Good evening, everyone. Welcome to the next post in my series covering the Marvel Cinematic Universe. This time, we are taking a break from ultra-serious stuff into more silliness with “Ant-Man and the Wasp”. Directed by Peyton Reed, this movie stars Paul Rudd as Scott Lang/Ant-Man, Evangeline Lilly as Hope Van Dyne/The Wasp, Michael Douglas as Hank Pym, Michael Peña as Luis, Randall Park as Jimmy Woo, Hannah John-Kamen as Ghost, and Michelle Pfeiffer as Janet Van Dyne. This movie takes place a bit after the events of “Captain America: Civil War” and a bit before “Avengers: Infinity War”. It’s been a bit since I have seen this one, but I know that there are some crazy shrinking and growing moments in this. Let’s get into detail on how this movie went down.
The first thing we see is a flashback to 1987, where the younger versions of Hank Pym and Janet Van Dyne say bye to their daughter Hope before they both go to disable a Soviet missile. We then see Janet in the wasp outfit shrink between the molecules to disable the missile. However, doing so resulted in her being lost in the Quantum Realm. Before Janet left, she said to Hank to tell Hope she loved her. Hank gets back home alone and tells Hope that she is not going back home. After that, we see a flashback to the first Ant-Man movie where Scott escaped the Quantum Realm after defeating Darren (Yellowjacket) in Cassie’s bedroom. Hank then tells Hope that he wonders if Janet is still alive after all these years. After the Marvel Studios logo, we cut to present day where we see Scott play with Cassie at home. They are in a maze made up of cardboard boxes with Luis helping. Scott and Cassie finish their quest by finding a small trophy, which says “World’s Greatest Grandma”. After they find the treasure, they go on a big slide downstairs to the grass outside (but not past the fence). An alarm sounds off when Scott’s ankle monitor broke the fence. The reason why he has an ankle bracelet on is because he is on house arrest after the Sokovia Accords situation in “Civil War”. The FBI search the place, but find nothing illegal. Jimmy Woo explains the situation to Cassie before he leaves the house. Woo reminds Scott that any violation of the rules could result in 20 years in jail. Cassie then leaves with her mom and the cop fiancé from the first movie. Before she leaves, Scott does a card trick by puking out some cards from his mouth. We then see Scott have fun with himself in the house. From a drum set to bowling to watching how to do magic to karaoke, he keeps himself busy. We also see him wrap his ankle monitor in plastic before he relaxes in the tub for a bit. Scott has dreams/flashbacks of when he was in the Quantum Realm. He wakes up when he sees the young Janet and calls Hank Pym. He apologizes for a lot of stuff before he breaks the phone. As he is watching TV, he is bothered by a small fly. He is knocked out and wakes up in a car driven by Hope Van Dyne. Hope wonders whether or not Scott really saw her mom in the dream. The ankle monitor is with a giant ant at his home (which freaks Luis out) while Hope is taking Scott somewhere. Scott apologizes to Hope about what happened in Germany. They arrive at the lab building that is able to be shrunk at any time. We then cut to the lab where giant ants are waking freely. Hank talks to Scott about what happened in Germany, which resulted in him and Hope finding a new home for the time being. Hank is mad about the suit being destroyed. Scott told them about the dream where a little girl was hiding in a dresser. They all realize that the dream was about young Hope hiding and that Janet is alive. Scott wants to hide inside for now, but the building is shrunk by Hank into a suitcase size. They then go into a van and drive to a place where Hope talks with a guy named Sonny Burch. Hope is asking for a component that she ordered for the quantum tunnel. After the sale goes wrong, Hope puts on her suit and fights the bad guys. During this fight, she hides in a chandelier before going into the kitchen and taking care of the rest of the guys. She takes the part after she is done, but not before seeing that Ghost character. They both fight for a bit before Scott enters to help Hope with the fight. They lost the part for the quantum tunnel in the meantime. Ghost enters the van and demands the lab facility for evil purposes, which Ghost steals.
Defeated, they drive to the security company that Scott helped with while on house arrest. Hank is not happy because it involves the heist buddies from the first movie. Some banter about breakfast stuff is interrupted by Scott, who tries to put the focus on getting the lab back. After their discussion, they decide to get the help of Bill Foster (Lawrence Fishburne), who was an old colleague of Hank Pym at SHIELD. Meanwhile, we see Ghost with the lab take off her suit and go into a special sleeping chamber. After that brief scene, we see Scott, Hank, and Hope go to the University of California at Berkeley to find Foster, who is teaching a class. After Foster sees his old friend, he ends the class early and talks with the three of them. Hank and Foster then have a confrontation involving their differences when they worked together. Hope stops the disagreement between the two and tries to put the focus on finding the lab and getting her mother back. The three of them leave to escape from the FBI. Pym tells Scott and Hope that he got rid of the regulators when he made the new suits. Scott then reveals that he didn’t destroy the old suit. Cassie took that suit to show and tell at her school. They then go to the school in small form. Scott’s new suit keeps glitching up, resulting in him growing and shrinking to various sizes all at once. Scott hides with a jacket in small kid size before he runs to an empty classroom. Hope helps Scott get the backpack, which has the trophy. The suit was taped into the trophy. They both get out of the school, with Scott still in little kid size. In the van, they locate the lab in a forest nearby. We then cut to nighttime where Scott and Hope shrink to little bug form. They found the lab, but are restrained by Ghost along with Hank. Ghost reveals herself as Ava Starr and tells them that her father and mother were killed as a result of an accident while her father was working on a quantum experiment. This quantum experiment is why she is unstable. We also see that Bill Foster has been helping Ava. We see a brief flashback of younger Bill giving a present to younger Ava. We also see that Ava’s suit was built to control her phasing. The conversation is interrupted by Cassie trying to video chat Scott. That FaceTime is short-lived as they then talk about curing Ava using Janet’s quantum energy. Hank disagrees with this because it could kill Janet in the process. The three heroes escape via Hank faking a heart attack and freeing big ants from a mint container. They get the lab back and put the new part in. After a brief chat between Scott and Hope, we see Burch enter the security room with Luis. Luis is convinced via some truth serum to tell Burch about where the lab is. Meanwhile, we cut to a scene with Foster and Ava. Foster tells Ava that he won’t help her if she hurts Cassie in any way. Luis tells Burch where Scott is via a funny montage. This montage has Scott and Hope kissing each other among many other things. Luis reveals that their company is broke. Ghost appears out of nowhere and finds out where Lang is. Burch calls someone from the FBI that he knows and tells him about Scott. Meanwhile at the lab, the tunnel is getting ready by Hank, Hope, and Scott. It shuts down for the moment and Scott gets on the laptop to fix it. After it’s fixed, they try to get Janet’s coordinates. They succeed, but they only have two hours to do it. Before they get to do the thing, Scott gets a call from Luis, who tells him that the FBI and Ghost is looking for Scott. Scott informs Hope and Hank that they need to leave. Both Hank and Hope are angry at him about this. Scott rushes home to stay out of trouble. Cassie sees a big ant in the bathtub. Woo investigates the scene and sees Scott in the bathroom pretending to vomit. Hank and Hope are then caught by the FBI and the lab is taken by Agent Stoltz. Ghost then appears in the forest and takes the lab from Stoltz.
We cut to a father-daughter chat between Scott and Cassie. After their chat, which is a bit heartwarming, Cassie convinces her father with love to rescue Hope and Hank from trouble. Hope gets herself and Hank off their handcuffs anyway. Scott and a whole bunch of ants get Hope’s suit to her and helps both of them escape. Hank is given an FBI suit as a disguise. Hope and Hank get in the van with Scott, who is led by flying ants to the lab. Foster and Ghost are in the lab trying to do the evil plan to kill Janet. Luis then drives up to them, and the four of them work together. Hank tells Hope and Scott that he is going to save Janet and get her out of the Quantum Realm. Luis and Hope chill in the van for a bit. Foster and Ghost see that something is wrong in the lab due to a whole bunch of ants unplugging everything, resulting in Ghost exiting the building. Foster is surrounded by some big ants while Hank gets the suit on. Hank promises to help cure Ava when he gets back from the Quantum Realm. We then see Scott running away from Ghost after she surprised him with a couple of hits. Hank enters the Realm and Hope shrinks the lab to keep Ghost from going into it. Things go awry when Burch and his guys cause a car chase. Burch wants that lab as well. Hope takes care of the vans via shrinking and growing right back to confuse them. Luis is scared during this situation. Meanwhile, Hank is in the pod looking for Janet. To escape some weird creatures, Hank shrinks the pod even more. Back in the human world, the car chase is still going on. We see Stan Lee’s car get shrunk in a funny cameo scene. Ghost appears and steals a motorcycle from one of the bad guys. Hope makes the Pez dispenser huge to incapacitate the motorcycle people. Ghost gets around that and steals the lab from Scott and Hope. Hope fights Ghost with Scott leaving Luis behind. Scott’s suit gets glitched up, but he punches Ghost anyway. Hope has the lab, but it is stolen by Burch. Meanwhile, Scott is struggling to stop the vehicle during all of this. Luis still has the remote to control the size of the lab. Scott tells him to open the Hot Wheels case. Luis grabs a hot rod car and drives to him. Hope enters a van, beats up some guys, and enters Luis’s new car. Scott tries to get the lab, but he can’t shrink at the moment. He goes on a flying ant before it is eaten by a seagull, resulting in him falling into the water. He turns into giant form and takes the lab from Burch. We then cut to Hank in the Quantum Realm finding Janet and seeing her for the first time in 3 decades. They kiss each other before Hank apologizes to her. Janet is grateful that he found her and they both head back for home. Scott gets out of the water in giant form while telling people to get out of his way. He passes out and splashes everyone. Hope responds by going down in the water to rescue him. Luis is told to get the suitcase that has the lab. Ghost appears and takes the lab to try and sabotage Janet’s return to Earth (I kinda thought Ghost was crushed when she pushed the button to grow it back). Scott is rescued and kissed by Hope while Luis is saved by the FBI. Foster tries to stop Ava from doing her thing, but is unable to. Scott and Hope enter the lab and stop the extraction from happening. Hank and Janet get back safely thanks to Hope and Scott. Hope is happy to see her mom for the first time in 3 decades. Janet helps Ava by giving her some of her energy to stabilize her condition. Luis tells them that the cops are coming. Burch and his guys are arrested by the police. Scott gets back home in time to stay out of trouble with Woo. Woo sees Scott play with his drum set and frees him from his house arrest. After the authorities leave, we see Scott reunite with Cassie. Hank and Janet go to the beach where Hank grows their old house back. We then see Scott, Hope, and Cassie watch a movie in what turns out to be a mini car drive in with the laptop as the movie screen. After that funny scene, we see the name montage that is very creative. After that montage, we see a scene in which Scott goes into the Quantum Realm with the help of Hank, Hope, Janet. Scott is told to look for particles in there in order to help heal Ava. He is successful, but is unable to escape the Quantum Realm due to the three people outside fading into dust due to Thanos’ snap. After the credits, we see a funny scene with a big ant playing with the drum kit. The movie concludes with “Ant-Man and The Wasp will return?”
Despite its flaws, this movie is a ton of fun to watch. The action scenes had some crazy moments of growing things to huge sizes, including a salt shaker in the kitchen fight and a Pez dispenser in the car chase near the end of the movie. Speaking of that car chase, it had a lot of moments that made me laugh. From the van that Hope is driving shrinking and then flipping over the bad guys’ van to Scott struggling to stop a truck for a bit down the road in San Francisco. It was hilarious when Scott grew into giant size to take the suitcase away from Burch. The funniest scene to me was not an action scene. It was when Scott’s suit was glitching up at Cassie’s school, making him eventually into a little kid size. Hope and Hank got their jokes in that scene, which were funny as well. Michael Peña as Luis was hilarious once again in this movie. The montage that happens when Luis is talking to Burch is hilarious as heck. The most heartwarming scenes were the ones involving Scott and his daughter Cassie, especially the one where she gives her dad a pep talk to rescue Hope and Hank from police custody. The girl who played Cassie, Abby Ryder Forston, was great and not annoying at all. Once again, Paul Rudd was great as Scott Lang. He does act like a little kid at times, but I think that’s part of what makes him great. The montage where Scott is keeping himself busy while on house arrest was great. From drums to magic to karaoke, he had a great time in that montage. The reunion of Janet with everyone was great to see at the end. Ghost was an interesting villain in terms of her abilities. I was surprised that Janet helped her in the end and they all got along. Everything was going well with trying to heal her until the snap happened and Hank, Hope, and Janet all faded into dust, leaving Scott trapped in the Quantum Realm for now.
Overall, “Ant-Man and the Wasp” was a good movie. I enjoyed it a bit more than the first one, to be honest. Everyone played their roles well with the material that they were given. It’s not perfect by any means, but I had a lot of fun with this one. It was a nice break from the seriousness of “Infinity War”, though it does set up “Endgame” with the mid-credits scene. There is one more movie to cover before “Avengers: Endgame”. That movie is a flashback of sorts, as “Captain Marvel” takes place in the 1990s. I’ll get that post out soon. Have a great week, everyone.
(Here is the video from How It Should Have Ended on this movie. All credit goes to them.)
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