Ant-Man and the Wasp is a Buzzing Success

It’s been a big year for Marvel Studios. They released the highly anticipated Black Panther and Avengers: Infinity War, both of which went on to do very well in the box office. But, Marvel also released the less anticipated Ant-Man and the Wasp. So, how does it stack up to the other Marvel movies that have been released this year?

SPOILERS FOLLOW

Ant-Man and the Wasp is not nearly as serious and dark as Black Panther or Infinity War. Instead, Ant-Man and the Wasp is more of a comedy with action moments. Of course labeling it as a comedy shouldn’t lessen the movie or make it seem like it doesn’t fit in the MCU, because it does. When Ant-Man was released, a lot of the supporting characters, and the main character for that matter, were funny; they weren’t as serious as other characters like Captain America or Black Panther. And frankly, I think that the characters were used very well in Ant-Man and the Wasp. There were some really, really funny moments (the truth serum was definitely one of my favorites) that felt natural because of how the characters had already been established. One of the issues with Thor: Ragnarok was that in all honesty, the comedy didn’t really fit with Thor’s personality. When Thor was introduced in earlier movies, there were a handful of funny moments, but for the most part, he was a pretty serious character, but that changed in Thor: Ragnarok. The comedy in Ant-Man and the Wasp didn’t feel forced or awkward (except for one scene towards the very end), and the characters stayed true to the personalities that they had been introduced with. It was also interesting to see how the characters, specifically Scott Lang, Hank Pym, and Hope Van Dyne, interacted because of the fallout caused by Captain America: Civil War and Scott’s involvement in the whole affair.

I enjoyed the movie for the most part, but the overall premise of the movie really bugged me. Basically, Hank Pym wants to travel to the Quantum Realm to rescue his wife who has been stuck in the Quantum Realm for the past thirty years. Now what sounds wrong about that plan? When watching superhero movies, suspension of disbelief is pretty common and necessary, but the movies must still be somewhat grounded in reality. My issue with this plot is that Janet Van Dyne shouldn’t reasonably be alive. Humans still need to eat food and drink water, but I don’t think that any of that is present in the Quantum Realm. Besides, it gets mentioned numerous times throughout the course of the movie that the Quantum Realm can be very hard on the human mind, and Hank Pym almost succumbs to this at one point, so how and why was Janet able to survive thirty years without her mind being destroyed? They briefly mention that the Quantum Realm has different laws than the normal world and leads to evolution, but how exactly Janet was able to survive is never mentioned and this seriously bugs me.

On the topic of negatives, the primary villain in Ant-Man and the Wasp was both good and bad. Ghost was very impulsive and acted rashly, but she only did so because she was desperate. She was dying, so she was doing what she had to do to try and save herself. However, in exchange for desperation and impulsiveness, you have to give up rationality and common sense. Bill Foster, a previous associate of Hank Pym, was helping Ghost and trying to save her, so she should have trusted him no matter what since he always stuck with her and kept assuring her that he would help her. Instead, she kind of betrays him and tries to carry out her plan, which involved sucking the quantum energy out of Janet Van Dyne, probably killing her in the process. Bill Foster eventually changes his mind and refuses to kill Janet to save Ghost, instead saying that they can figure it out and save Ghost without killing Janet. Like I said earlier, Ghost ignores him and continues on with the plan. She is eventually stopped by Ant-Man and Wasp, and once Janet is back in the human world, she heals Ghost with some of her new quantum powers. So in the end, everything ended well for everyone. If there was just a bit more communication between everyone, everything would’ve still ended happily and there wouldn’t have been unnecessary fighting.

Now that I’ve gotten my nitpicks are out of the way (minus one but I don’t feel like exploring or explaining the science behind shrinking and enlarging objects), I can move onto the things that I really liked. The biggest thing is the action. Due to the shrinking and enlarging gimmick, the action is very cool to watch. And all of the different interconnected conflicts in the movie keep you on your toes, waiting to see what goes wrong next and how the heroes deal with it. All in all, it makes for an enjoying and exciting movie.

Also, thanks to the post-credits scene, I don’t think that we’ll be seeing Ant-Man in Avengers 4. Lovely.

SPOILERS END

Personally, I enjoyed Ant-Man and the Wasp. Of course it had its problems, all movies do, but the good in the movie far outweighed the bad. I believe that Ant-Man and the Wasp is a strong addition to the Marvel Cinematic Universe and I would definitely recommend seeing it.