Ant-Man and the Wasp

The final credits sum it all up – Ant-Man is really nothing more than a little tyke's Saturday afternoon with a giant Lego set. On the one hand, it's irritating in the randomness of the situations, where basically nothing has any greater internal integrity; on the other hand, it's pleasing to see a lot of creativity in the action scenes and generally the second half of the film, when a bunch of people keep tossing a building around between them like a hot potato. By the way, I'd like to see the interior of the building when it's enlarged. Unfortunately it’s never quite daring enough to make me respect the film, and instead still clings to juvenile humor built around a confused hero in a strange situation, with Paul Rudd playing pretty much a family-friendly version of Deadpool here, i.e. not funny and sorely in need of a beating. After ten years of this, we should all be asking for more from Marvel. I'm dropping it a star for that reason, though compared to Black Panther or Infinity War at least this was fun. (2018-10-03)

Hamster in a Nightshirt 2! Great family entertainment, made more special with quantum fun. The story picks up from part 1 with a detour to the Civil War. The action is more impressive, enlarging and shrinking things plays a larger role this time. The chase around San Francisco is seething with ideas. The Wasp gives a better performance than Ant-Man himself. It is set immediately before and during the Infinity War, but it reveals nothing new, which is a bit of a shame. They stole our damn lab! (2018-07-04)

Ant-Man is one of the few films in the MCU that can be watched as an independent comedy almost without losing its shine. The second film is also enhanced by the return of Michelle Pfeiffer to comic films (everyone is still bowing down to her Catwoman from Batman Returns), and this is also the first time Michelle and Michael Douglas meet on screen, something that people have been awaiting for three decades. As the cherry on top, film connoisseurs may be warmed by the knowledge of a romcom in which Paul Rudd dates Michelle (even though there is an 11-year age gap between them). I recommend that people go and re-watch I Could Never Be Your Woman. (2018-12-28)

Ant-Man is a bit second tier in the Marvel universe, but purely feeling-wise I’m a bit more satisfied with the resulting product in many aspects than I with the A-list blockbusters about destroying the world in a number of ways. It's more intimate script-wise, emotionally lighter, and at the same time fresh and mostly funny. An exceptional Marvel movie with a good script that is full of twists and turns, but at the same time the core makes sense, without any twists pulled out of thin air. Bombastic visual effects that culminate brilliantly in the most breakneck action scenes, but the digital rejuvenation is good too. It’s still mass-produced stuff from the M brand, but it’s watchable, at least once. (2018-10-10)

Lots of funny situations just like in the first installment, but this time we also get a whiff of humor at all costs. Perhaps I was expecting the main protagonist to be a little more adult and that the plot would be a little more serious - more fateful (I was much more interested in the story of Hank and Janet than the main story), but this did not happen and by the ending I figured out that something like this might not actually suit Ant-Man. Maybe. (2018-07-07)