Ant-Man and the Wasp

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)

For me weaker than the first one and also a weaker cinema visit this year. This is a downright Marvel movie for kids. Not much Action, childish humour (at least Michael Peña was funny at times, but I don't find Paul Rudd funny at all). A weak villain who didn't really show much of anything, it dragged at times unfortunately and I would have preferred sleeping in places. Compared to The Avengers and Deadpool it's a big drop down, but it still sort of holds that standard average. 55% (2018-09-03)

With its confident approach, better team dynamics, and the abilities of the main hero expanded by a hair better than the first installment, it is also surprisingly a strong part of the whole universe. Given that it has not deviated from its heist schemes, family pathos, or even purely physical comedy, Scott Lang himself (and now perhaps Hope van Dyne) is an easily fitting piece of the puzzle that can shine on its own. (2018-07-07)

Very nice and a big surprise for me. Ant-Man hasn’t changed, doesn’t give a crap about the fatefulness the Avengers and offers an enjoyable ride that manages to work with many characters, always keeping itself together, even though the humour is repetitive at times and the action is so cheesy that it’s almost pointless to root for the heroes. In terms of style, it’s nothing earth shattering, but Reed has a lot of entertaining ideas up his sleeve, the heroes are all great (as are their actors), the narration escalates well connecting all the four subworlds in a sensible way. I really had fun and I don’t feel guilty about it. (2018-10-29)

More of the same, you could say. I wasn't particularly interested in the first Ant-Man, I don't really like Paul Rudd. Visually, the film reminded me of a more expansive episode of a TV series and I rank it as one of the last among the Marvel movies. On the other hand, I can easily respect it as popcorn entertainment that's supposed to be for the whole family. And that's what Ant-Man and The Wasp is. If you liked the first one, the second one won't disappoint you because it relies on the same things. Logically, I wasn't that blown away by it. Peyton Reed still can't do anything that is visually interesting and relies on Rudd, jokes and weird side characters. It's a shame, because he's got a very interesting villain that someone more skilled and with a more serious approach could have pulled off much better. Here, though, he crams in a lot of fun up front, which was unnecessarily too much for my taste, plus it often teetered on the edge of awkwardness. I don't want to be unfair to the film, however. With Marvel, I appreciate that they try to make the films somehow genre-specific. And for me, this genre simply doesn't fit well. (2018-07-27)