I caught this movie last week, and enjoyed it.
That’s really about it. I missed Ant-Man on the big screen because (despite being proven wrong at every turn by Marvel’s initially crazy-looking and can’t-possibly-succeed risks) I thought it looked a bit dubious. But it was really darn good, and funny.
Well, Ant-Man and the Wasp was also darn good, and funny. Was it really darn good? Eh. It was alright. I think, if and when I get it on Blu-ray, I’ll wind up concluding that it wouldn’t have been a tragedy if I’d missed it on the big screen and just saw it on Blu-ray. It wasn’t a tragedy that I did the same with Ant-Man, but it was still unfortunate.
What am I saying?
It was pretty good. I had plenty of chuckles, and the little family dramas – Ant-Man and his daughter; Pym and Hope and their lost wife/mother respectively; and even the more troubled family units of Ava (aka. Ghost), and the Ex-Con team – were all very touching and nicely played. Some great performances, and nice scripting.
Great special effects, as always. I have already ranted about the annoyingly narrative-convenient use of relative mass and strength[1], and apparently “Pym Particles” answers this question. Whatever. When the lab building expanded back to normal size right there on the waterfront, the whole thing still should have collapsed because the area had not been constructed to support a high-rise building. Still, for the most part I can let it pass. I think the reason I was more snagged on the inconsistencies this time around was because the plot and script were maybe a little less compelling. I was less distracted.
[1] Look, you can either kick a normal-sized human in the head hard enough to make him do a backflip, or you can ride on a flying ant. You don’t get to do both.
The Quantum Realm and all those scenes – in counterpoint – were great. I know there were issues there too, what with breathing air and stuff like that, but I didn’t care. I didn’t care because those scenes were visually and emotionally great. And I had to have a laugh at the idea that they were just putting “quantum” in front of words to make them sound impressive. That was a shameless lift from The Final Fall of Man.
Speaking of shameless lifts … look out, it’s tardigrades again!
Solidly entertaining, and – of course – provides a great little link-up to Infinity War and how Ant-Man is going to play into the next ensemble. It was a perfectly serviceable sequel.
That’s it. That’s my review. I give this movie an Iron Man 2 out of a possible Thor: Ragnarök.
Hatboy's Hatstand 
Re: A comment elsewhere from Aaron – yeah, the Wasp was actually pretty darn left out. Especially given the name of the movie, I thought she’d have more to do.
Yeah I mean I get it, she had no agency in the first movie because that was the point…Pym wouldn’t LET her. But there were several scenes, like the FBI station, where they basically waited to be rescued by him. I mean, they had a plan, but it was MAN to the rescue. And wouldn’t she want to learn about the quantum realm too, and maybe it could have been her getting those “healing particles” or whatever? And maybe HE vanishes, not her, so that she gets to act more independently in whatever the fix turns out to be?
Also, the Infinity War tie-in frustrated me because all it gave us were more problems, not a hint at a solution as I expected. I’m guessing the machinery had a failsafe to pull him back out after a certain time, and that’s how he’ll be ok? I mean, I would have designed it that way. One would hope.
But just more problems, nothing more.
Loved the scene with the FBI agent and Scott near the end though. Hilarious. Well played!
Yeah, that did annoy me. I think in a way I’ve gotten more sensitive to it because I watch these movies on DVD with Wump now, and she’s beginning to get impatient about the female characters not doing anything. She hasn’t come right out and said “why did the boy character have to do that?” – yet – but I’m getting more and more aware of it every time it happens, and it keeps getting cringier.
Surely there was a better way to do it, like Hope has all the physical skills and all the knowledge of the suits (because that makes sense, because her entire life), as per her attempting to teach Scott how to do it all in the first movie. But then Scott has the ex-con and master-thief deviousness and planning and connections, which Pym and Hope need when they go rogue. Couldn’t that have been enough for him?
Also, Scott could have kept on doing the dumb risky against-spec stuff like taking out the regulator and making himself huge and then passing out, shit like that. Leaving Hope to be the actual expert who gets things done.
But, you know, I’m not a writer.
Yeah, that would also have been cool. I was first tempted to say maybe she could have been left behind and her parents vanish, so she could then pull Scott’s arse out of the tiny tiny fire. But that would sort of overturn the whole point of the movie that was reuniting the family. At least now they’re united, in the soul gem.
Don’t know, this could have been done better though – maybe another example of Scott messing around and doing something the tech wasn’t designed for.
Well, right. Except I guess they’re still designing this stuff since there was no failsafe extraction in the first place. Maybe it’ll turn out that this is what they’re also testing.
Mind you, we know people can survive for thirty years in the quantum realm, so there’s no urgency to his being trapped (on the same topic, what the Hell was that “if we don’t zero in on her now, the next intersection will be in 90 years” bullplop? Holy forced ticking clock, Batman!).
From what I’ve read, the quantum realm shielded Scott from the finger-snap and he becomes the key to infiltrating the soul gem on a quantum level and bringing everyone back, so that’s sort of where they’re headed. Probably. Still going to be interesting to see how they do it.
“Yeah, that did annoy me. I think in a way I’ve gotten more sensitive to it because I watch these movies on DVD with Wump now, and she’s beginning to get impatient about the female characters not doing anything. She hasn’t come right out and sai “why did the boy character have to do that?” – yet – but I’m getting more and more aware of it every time it happens, and it keeps getting cringier.”
Yeah I think that’s part of it for me too, but I want to give myself more credit TBH, that I’m sitting there with my 2 girls (and sometimes my wife as well), trying to see it from their eyes.
“Surely there was a better way to do it, like Hope has all the physical skills and all the knowledge of the suits (because that makes sense, because her entire life), as per her attempting to teach Scott how to do it all in the first movie. But then Scott has the ex-con and master-thief deviousness and planning and connections, which Pym and Hope need when they go rogue. Couldn’t that have been enough for him?”
Right! But I am going to push back on the “connections” bit of your reasoning. I mean, I love his little crime team there, but come on. They’re keystone crooks, if you will.
“Also, Scott could have kept on doing the dumb risky against-spec stuff like taking out the regulator and making himself huge and then passing out, shit like that. Leaving Hope to be the actual expert who gets things done.
But, you know, I’m not a writer.”
You do play one on the intarwebs though.
“Yeah, that would also have been cool. I was first tempted to say maybe she could have been left behind and her parents vanish, so she could then pull Scott’s arse out of the tiny tiny fire. But that would sort of overturn the whole point of the movie that was reuniting the family. At least now they’re united, in the soul gem.”
If they are, that is. But Pym and wife would be united similarly, and Hope would have the driving force to fix this shit once and for all. I don’t think this is the first time Marvel has given us a rescue and then a loss of some or all of those rescued, but I’m not digging through my brain for examples right now. It’s a dirty place.
“Don’t know, this could have been done better though – maybe another example of Scott messing around and doing something the tech wasn’t designed for.
Well, right. Except I guess they’re still designing this stuff since there was no failsafe extraction in the first place. Maybe it’ll turn out that this is what they’re also testing.”
I think it will but who knows.
“Mind you, we know people can survive for thirty years in the quantum realm, so there’s no urgency to his being trapped (on the same topic, what the Hell was that “if we don’t zero in on her now, the next intersection will be in 90 years” bullplop? Holy forced ticking clock, Batman!).”
Yeah I eyerouled a LOT at that timer and associated BS.
“From what I’ve read, the quantum realm shielded Scott from the finger-snap and he becomes the key to infiltrating the soul gem on a quantum level and bringing everyone back, so that’s sort of where they’re headed. Probably. Still going to be interesting to see how they do it.”
Well I mean you don’t HAVE to be shielded from the finger snap, only half of us are gona anyway. And yes, I understand he may become the key, etc. However, Hope could just as well have been the key, and he won’t know what happened until he gets OUT of the quantum realm anyway, so we still need the mechanism to get him out.
Other possibility, Eva shows up and pulls him out? I mean, he was going in there for HER, right? So I guess they have several escape routes for him. And maybe teaming with Eva would be cool, too. She can probably use the Wasp suit, now there’s an idea. Hmm.
Isn’t “keystone” giving them a lot more bungle-prone attributes than they have? They’re not Ocean’s Eleven, but they’re pretty competent. I mean, they’ve named their company EX-CON and have still landed a pretty big tech contract. And they do pull off their heists reasonably successfully.
Enh, I don’t want to argue with you over how competent his EX-CON team of misfits is, but fair enough, they don’t BUNGLE per se. They’re just a little mentally challenged, mostly for the lols.
I guess it’s in keeping with the whole theme of Ant-man himself.
Oh, they’re wacky, that’s for sure. But yeah, they’re the comic relief so I give them a pass for that. It makes their achievements even more impressive!
The “truth serum” scenes were pure gold.
Agreed. Except it’s not truth serum. Or is it???
That sequence of “where is Scott Lang” featured what I thought was the best acting from Evangeline Lilly (Wasp) in the whole movie. Take that as you will. I love her, but…I’m not sure she has many different types of personality on-screen.
The building expanded in the waterfront, but NOT on the boardwalk. It was on and over solid ground.
Still, making a high-rise building usually requires more than just “solid ground”. It may not have been a boardwalk but it sure didn’t have foundations.
Yeah I kinda gotta side with Hatboy on this general point, even if the specific example might be fine the way it was in the movie. But, it was a great movie to watch with my girls. They loved it, and the Infinity War tie-in was pretty cool. Although, I didn’t really get a sense of the timelines and how they met up. I don’t think, the way it would have worked out, he would have been actually “busy” when Thanos showed up. And what, nothing was happening anywhere else that indicated Thanos had arrived, except for the very specific places shown in Infinity War? Didn’t that whole Earth conflict last a day or several days (overlapping with the other conflicts). At the least? But Pym and the others felt no troubles and no need to get involved?
That’s true. Maybe the majority of the Thanos and Maw stuff went on behind the scenes and Scott was no longer on call? I can’t figure it, they must have been somewhat aware of what was going on but they were just tooling around doing experiments?