Although 2015’s Ant-Man and the Wasp. After making the first one as a heist movie, Peyton Reed made the follow-up as an Elmore Leonard-esque crime caper.
While the Ant-Man sequel suffered from the unenviable task of being the MCU’s smallest-scale movie that had to follow the epic scope and earth-shattering events of Avengers: Infinity War, it was another fun romp with Scott Lang, Hope Van Dyne, and Hank Pym.
Right: Refreshing Tone
After the somber ending of Avengers: Infinity War left Marvel fans mourning the untimely deaths of dozens of their favorite characters, the fun, breezy, lighthearted tone of Ant-Man and the Wasp arrived as a refreshing change of pace.
While fans were reeling from the destructive reign of Thanos and the Avengers’ first major loss, it was uplifting to see a teary-eyed Scott Lang reading The Fault in Our Stars under house arrest.
Wrong: Forced Explanations Of Civil War
Between the first and second Ant-Man movies, Scott Lang took Hank Pym’s tech to Berlin to help Steve Rogers fight Tony Stark over the Sokovia Accords in Captain America: Civil War. In that movie, he was added to round out Cap’s team, cram Scott into the wider MCU, and add a few cheap laughs to the airport battle.
In Ant-Man and the Wasp, this led to some forced conflict, as Hank is mad at Scott for taking his suit overseas and Hope is mad at him for not asking her to come along. Frankly, there are no good explanations for these decisions, so the sequel forces them to cover up oversights made by Civil War’s writers.
Right: Giving Hope Equal Footing
After being relegated to the role of Scott Lang’s love interest and Hank Pym’s estranged yet smothered daughter in the first Ant-Man movie, Hope Van Dyne finally got equal footing in Ant-Man and the Wasp.
She donned her mother’s Wasp suit and ed Scott to become a bite-sized crime-fighting duo. One of the oldest and most iconic Avengers finally got the role she deserved on the big screen.
Wrong: Undercooked Villains
There are two villains in Ant-Man and the Wasp — Ghost and Sonny Burch — and neither is developed enough to really stand out. Neither has a personal connection to the heroes, so they never become captivating antagonists.
Ghost’s tragic backstory makes her sympathetic, and Walton Goggins’ infectious charms keep Burch’s scenes entertaining, but they’re pretty undercooked characters, especially arriving on the heels of Killmonger and Thanos.
Right: Saving Janet
A lot of the story threads in Ant-Man and the Wasp feel like filler, which is a shame because the main storyline of Hank’s quest to save his long-lost wife Janet should’ve taken center stage.
It was a great idea to explore the Quantum Realm further in the Ant-Man sequel, and Michael Douglas’ dramatic chops made Hank’s attempts to locate his wife feel really emotionally engaging.
Wrong: Sitcom-Light Storytelling
With massive VFX-driven set pieces and dazzling sci-fi visuals, there’s nothing stopping the lighter, more overtly comedic MCU movies from being big and cinematic — just look at Guardians of the Galaxy — but they tend to be sitcom-light. Jon Watts’ Spider-Man movies fall into this category, as does Ant-Man and the Wasp.
It’s not a movie that necessarily demanded to be seen on the big screen; it could’ve been released as a Disney+ exclusive (if Disney+ had existed back then) and no one would’ve batted an eye.
Right: Paul Rudd And Evangeline Lilly’s Chemistry
Ultimately, Ant-Man and the Wasp survives on the dynamic shared by the titular pair of superheroes. Paul Rudd and Evangeline Lilly share fantastic on-screen chemistry in the roles.
They have the sparks to pull off the characters’ romantic arc, but more importantly, they’re perfectly in tune with each other’s comic timing.
Wrong: Generic Sci-Fi Speak
Proportional human shrinking is literally impossible, so explaining it scientifically in Ant-Man and the Wasp required some use of made-up words. But there’s so much generic technobabble in the movie that it becomes distracting.
At one point, Scott says, “Do you guys just put the word ‘quantum’ in front of everything?” Pointing out your own lazy writing doesn’t stop the writing from being lazy.
Right: The Mid-Credits Stinger
Marvel fans went into Ant-Man and the Wasp with a million and one questions after Avengers: Infinity War, and for the most part, the movie avoided answering any of them. However, the mid-credits stinger beautifully teased Scott Lang’s role in Avengers: Endgame — it made fans ask more questions, but also added a couple more pieces to the Endgame puzzle.
During a trip into the Quantum Realm, Scott is stranded in the microscopic sub-universe when all the people in charge of bringing him back are snapped out of existence by Thanos at the worst possible moment.
Wrong: Playing It Safe
A problem that Ant-Man and the Wasp shares with its predecessor is that Peyton Reed, the director that Marvel hired to replace the dangerously creative Edgar Wright, plays it painfully safe.
While movies like Black Panther and Thor: Ragnarok pushed the boundaries of what could be achieved with an installment in the MCU, Ant-Man and the Wasp is perfectly content to color within the lines.
