An amusing minimalism just like its predecessor's.
Ant-Man and the Wasp
Grade: B
Director: Peyton Reed (Ant-Man)
Screenplay: Chris Mckenna (Jumanji: Welcome to the Jungle) et al.
Cast: Paul Rudd (Ant-Man), Evangeline Lilly (The Hurt Locker)
Rating: PG-13
Runtime:1 hr 58 min
by John DeSando
“Do you really just put the word quantum ahead of everything?” Ant-Man (Paul Rudd)
The lightest and yet heaviest of summer super hero films, Ant-Man and the Wasp, has arrived, and for such a small hero it sure can be more comical than its other Marvel Universe chapters but with a head scratcher of a plot. “Quantum” is indicative of the many plot strands that drown in “quantum’s” obscure meaning but to the benefit of the quips and the ghost of Hitchcock, who loved to toss meaningless MacGuffins into his plots.
Scott Lang/Ant-Man helps brilliant scientist from his past, Dr. Hank Pym (Michael Douglas), and his Wasp daughter, Hope Van Dyne (Evangeline Lilly), bring back wife/mom/Wasp Janet (Michelle Pfeiffer) from some miasma that has “quantum” in its descriptor. Needless to say, my fuzzy description is exactly what director Peyton Reed and writers headed by Chris McKenna want so that they can play to smart dialogue (Scott Lang to Pym about Hope:”Hold on, you gave her wings!”) and bloodless plot.
Happy days are here for fans like me who have had enough explosions already in other action hero films every summer. Like the Ant and Wasp characters, this is small action hero stuff, but big on heart as major players are relentlessly pursuing family members for reunion. Battles as such are minimalist while the director wants to rush to the next human interaction.
Although humanism is not a foreign subject for summer actioners, this film foregoes extended fight scenes and exotic bad guys to play up the humor of heroes going from small to very tall (Sometimes 65 feet for Ant-Man).
Another endearing quality of Ant-Man and the Wasp is the lack of grand quest, in other words, no saving the world as most other super-hero films often do. Here, like the miniature heroines, size matters, and little means more.
John DeSando, a Los Angeles Press Club first-place winner for National Entertainment Journalism, hosts WCBE’s It’s Movie Time and co-hosts Cinema Classics. Contact him at JDeSando@Columbus.rr.com
