Ant-Man and the Wasp (2018) | A Struggle to Remember

Ant-Man returns to slow things down a bit and bring the adventure back to a smaller scale than something like the Infinity Stones. Released between Infinity War and Endgame, Ant-Man and the Wasp takes place before the events that transpired with Thanos and his snapping fingers. It felt like an odd choice to me at the time, but the ending was ultimately used to set up Endgame—and what a setup it is, too—so it wouldn’t have made as much sense had you seen the final scene of this movie without having watched Infinity War first. Unfortunately, that’s the main thing I remember about Ant-Man and the Wasp because the rest of it has been snapped out of my memory, and it’s a struggle to recall much about it without looking at a synopsis on IMDB.

Pros

Jokes are relatively funny most of the time
Paul Rudd continues to bring the charm and charisma to the role that keeps things interesting
Fun climax that creatively plays around with the size-changing technology

Cons

The villain is presented as someone who should be sympathetic but is too selfish and cruel to deserve it; stiff performance as well
Ultimately forgettable

Plot & Thoughts

Scott Lang (Paul Rudd) is serving out his house arrest sentence after participating in the conflict of Captain America: Civil War. His actions got him in hot water with the law, but it also caused a rift between him and Hank Pym (Michael Douglas) and Hope (Evangeline Lilly), who were not too happy that he used the Ant-Man technology in that way without their permission, especially because it made them unwitting accomplices to his crime. He hasn’t talked to them in a long time until he has a strangely realistic dream, and he reaches out to them about it.

It turns out that the Pyms have been trying to contact Hank’s wife, who disappeared into the Quantum Realm many years ago and was assumed lost forever. Scott’s dream is directly tied to their experiments with the Quantum Realm, and they need Scott’s help to potentially contact Hank’s wife, but a mysterious individual capable of phasing through solid matter shows up and steals their technology. It’s a race to find out who this person is and regain their stolen tech before their window of opportunity runs out.

As I mentioned at the top, I can barely recall this movie on my own. I remember being mostly entertained by it being a rather fun adventure with relatively low stakes in comparison to the previous Marvel movies and some funny moments. The original Ant-Man was a much tighter film, however, which made it and its jokes easier to remember, despite being much further in the rearview mirror at this point. Ant-Man and the Wasp starts strong with the setup and with Scott’s interactions with his daughter continuing to be an endearing aspect of the character—Paul Rudd does a lot to make the character likable as well. It also finishes strong with a fun chase sequence through the streets of San Francisco that didn’t have homeless encampments on them. The chase uses a lot of the size-changing technology and the power of the villain, Ghost (Hannah John-Kamen), creatively. It’s the middle act where the movie meanders, and that’s primarily because the focus is either on the heroes not knowing what to do next or the villain.

Speaking of the villain, she sucks and is probably my main issue with what I can remember about this movie. I don’t know anything about the character from the comics, but apparently, this is an instance in which the gender of the character was changed for the film. Seems like an odd choice, if you ask me, because it never really serves a purpose in the movie. My guess is that the filmmakers wanted Ghost to be a sympathetic antagonist, more complex than the previous Ant-Man villain, and they figured it would be more successful if Ghost were a woman to do this. There are parts in the movie in which the origin of her powers and her motivation for stealing Hank Pym’s technology are explained to show that she’s suffering and trying to fix the problem with his tech. However, in the same scene, she also suggests kidnapping and killing Scott Lang’s daughter as a method of intimidating the heroes into helping her. While that might be an effective strategy at getting your enemies to help you, from a writing perspective, it’s not a good way to make me empathize with her.

If you want an example of a violent villain with whom the audience can sympathize, look at Captain America: Civil War. Zimo is doing terrible things to achieve his goals, yet when you learn of his reasons why, you can understand his motivation and empathize with him. Ghost comes across as a petulant child in a 20-something’s body. She doesn’t appear desperate or sympathetic; she’s just arrogant and self-centered. I don’t know how much of that can be attributed to the acting of Hannah John-Kamen, but if the filmmakers wanted to make Ghost a more empathetic villain, they should have toned down the scenes in which her bloodlust was on display. She only reneges on the idea of kidnapping and killing Lang’s daughter after Dr. Forester (Laurence Fishburn) tells her that he would not help her if she did. Different tweaks could have been made to the script to make Ghost have a conscience or some internal conflict that would balance out the moments in the movie where we’re supposed to sympathize with her with those in which she’s actively fighting the heroes.

When everything wrapped up and the conflict with Ghost was resolved, I had mixed feelings. On one hand, it was a relatively fun experience with most of the jokes providing a fair amount of levity and humor to the situation. On the other hand, it felt like a somewhat pointless affair that could have been completed a lot sooner if Ghost wasn’t so terrible, because the plot hinges on her being a selfish, violent bitch who doesn’t want to cooperate. Everything is so conveniently solved at the end that it made the whole conflict with Ghost somewhat pointless. Much like the previous Ant-Man movie, this will be a short review because I don’t have much else to say.

TL;DR

Ant-Man and the Wasp, while a funny film with a decent number of jokes and laughs to be had, is ultimately pretty forgettable. The action scenes are fun and shot well enough to follow what is going on, with some creative uses of the heroes’ and villain’s superpowers during the climax in the streets of San Francisco. Paul Rudd carries the film with his charm and charisma. However, the villain and her impact on the plot weigh everything down to the point that this movie does not feel like it’s worth revisiting.

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