Is Marvel's 'Ant-Man And The Wasp' Any Good? Here's What The Reviews Say
Yes, Marvel really is following up their biggest, crossover-iest movie yet with a sequel about humble heroes with some wacky tech — "Ant-Man and The Wasp" premieres on July 6th, and then you'll have ample time to catch up with the MCU before "Captain Marvel" drops in early 2019.
First things first: this movie takes place before the ending of "Infinity War," okay? Second, if you remember how the first "Ant-Man" felt after the grand showdown of "Age of Ultron," you know what this movie's here to do (psst, it's fun). Here's what the critics have to say:
It's Between Wars — Post-'Civil' And Pre-'Infinity'
Mr. Congeniality Paul Rudd returns as San Francisco hacker Scott Lang, completing his second year of house arrest after helping Captain America go mano a mano a mano a mano a mano etc. with Iron Man & Co. in Berlin in "Captain America: Civil War." Although Scott has no intention of getting very small or very big any time soon (he could go to prison for 20 years and wouldn't be around for his little daughter, Cassie, played by Abby Ryder Fortson), he has a peculiar link to Janet Van Dyne, lost lo these many years ago in subatomic "quantum realm" from which Scott managed to escape at the end of "Ant-Man."
[Vulture]
But he dodges the law to help Hope (Evangeline Lilly) — daughter of Hank and Janet, now reborn as the next-generation Wasp — to rescue Janet. From there, "Ant-Man and the Wasp" almost feels like an old-fashioned caper. Walton Goggins plays a gleeful criminal sharpie, and Michael Peña's Luis remains a fast-talking delight. Those two have one big scene together that's as good as anything Marvel's ever done.
But such a setup is apparently not enough to power a whole superhero movie, so we've got a supervillain, too: the Ghost (Hannah John-Kamen), a mysterious figure who can pass through walls and other solid objects, and who has some kind of unresolved history with Hank Pym.
It's A Palate-Cleansing Romp After All The Thanos Gloom
"The Wasp" is barely a superhero movie, resting much more comfortably in the realm of sci-fi action comedy, like Flubber but with more car chases and kidnapping.
[Polygon]
The nicest thing about "A.M.A.T.W." is perhaps how bloodless it is. There are some gunshots and some crunching car crashes, but this is not a movie aimed at grimness or brutality. Compared to all the turgid savior stuff of Avengers, the movie seems almost stakes-free. There's a rescue operation afoot, and a couple people trying to thwart it for their own selfish purposes. That's all.
The new installment doubles down on the inoffensiveness of the first film, and functions as a suitable palette cleanser after "Infinity War." The movie takes nothing, including itself, seriously, and just runs on as a nice caper with relatively low stakes and goofball humor. "Ant-Man and the Wasp" realizes there's nothing wrong with just being fun.
[Collider]
The Action Sequences Are Amongst The MCU's Best
There are many, many innovative uses of Pym's shrinking technology, not just in the form of Ant-Man and the Wasp, but with buildings, cars, toys, you name it.
[io9]
Several fights and chases are unusually fluid and well-choreographed for a Marvel movie, especially one between the Wasp and Ghost in which they go back and forth between dinky and life-sized. (They go big to kung fu kick and then dinky to evade the counterblows.) Going dinky is an asset in the car chases, too, as the good guys' cars can slide under obstacles that the bad guys plow into full speed. Size matters.
[Vulture]
Unlike some of its Marvel cousins whose action scenes look as if they've been shot through garbage disposals, whirred and jolted into existence, "Ant-Man and the Wasp's" sequences are all about controlled chaos — tiny things getting cosmically and comically large, or vice versa — and letting the physics of that dynamic, rather than a flurry of punches, tickle your brain. And the movie fully acknowledges that Hope is the more adept superhero by letting her lead the way in these sequences.
[Vox]
Evangeline Lilly Gets Well-Deserved Time In The Spotlight
The movie also gets a lot more out of Lilly this time around as she has to be the harder edge to Scott's silly performance, but you can feel that in a more focused film, there would be a great screwball comedy centered on just these two characters. As it stands, she's in a bit of a juggling act between Scott and trying to save her mom as well as the other craziness, but Lilly tackles it with cool charm and bravado.
[Collider]
She hasn't had a part this juicy since she played Kate Austen on Lost; her smarts and screen presence lift the movie over its rough spots.
The actress exudes a badass confidence and energy that basically makes "Ant-Man and the Wasp" feel like it should have been called "The Wasp, Featuring Ant-Man." It doesn't hurt that she gets most of the best action scenes, too.
[io9]
For Big Marvel Fans, It'll Rank High In 'The Funny Ones'
"Ant-Man and The Wasp" feels like the first of the Marvel Cinematic Universe to really lean into the wildness of comic book super science, in the same way that "Thor: Ragnarok" was the first to lean into the style of Jack Kirby and "Guardians of the Galaxy" was the first to lean into the cosmic. If it hasn't been clear yet: "Ant-Man and the Wasp" is the funniest movie Marvel has made yet.
[Polygon]
I also want to be clear, this isn't "dumb fun where you can turn your brain off." Your brain will very much be working because "Ant-Man and the Wasp" is a very clever movie. It's just your brain will be working in a refreshing way for a couple of hours. (There's a scene halfway through where Michael Peña has a callback to a particular trope that he does in the first film and it brings the house down. Also, every scene of dialogue between Randall Park's FBI agent Jimmy Woo and Rudd is comedic gold. It's like a Vaudeville routine.)
[UPROXX]
The payoffs aren't plot points but the gags, which somehow defuse the tension without — as in the barely sufferable Deadpool 2 — turning the picture into camp.
[Vulture]
If You Don't Love All Things MCU, You Can Take A Pass
Every so often, Peyton Reed's Ant-Man and the Wasp manages to channel the same kind of lo-fi irreverence that made the original Ant-Man so memorable. To the new film's credit, those moments come regularly, welcome blasts of fresh air; to its detriment, they serve to remind us of a better movie that we could be watching — one actually built on that kind of cheeky spirit rather than merely utilizing it to distract us from a cumbersome, uninteresting plot.
This is one of those Marvel products peddling self-aware detachment as a defining narrative strategy[…] It feels less like a feature film than a meme somebody made about an Ant-Man trailer.
Ant-Man is the least essential of all the Marvel Cinematic Universe characters, and Ant-Man and the Wasp is unquestionably the least essential of the MCU movies, occasionally agreeable but ultimately disposable, a bauble that feels less like a fun side journey and more like a waste of everybody's time.
[Paste]
TL;DR
"Ant-Man and the Wasp" is firmly on the B-movie end of the Marvel spectrum, a happy enough place to be: clacking along with all its bug friends, for the moment unfussed about Thanos and geopolitics.
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