Ant-Man and the Wasp

The best moments of ANT-MAN AND THE WASP aren’t when Paul Rudd and Evangeline Lilly’s CG counterparts are smashing villains or zipping down Lombard in a novel use of the longest-running gag in San Fransisco’s history.  Scott Lang (Rudd) and his daughter, Cassie (Abby Ryder Fortson),  crawl around in a living room fortress made of cardboard, to search for the treasure—as kids with great imaginations do.

Child actors generally bother me, either because they’re not very good at it or their affluent parents and handlers have over-coached them.  However, the interplay of Fortson’s precociousness with Rudd’s goofy stylings is so genuine, “Peanut” (as Rudd calls her) steals every scene she’s in.

But all scenes can’t be kinderspiel, so there’s a plot involving grown-ups.  So I’ll explain it the way Luis (Michael Peña) would: See, Michael Douglas’ wife, Michelle Pfeiffer is stuck in the quantum realm.  His daughter, played by the less-famous Evangeline Lilly, needs the thief (Rudd) to violate his house arrest with just three days to go, but Hannah John-Kamen stands in their way because she can phase in and out of existence.  The superstars think that guy who played Morpheus can help them, but we’re not so sure, and then Walton Goggins shows up.

But that’s not all!  Hannah John-Kamen’s villain, Ghost, isn’t set up as a kind of twist.  Introduced early in the story, she unfolds into a complex nemesis with whose motivation we can sympathize.  Additionally, the writers here demonstrate a keen awareness of their surroundings.  In the male-dominated superhero genre—Iron Man, Thor, Hulk, Captain America, and so on—Wasp takes a leading role, and for the first time that I can recall (if we’re not counting Zack Snyder’s languid pastiche of the genre, WATCHMEN) the mantle gets passed from mother to daughter.

Even if the entire story consisted solely of getting Dr. Pym’s wife back from the quantum realm, and setting up for the next two or three films in the Marvel Cinematic Universe, the mechanics of it are fluid and Bobby Cannavale is in it. Here, Cannavale’s incredulous cop, Paxton, is mostly sidelined to make room for more gags and action.  In another context, I might say that the film was simply on par with the original but here it serves as a good chaser to the unsatisfying INFINITY WAR cliffhanger.