It's been too long, hasn't it? Rest assured, you can all emerge from your Theater-Worthy-less caves of discouragement. I have done the same. Trust me--you wouldn't believe my schedule lately. Granted, I've still been watching a bunch of movies. But I haven't been able to make the trip to a theater to see anything until I saw Ant-Man and the Wasp the other day. It wasn't the best Marvel movie that could have awakened my theaterless slumber, but it was a fine choice nonetheless.
Unfortunately, Ant-Man and the Wasp kind of shot itself in the foot before it even began. Speaking from strictly a marketing perspective, it came out way too soon after Infinity War for anyone to care about it. I wasn't particularly excited for a couple of reasons, but I think the former is why it had the worst opening of the third-wave of Marvel movies. It's kind of like why Solo lost money. It wasn't because it was a bad movie per se, but it came out too soon after The Last Jedi to be significant. Plus, Disney pissed off a lot of fans with The Last Jedi, so people were fizzled out on Star Wars in general. But I digress.
Returning to the Ant-Man sequel, it displayed Marvel's typical charisma. I like the casting choice of Paul Rudd; he provides a very enjoyable portrayal of a deeply mediocre character. He essentially plays the same guy in all of his movies, but he's a likable dude that plays likable characters. Additionally, they actually built on the development of multiple characters established in the first film, which was a welcome surprise. Hardly any character arcs in the MCU are completely dynamic, but Scott (Ant-Man) is at least conceptually relevant. They even put Michelle Pfeiffer in this thing. Who knew she was still around? She was the best Catwoman, after all. Plus, Laurence Fishburne. And who doesn't like Laurence Fishburne? He's become the black J.K. Simmons of super hero movies.
The action scenes were also quite good, which is something that's expected from Marvel. I mean, they're not Thor: Ragnarok good or Black Panther good, but they're far better than anything spewed out by D.C. lately. Now, while I did like the action scenes in a broad sense, they fall apart when viewed with a deeper scope. The shrinking and growing technology is wildly inconsistent, and it undermines it's own rules at every turn. Sure, the scenes are entertaining, but they don't make any sense. If you look closely, you'll also notice that several scenes basically involve derivatives of the same choreography.
I know this is a typical Marvel complaint, but the villain missed the mark again. But, to be fair, they didn't make the same mistakes that they usually make. Usually Marvel villains lack a significant motivation to drive the narrative and just want to take over the universe...because...they're evil...? Part of the reason I liked Thanos was because he actually had moral reasoning behind his actions. The bummer about Ant-Man and the Wasp's main villain, Ghost, was not that she was just evil. In fact, she has one of the deepest and most complex motivations behind her actions than almost any other Marvel villain. Unfortunately, she unnecessarily took a back seat to a handful of boring, generic villains whose motivations were to--you guessed it--make money. Ugh.
This was particularly disappointing because Ghost could have been one of the best super hero villains in recent memory. Unfortunately, her actions and portrayal were in no way a reflection of her true motivations. There's so much more to her than just "being evil," but anybody who simply takes her at face-value wouldn't know that. In reality, she could have even ventured into the realm of an anti-hero--which would have been awesome--but the director chose to lump her in behind multiple throw-away villains. This not only undercut everything about her, but completely undermined the narrative as a whole.
Marvel movies have always been funny. They've always been action movies with funny undertones. What was great about Thor: Ragnarok, though, was that it was a comedy with action instead of an action film with comedy. It's a slight but important distinction. This wasn't the case in Infinity War, but it was attempted in Ant-Man and the Wasp, and it worked only slightly. In comedies in general--but particularly when attempting to successfully use bathos--timing is everything. Ant-Man and the Wasp had some good jokes that made me laugh, but the writers traded quality for quantity, which made the jokes that were actually funny less significant. Additionally, the unrealistic expositional dialogue was childish; much like the majority of the humor.
Frankly, I've never been the biggest fan of Ant-Man as a character. He's basically Discount Iron Man because he doesn't have any of the billionaire-genius philanthropy. Plus, both movies are only OK. As far as sequels go, Ant-Man and the Wasp is pretty good. It's better than Iron Man 2, Thor: The Dark World, Avengers: Age of Ultron, and debatably better than Guardians of the Galaxy Vol. 2. But, as far as marvel movies in general, it's in the middle of the pack.
In other words, it's in the range of 68%, which is technically
Theater Worthy.
But you'd also get the same effect viewing it at home, so...eh.
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