Ant-Man and The Wasp (12A.)
Directed by Peyton Reed.
Starring Paul Rudd, Evangeline Lilly, Michael Peña, Hannah John-Kamen, Walton Goggins, Michael Douglas. 118 mins.
While Disney's Star Wars movies have come unstuck after just four instalments, the Mighty Marvel Movieverse is now up to twenty films and bulldozering on with no signs of flagging. Ant-man 2 is their third movie in half a year and coming after their biggest ever movie, both in terms of on-screen scope and off screen grosses, risked seeming a little inconsequential and skippable but it zips along and is light and fun just like the first one. After the heavy metal of Infinity War, this little step back is just what is needed.
This second adventure has professor Pym (Douglas) and his daughter Hope (Lilly) trying to find a way to rescue their mother (Michelle Pfeiffer) who thirty years ago sunk to subatomic level saving the world and has been stuck there in the old quantum realm ever since. Hope is now The Wasp having been given access to the professor's other superhero suit. Meanwhile, Rudd's Scott Lang has had his Ant-man privileges suspended after he was caught in the giant German airport punch up in Captain America: Civil War.
This is something of a rarity: a superhero story that isn't about good vs evil. There is a villain but Goggin's character is really just a middleman, a bad penny constantly popping up trying to cut himself into any deals that are going down. He's an irritant, but a subsidiary to the main plot. Action is maybe not the main focus but the climax is an impressive multidimensional car chase that may have been loosely inspired by Inception. The film is mostly concerned with being funny and is frequently hilarious, with top notch sight gags and dialogue. Michael Peña, in particular, is really funny, which is not a sentence I ever expected to type. I wished he been half this funny in War On Everyone but I guess this shows just how fickle the grindr of Hollywood success is: it's all about being paired up with a role and script that suits you.
It is a Marvel tradition to have post-credit sequences, which are a real pain as they are rarely worth staying for but you feel guilty if you shuffle off early. For this film the first one, after about a minute of lively big name credits is a must stay. The second one though is a lazy, disposable joke that is definitely not worth sitting through the scroll downing of thousands of smaller names: there are close to 800 people listed in the Visual Effects section alone.
Directed by Peyton Reed.
Starring Paul Rudd, Evangeline Lilly, Michael Peña, Hannah John-Kamen, Walton Goggins, Michael Douglas. 118 mins.
While Disney's Star Wars movies have come unstuck after just four instalments, the Mighty Marvel Movieverse is now up to twenty films and bulldozering on with no signs of flagging. Ant-man 2 is their third movie in half a year and coming after their biggest ever movie, both in terms of on-screen scope and off screen grosses, risked seeming a little inconsequential and skippable but it zips along and is light and fun just like the first one. After the heavy metal of Infinity War, this little step back is just what is needed.
This second adventure has professor Pym (Douglas) and his daughter Hope (Lilly) trying to find a way to rescue their mother (Michelle Pfeiffer) who thirty years ago sunk to subatomic level saving the world and has been stuck there in the old quantum realm ever since. Hope is now The Wasp having been given access to the professor's other superhero suit. Meanwhile, Rudd's Scott Lang has had his Ant-man privileges suspended after he was caught in the giant German airport punch up in Captain America: Civil War.
This is something of a rarity: a superhero story that isn't about good vs evil. There is a villain but Goggin's character is really just a middleman, a bad penny constantly popping up trying to cut himself into any deals that are going down. He's an irritant, but a subsidiary to the main plot. Action is maybe not the main focus but the climax is an impressive multidimensional car chase that may have been loosely inspired by Inception. The film is mostly concerned with being funny and is frequently hilarious, with top notch sight gags and dialogue. Michael Peña, in particular, is really funny, which is not a sentence I ever expected to type. I wished he been half this funny in War On Everyone but I guess this shows just how fickle the grindr of Hollywood success is: it's all about being paired up with a role and script that suits you.
It is a Marvel tradition to have post-credit sequences, which are a real pain as they are rarely worth staying for but you feel guilty if you shuffle off early. For this film the first one, after about a minute of lively big name credits is a must stay. The second one though is a lazy, disposable joke that is definitely not worth sitting through the scroll downing of thousands of smaller names: there are close to 800 people listed in the Visual Effects section alone.
