Ant-Man and the Wasp had a stellar opening weekend at the box office, but did Marvel’s only theatrical release of the summer actually live up to the hype? Warning: Spoilers are ahead.
Admittedly, I was a little late to jump on the Ant-Man bandwagon. This week, I saw the original 2015 film for the first time and Ant-Man and the Wasp. However, I think that short time span has helped me compare the movies more fairly than if I’d had to wait three years between seeing them.
I actually liked the sequel better in many ways, though I know it’s not flawless. Here’s what I think worked well and what needed some work.
4. Scott and Hope
Since the release of Captain America: The First Avenger in 2011, Steve Rogers (Chris Evans) and Agent Peggy Carter (Hayley Atwell) have been my favorite Marvel Cinematic Universe (MCU) couple. I know they haven’t actually been together since the 1940s and that Peggy is dead, but I found their chemistry and beautiful love story to be unparalleled.
Well, as of this week, they’ve been supplanted by Scott Lang (Paul Rudd) and Hope van Dyne (Evangeline Lily). The basis for their relationship was well-developed in Ant-Man, but their chemistry is even stronger this time around. I never knew the word “hi” could be so sexually charged.
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It may have been too on the nose for characters like Hank (Michael Douglas) to repeatedly make note of their flirtatious behavior. Like, yeah, we get it. But I frankly I didn’t care. I tend to get overly invested in characters’ relationships, so I was kind of rejoicing in the fact that Scott and Hope were not at all subtle about their feelings for each other.
Plus, Paul Rudd is adorable as Scott (to be honest, Paul Rudd is always adorable); and it was really nice to see Hope smiling so much this time around given that she was not in a great place emotionally for much of Ant-Man. Tragically, Hope is worse off now since she’s dead — screw you, Thanos! But I’m betting The Avengers, hopefully including Scott, will be able to bring her back.
Another strong point for Ant-Man and the Wasp is that it bills Rudd and Lily as co-leads, and it delivers on that promise. Scott, perhaps, has a more multi-faceted narrative while Hope’s almost exclusively focuses on saving her mom Janet (Michelle Pfeiffer).
However, Scott and Hope are equal partners in the field and seemingly have about equal screen time, both of which are big wins for female superhero representation.
3. A complex, sympathetic villain
Speaking of female superhero representation, Hannah John-Kamen is only the second woman to play a lead villain, Ava Starr (aka Ghost), in an MCU film. Cate Blanchett became the first when she starred as Hela in 2017’s Thor: Ragnarok.
Hela was compelling because she was unapologetically, deliciously dark and power-hungry. Ava is captivating for almost the opposite reason: she doesn’t want power or glory. She just wants to be normal. Her methods are not exactly moral and, of course, she openly threatens Janet’s life, but Ava is also hard to root against.
The villain in Ant-Man, Darren Cross (Corey Stoll) (aka Yellowjacket), served a purpose, but he was hardly an interesting character in his own right. Obviously, his brain and his technology were a major threat to the entire world, so I wanted him to be stopped. But I also knew that he inevitably would be.
I wasn’t sure what would happen with Ava, but I knew that I didn’t want her to die. As a result, I remained engaged in her storyline throughout the film and was mostly satisfied with its conclusion.
Ava helps proves that characters who operate in a morally gray area, such as Black Panther‘s widely acclaimed villain Killmonger (Michael B. Jordan), are often more effective antagonists than more clearly nefarious characters are.
To quickly address the film’s other villain, Sonny Burch (Walton Goggins), I think he was a solid background player that helped keep the plot engaging.
2. A cluttered but entertaining plot
Ant-Man and the Wasp certainly tries to juggle more storylines than its predecessor, but I think for the most part it succeeds. The threads converge effectively for maximum impact on multiple characters.
For example, Scott trying to keep his business afloat leads him to inadvertently compromise Hope and Hank’s mission to save Janet because of Luis’ (Michael Peña) run-in with Sonny. That run-in almost puts Scott back in jail but also allows him to get the heart-to-heart pep talk from his daughter Cassie (Abby Ryder Fortson) that he needs in order to rescue Hank and Hope from the FBI and get their mission back on track.
The storylines also come together wonderfully in what may be the most entertaining car chase scene I’ve ever seen. Turns out the secret is people and cars being able to rapidly change size, or in Scott’s case, getting stuck as a giant. Having him use that flatbed truck as a kind of kneeling skateboard was genius.
The ferry scene unfortunately suffered a bit because I’d already seen its biggest moment in the trailer a million times and the dialogue wasn’t great. However, it did lead to one of my favorite scenes: Hope saving Scott’s life and then kissing him out of relief.
Scott saves her life, in turn, a few minutes later at the lab, but I really appreciated Hope being the first of them to save the other. It further cemented their equal partnership.
As for the film’s comedic moments, Ant-Man and the Wasp was at least as funny as Ant-Man, even if not all the jokes landed. Peña is comedic gold as always, if maybe a little underused.
Randall Park brilliantly convinced me that using a law enforcement officer as comedic relief can actually work well, even though I’m so used seeing that trope fail miserably. If you’ve never seen Park on ABC’s Fresh off the Boat, you should fix that.
As noted, Rudd and Lily’s chemistry is incredible, so they banter quite well. Their scene in Cassie’s school is laugh-out-loud hilarious. Cassie herself, Fortson, is also a natural in the comedy department. She was great in Ant-Man and is an even funnier scene-stealer in the sequel. It’s quite a testament to her since almost all her scenes are with Rudd, who can make pretty much anything funny.
1. A missed opportunity for Hank
Hank develops significantly as part of Ant-Man and the Wasp‘s premise. He no longer actively prevents Hope from becoming a superhero out of fear for her safety. In fact, he supports her choice to take up her mom’s mantle and works with her to bring Janet back.
It was a great payoff after watching Hank spend so much of Ant-Man working to repair his relationship with Hope. However, it also made me wish that we could have seen Hank extend an olive branch to Ava at the end of this film.
Initially, Hank basically writes off her story because he views her father as a traitor. Obviously, his first priority is and should be saving his wife, which means stopping Ava. However, even after Janet saves Ava, Hank doesn’t interact with Ava.
We learn in the post-credits scene that Hank is treating her condition. I wanted to see even just a moment between them onscreen, though, in which Hank could have expressed his sorrow at what she experienced, even if it’s true that he was in no way to blame.
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I appreciated Ava’s relationship with Bill (Laurence Fishburne) because it was well-developed. Their hug at the end was especially poignant, considering she’d barely been able to touch anyone in at least a decade. It would’ve been nice to actually see Ava building her relationship with Hank as well instead of learning about its progression through expository dialogue.