop culture references (see: Deadpool 2). The film also boasts a stellar supporting cast, including the hyperactive, scene-stealing Michael Peña, Laurence Fishburne as Dr. Bill Foster, a beleaguered former associate of Hank Pym, and the always reliable Walton Goggins as the aggrieved baddie (not to mention T.I. who is also in the movie for a few fleeting moments).

This film doesn’t reinvent the wheel in any way, but it’s a superhero movie almost devoid of pathos, which is a refreshing change after Infinity War. There is no widespread destruction and chaos to contend with, and no maniacal villain with a silly helmet floating over the streets of NYC as skyscrapers come crashing down around them (for a change, the film is set in San Francisco). It’s simply a very fun film with some great character work, one with such a ridiculous premise and execution that it actually feels like a true comic book come to life. While there are definite nods to the MCU at large, Ant-Man and the Wasp is essentially a self-contained film, which unburdens it from having to make too many connections to the other films. This is a film that exists in its own weird world, and is all the better for it.

Ant-Man and the Wasp opens in theatres July 6th.