Review: Ant Man And The Wasp

Image courtesy of Walt Disney Studios.

The third Marvel movie this year is the studio's most lightweight effort, but that's not necessarily a bad thing. While "Black Panther" reached new highs for the studio - and was a little more weighty and thoughtful than your typical comic book blockbuster - the overstuffed "Avengers: Infinity War" was high on melodrama and, let's be honest, stone-faced pomposity. "Ant Man and the Wasp" provides some much needed levity to a genre that has become, most likely to The Joker's dismay, entirely too serious.

Paul Rudd reprises his role as thief-turned-superhero Scott Lang - AKA Ant Man - who, this time, is on house arrest following his participation in the events of "Infinity War." Let me pause quickly here to reiterate how irritating studio pictures have become by constantly name-checking other films within their universe. If I heard the word "Germany" one more time during this film, I'd have likely shouted out nein! I digress.

Lang is drawn back into crime fighting after his mentor, Dr. Hank Pym (Michael Douglas), and that man's daughter, Hope (Evangeline Lily), who is also the apple of Scott's eye, discover that their wife and mother (Michelle Pfeiffer), respectively, might still be alive after sacrificing herself years ago and ending up in some sort of sub-atomic quantum realm. I'm not going to even try to explain the science behind all of this.

Meanwhile, a former colleague and rival of Pym, played by Laurence Fishburne, is helping a troubled young woman, who doubles as a supervillain, named Ghost (Hannah John-Kamen) by trying to rid her of her powers, which allow her to fade in and out as if she were an image on a television. Also, some crooks (led by Walter Goggins) are attempting to steal Pym's research for some nefarious purposes. One of the things that is refreshing about "Ant Man and the Wasp" is that while there are some villains - although some of them are on the fence regarding their villainy - there isn't one on which the film focuses solely, in the manner that "Infinity War" was all about Thanos.

It also helps that director Peyton Reed's sequel is lighter on its toes than other recent comic book movies. In other words, it's a lark, mostly due to an emphasis on humor in the screenwriting and some effective comedic performances by Rudd and his sidekick, Luis (Michael Pena).

Needless to say, "Ant Man and the Wasp" doesn't reinvent the wheel - we have "Black Panther" and, to an extent, last year's "Wonder Woman" for those honors - but it's an amusing summer picture. Rather than focusing on fighting a villain threatening the fate of the world - boy, does that plotline get old quickly - the film focuses on the element of Ant Man's job that his young daughter likes most: helping people. The picture is a rescue mission involving the search for Pfeiffer's character, rather than another endless barrage of fight sequences and explosions, although there are certainly enough of those. So, while "Ant Man" isn't the best comic book movie you'll see this year, it's a pretty fun one.