Paul
Rudd returns as Marvel’s Ant-Man on the big screen in ‘Ant-Man and the Wasp,’
the second installment of the trilogy which started with the funny and
delightful 2015 origin story of how ex-con Scott Lang became an unlikely
and diminutive superhero. As the third MCU movie so far this year following
‘Black Panther’ and ‘Avengers: Infinity War,’ one might be forgiven for
wondering if we’re about to suffer a bit of “superhero fatigue.” Unlike Star Wars (sorry, 'Solo'), it appears that the audience still can’t get
enough of (Make Mine) Marvel, as the movie's $76 million+ domestic opening weekend take
would suggest.
Size does matter! After
Ant-Man’s brief, oversized (as in 65-feet tall) appearance on Team Cap in ‘Captain America: Civil War’
in violation of the Sokovia Accords, he finds himself under house arrest (with an
ankle bracelet), putting a damper on his superhero activities and making him a stay-home
dad with his daughter, which suited the slacker just fine. But when his former associates Hank (Michael
Douglas) and Hope (Evangeline Lilly) Pym encounter trouble while trying to
get mom back (the first Wasp, played by Michelle Pfeiffer) from the so-called
“Quantum Realm,” Lang is suddenly thrust back into action to aid his creator
and redeem himself for making the Pyms fugitives on the run due to his
meddling in the Avengers’ internal squabbles.
'Ant-Man
and the Wasp’ kept the light-hearted humor and near PG (but not quite)
kid-friendliness of its predecessor. It
is funny without being offensive (like a certain "merc with a mouth" in tight red-and-black spandex), maintaining much of the charm and freshness from the original. Rudd
and Lilly (as the new Wasp) make a great team, alternately down-sizing and reappearing in full size (or even larger in Ant-Man’s case) like close-up magic in their well-choreographed
melees with “Ghost” and the other bad guys throughout the film. And as in the first movie, comic relief is
in plentiful supply, not only from Michael Peña’s fast-talking Luis but also from an
FBI agent played by Fresh Off the Boat’s Randall Park.
Grade: A
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