Ant-Man And The Wasp

And so, everyone, we've arrived at the last M.C.U movie of 2018, Ant-Man And The Wasp. To be honest, out of all the Phase 3 M.C.U movies, this was probably the one I was least excited for. I mean, I like the first movie. It's fun, but it's not really anything that special. And I would say, compared to the other M.C.U movies, it's one of the weaker ones. Still though, as a huge Marvel fan, I was pretty excited and I was really hoping that it would be better than the first. And so, what did I think of it? Yeah, I thought it was kinda the same as the first film, but I definitely had a better time with this than I did the first. And yes, like my other movie reviews, I'll be doing no spoilers to start and then I'll get into all the spoilers after a warning. Okay, so, what's the story? Scott is still under house arrest after Civil War and he's almost finished with it. He's still able to see Cassie and is looking forward to spending more time with her. However, one night when he's asleep, he gets some dream about the Quantum Realm and Hank and Hope think this could help them find Janet, A.K.A Hank's wife and Hope's mother, who's still probably alive. But they need parts to finish a machine that they've been making to go in there. Hope keeps getting pieces from a guy named Sonny, played by Walton Goggins, but he's getting suspicious of what she's doing. But then Hope, who's now the new Wasp, is attacked by a person calling herself Ghost, played by Hannah John-Kamen, who's trying to steal their machine for herself. And, really, I'm going stop right there. Okay, so first, positives. Like every other M.C.U movie, the cast is spot-on. Paul Rudd is still incredibly likable and charismatic and hilarious as Scott. You can tell he's having a blast with this. He's obviously great. I really loved Evangeline Lily as Hope and, in my opinion, she's way better here than the first movie, both in terms of acting and writing. I loved Hope in this as well, especially any scene with her interacting with Scott. The work really well together, and, usually, I don't care about romances in the M.C.U, but I really like the two of them here. Michael Douglas is still fantastic as Hank and I liked that they fleshed him out even more here. Hannah John-Kamen is really good as Ghost, and, in my opinion, Ghost is, not a great villain in the M.C.U, but definetly better than Yellowjacket. She's not super memorable and her motivation isn't that strong, but she's better than some of the other villains we've gotten. She's got a good backstory and motivation, but, she's far from Loki, Ego, Vulture, Hela, Killmonger or even Thanos. Everyone else is good too, Michelle Pfeiffer, Laurence Fishburne, Abby Ryder Fortson, Randall Park, Walton Goggins, all of them. The one I want to give a special mention to is Michael Peña as Luis. He's still the funniest part in these Ant-Man movies and I love him here, especially whenever he's doing his stories again. In terms of effects and action, this might one of the biggest in the M.C.U, especially when it's got a whole bunch of the crazy shrinking and growing scenes in it. Given that there's a lot they can do with this kind of concept, they take advantage of a lot of it with some really amazing scenes in terms of action. And because of this whole growing and shrinking thing, the action scenes feel really creative. The climax was also cool with there being a little bit of tension. Obviously, there's not a lot, or really any tension in the movie, but I felt like there was a tiny bit during the last action scene. It's also really funny and Peyton Reed's directing is really good here. This also might have the creepiest moment in the entire M.C.U. Just watch the movie and you'll know what I mean. And, really, the last compliment I can give is that I like that this had a light tone on it because after a kind of dark movie like Avengers: Infinity War, it was nice to go back to an M.C.U movie where there's a more positive and happier feel to it. But, now, we need to talk about the problems, because, for these types of movies, A.K.A, the Ant-Man movies, they're fun and simple but they're still flawed. Firstly, the first forty-five minutes of the movie or maybe the first hour are fine, but are kinda dragging. They try to keep us invested in all this, and, yeah, I cared for the characters, but I never felt like it was doing that well of a job at it and some of that could be that it takes a bit of time to get into it, mostly because of those first forty-five minutes. They are some stand-out moments there, but I just thought it was dragging too much. The plot also has a bit too much going on. Like they have a bunch of sub-plots going at once and it doesn't flow very well. Especially anything to do with Sonny. That character didn't need to be in this movie at all. You could have taken him out and nothing would change at all. Whenever they cut back to him I was kinda frustrated because they could have been spending more time on the characters I wanted it to to make them more entertaining and interesting. I obviously do really like them, but I would have like them more if they had more screen time with Sonny cut out of the movie. Because of him, I feel like the movie's a little bit too long. I was never really bored, but I just wanted the plot to give me more than what we got with these main characters. Now, my last point here isn't really a negative, it's just something I wanted but didn't end up happening, I would have really loved to have seen Hawkeye be a main player in this. Considering he wasn't in Infinity War and I think it would have been awesome to see him and Ant-Man team up in the same way the Hulk was in Thor: Ragnarok. I mean, we saw them interact a small bit in Civil War so seeing more of them like that would have amazing and I would have loved that. But no, that never happens. But that's really it in terms of issues. So, overall, Ant-Man And The Wasp is definitely the weakest M.C.U phase 3 movie, but I still had a really good time with it. I don't want to make it sound like I didn't like this movie, I did and, honestly, the fact that the M.C.U has made 20 now and not made a single bad one is really impressive, and, remember, I said movies, not TV shows. And I still like some of the shows too, and I love they've been going this far and not made a bad movie. This is another good movie with quite a few flaws and it's still not really that special. I would still say see it though. I had a good time with it and I would definitely see it again. And so, everyone, that's my review of Ant-Man And The Wasp. Thank you all for reading, I hope you liked this and please comment down below to tell me what you think. And, now, let's get into spoilers. If you haven't seen it yet, go see it and then read the rest of this.
Spoilers:
Okay, so first, I gotta address, probably the main spoiler here and that's Ghost's backstory, I sorta like that she did have a backstory. About how she and her family were in the middle of a quantum realm explosion and she was the only one who survived with her powers. Another part I like was when it showed that Bill and Hank used to be partners until he got angry with Hank and left. That was what I meant when I said they began to flesh him out more. The C.G.I de-aging returns again with Michael Douglas and it looks phenomenal. Marvel is obviously the best at this and they deserve a lot of credit with how great it looks. And, again, probably the biggest spoiler is that Hank actually does manage to get Janet out of the Quantum Realm and that was a nice moment that made me smile. Again, after a kinda dark movie like Infinity War, this was a nice way to make people feel better again. Obviously there's the ending, but we'll get to that in a second. Janet helping to cure Ghost was nice, even if it was confusing and didn't really make sense. And finally, let's talk about the end-credit scenes. First, I want to talk about the last one. It was fine but you can probably skip it. We already saw it in the trailer and I didn't really find it funny. It's just showing that ant doing Scott's drumming, and you can skip it. The first one though, wow, that first scene really messed me up. It shows Hank, Hope and Janet being turned to dust after Thanos snaps his finger with the Infinity Gauntlet and now Scott is trapped in the Quantum Realm, probably, until Avengers 4. I'm not gonna lie, I didn't see that coming and I gave a huge gasp in the cinema when I saw it. I almost kinda freaked out and it was so surprising. I know they're definitely going to come back in a later movie like a lot of the other people that died at the end of Infinity War, but it was still really surprising. That was really the only surprise in this movie for me. And so, everyone, that was my review of Ant-Man And The Wasp. Thank you all for reading, I hope you liked this and please comment down below to tell me what you think.