In the lead up to the release of Ant Man & The Wasp I was a little unfazed by its impending release with it being so close after the massive explosion that was Avengers: Infinity War in April. The trailers for the sequel seemed “run of the mill” and didn’t really grab me that much and while I thoroughly enjoyed Ant-Man on release, I hadn’t actually viewed it since it’s home release all that time ago.
I arrived at the cinema last night for my advanced screening tired and not particularly excited after bad traffic on the way which almost made me consider just going home and catching it another night. I am glad I didn’t just go home because this was actually a really fun time and surprised the hell out of me. As other viewers have noted, Ant Man & The Wasp provides a nice upbeat fun time which is great after the tone of Infinity War.
Ant Man & The Wasp thankfully does not follow the main “solo” story structure of most of the earlier Marvel movies by not having a clear cut villain which is great.
Very Slight Spoilers Ahead
The main plot of the film revolves around the search for Hope’s mother played by Michelle Pfeiffer who has been lost in the Quantum realm for 30 odd years.
The film looks great for the most part and the returning supporting cast are fantastic as they were in the original with Michael Pena having a particularly great scene that everyone in the theatre was hoping for at about the halfway mark.
It is worth noting that as with the original film, we open to a flashback of sorts using de-ageing Visual Effects trickery on both Michael Douglas and Michelle Pfeiffer, let me just say that this is the absolute best success of this technology i have ever seen. I was trying so very hard to pick it apart and while Douglas’ looked a tiny bit “uncanny valley” I could not for the life of me pick out anything wrong about de-aged Pfeiffer, it was that good I could have been watching a newly scanned film print from the 80s.
The only thing that lacked for me was the film’s soundtrack felt as if it could have been a little punchier, for instance in the final act car chase sequence the soundtrack felt like it was ramping up to something but never did.
Acting wise the whole cast did a great job including a smaller side character played by Randall Park who had some fun little scenes which really added to the film.
Ant Man & The Wasp succeeds as a lighthearted breath of fresh air with well executed comedy and a hell of a fun time.
Thanks to Event Cinemas Marion for providing the advanced screening for this review,
