Genius Review (Spoilers): Michael Peña and the Wasp Meet Catwoman
Marvel breaks the one rule it has refused to break in ten years
I’ve loved Paul Rudd since he was Mike Crapbag to Phoebe Bananahammock, and Paul Rudd is the perfect Ant-Man. He’s no Chris Evans, Hemsworth or Pratt, and he doesn’t need to be. The original Ant-Man was, terrible villain aside, a delightful volume in the ever-expanding encyclopedia of the MCU, creating its own style that differed from the Stark Trilogy that draws us into the universe, the Thor Trilogy that expands it and the Captain America Trilogy that explains it.
Ant-Man and the Wasp comes only two months after the Infinity War epic that’s made somewhere around 2 billion dollars worldwide. I personally saw it three times in theatres. It was splendid. AM&W isn’t supposed to carry the same weight and shouldn’t be expected to be too closely connected as it has its own story to tell within the universe. I may have gone in with a little bit more Infinity War bias than I should have, hoping for AM&W to be the sequel that explained more about the devastating snap heard round the universe.
Spoilers Ahead — Get Over It
Ant-Man picks up after Civil War but only days before Thanos changes the course of history, and boy, do we know it. They mention Germany three or four times pretty early on and reference “Cap” with a handful of quick lines here and there. So we get it. Ant-Man helped the outlaw Avengers and got house arrested for 2 years. If you’re a nerd and know the MCU, you understand. If you’re like the little girl that sat next to me in the theatre and said to her mom, “I’m bored”, within the first act of the film, you are lost in the excessive amount of exposition that occurs in this movie.
Exposition alert! Get ready to hear:
- What happened in Civil War
- Why Scott is under house arrest and all the legal jargon surrounding the Sakovia Accords
- Why the villain is the villain
- The history of Hank Pym and his nemesis (who helps the villain)
- Nonsense about the Quantum Realm that you’ll regret
There’s a lot of exposition. They desperately wanted to catch us up and add universe building for the future movies. You have to assume all the references to the Quantum Realm, Time Vortex, Healing Particles, Quantum Tunnel, etc. are going to be plot devices in the future.
And that’s problem one with this film. Marvel made a comedy that was the carrying case for a huge deus ex machina in coming films. If the seeds they planted here take full bloom, I’m concerned about the quality of future plots. We all went into this film excited to learn more about the Quantum Realm because it’s clearly the path to undoing whatever portion of Thanos’ actions they choose to undo (supposing they undo anything), but after seeing the MCU explanation of said realm, I feel that the details given in the first Ant-Man were tossed aside for a cheaper, easier, more sci-fi gimmicky world than we expected.
The Quantum Realm went from a mysterious metaphysical reality within our own existence down deeper than our subatomic understanding could compute, to a place that a diminutive lab shuttle could fly to through a machine run by ants with bells and lights and do-dads with trippy psychedelic lava lamp terra that had special healing molecules and evolutionary superhuman possibilities. It was goofy. It held no weight and didn’t challenge the mind like the original Ant-Man did. In fact, they sophomorically made it a new place we can get to, get powers and abilities we didn’t have before, and oh, there’s a Time Vortex so we can probably go back in time.
We knew they were going to play with time, but Marvel has always played so intelligently. AM&W used your most worn-out clichéd tropes, and I wondered when Batman’s nip suit was going to make an appearance alongside Mr. Freeze.
The movie is so self-aware that Scott even quips, Do you guys just say quantum before everything?
Which leads us to a closely tied number two. The MCU has never used tech like we saw in this film. Of course, Tony’s ARC reactor and Jarvis are suspensions of disbelief, but Tony led us through a believable journey with stakes and chunks of films that earned him the right to that tech. Yes, for the MCU to exist we are going to see magic and tech and stretched science, but if you make it weighty and deserved, we’ll buy it. Even the bleeding edge suit pushed it a little for me, but with 10 years in the can, I’ll give it to you this once.
AM&W, however, use every tech to do everything in unreasonably short periods of time for unexplained reasons with indecipherable amounts of exposition. I still can’t figure out why the Ghost girl slept in the containment unit, what it did to ease her pain, how they figured out they could extract Quantum Juice/Energy from Catwoman and why it would be able to heal her. It was all too easy. And we saw that throughout the movie. Can’t track the lost lab? Well the old suit had a diddle-do that hyper-decimalated the signal, so if we just yank that chip out and set it here in this caliper that wasn’t made for that but can adapt like a plug and play mouse, the system will find the signal in three seconds and PLOT SAVED. They did this often. Did you calibrate the coils? Quick, rework the algorithm. Decompress the coils.
Whatever. Plot saved. Don’t forget to reconfigure the radiation signal to enhance the purging vectors. I didn’t bother to look up the true lines in the movie because mine are more memorable. AM&W didn’t earn this tech. Hank Pym isn’t Tony Stark to us and so his gadgets seemed easy.
A Few Quick Thoughts
- There were no real villains in this movie. There are actually three, but none of them are in your top two concerns throughout which were, What’s the Quantum Realm? Who is turning to Dust? The movie is about rescuing Michelle Pfeifer.
- Ghost was a fun character that luckily didn’t die immediately (cough, Killmonger and Yellowjacket) and will be around in the future with her quantum abilities somehow helping Tony Stark as she’s the only link to Ant-man. I’ve said too much. Her story was a poorly written childhood-trauma-dad-and-mom-were-killed-by-Hank-Pym regurgitation.
- Lawrence Fishburne only needed to be in this movie because a future film will need him. He was another revenge villain from a falling out in the past with a once partnered Pym. Gasp. Twist. He’ll be around again because Ghost will need his mind to compliment her abilities…blah blah Tony Stark has to save the world…
- I can’t remember the other bad guy’s name, but imagine a Hammer type character with some stereotypical Russian hitmen. He was there so Ant-Man and The Wasp could do a few fight scenes.
- The movie mocked its own poor use of time and tech. Paul Rudd’s line when bad guy three jumps from Fisherman’s Warf to a ferry in 18 seconds, “How’d he get on the boat so quickly?” Peña quips a running joke about the choice to use truth serum. They had to mock it because using it unironically would have been even worse.
- Paul Rudd is dreamy. He has the best facial reactions.
- Scott’s daughter will be an Avenger in MCU Phase 6 or 7.
- I’m going to see this again next week. I’ll probably love it by then.
What’s great about this film?
Evangeline Lilly. Can’t wait to see her with Scarlet Witch, Black Widow and Michonne. OR WILL WE?
Wasp was a fun character played by a solid actress. They didn’t put too much weight on her. She wasn’t the next Black Panther, and didn’t need to be. She’s a great addition to the crew of Avengers (although she’s not currently an Avenger yet…but they’re all dead anyway so postings are available). OR IS SHE?
And then Michael Peña. He’s funny as always. Probably the best part of the film, he was more than comic relief. He’s a useful player in a universe where we have (had) Maria Hills and Peggy Carters to assist in the storylines. Although they made him do a bit of the exposition himself, his stories are a trademark in this universe and enjoyable to listen to. Remember, he’s the one that introduced us to Spiderman. ::tingles::
The first post-credits scene. I won’t spoil it for you, but that’s when Thanos snaps. Go ahead and leave after that. If Cap’s Homecoming scene was a waste of your time, this second one at the very end is shorter and wastier. This scene is worth the price of admission even though you know it’s coming.
Go. Give them your money. Do it.
