Netflix & Chill #62: Ant-Man and The Wasp

Watched On: Netflix
Released: 2018
Directed By: Peyton Reed
Starring: Paul Rudd, Evangeline Lilly, Michael Pena, Walton Goggins, Bobby Cannavale, Judy Greer, Tip 'T.I' Harris, David Dastmalchian, Hannah John-Kamen, Abby Ryder Fortson, Randall Park, Michelle Pfeiffer, Laurence Fishburne, Michael Douglas
Rotten Tomatoes: 88%
Pick: Mine

Two years after the events of Captain America: Civil War and Scott Lang (Paul Rudd) is on house arrest for helping them violate the terms of the Sokovia Accords. Hank Pym (Michael Douglas) and his daughter, Hope Van Dyne (Evangeline Lilly) are on the run- but briefly open a tunnel to the quantum realm, where they believe that Pym's wife, Janet Van Dyne (Michelle Pfeiffer) is trapped after shrinking to sub-atomic levels back in 1987. When Lang visited the quantum realm (during the events of the first Ant-Man) he become quantumly entangled with Janet and receives a message from her.

Lang's relations with Hank and Hope are somewhat strained: they disagreed with him going to the aid of The Avengers during the events of Captain America: Civil War- but he contacts them anyway to let them know about his apparent message from Janet. They kidnap him and leave a decoy behind in his house so as not to attract attention from FBI agent Jimmy Woo (Randall Park). Hank and Hope take the message Lang received to be confirmation that Janet has somehow survived- so they redouble their efforts to build a stable quantum so they can go and get her back.

Looking to get one key component for their tunnel, Hank and Hope arrange to buy the part from black market dealer Sonny Burch (Walton Goggins), who double crosses them as he realizes the potential profits he could accrue from Pym's technology. But as Hope is resolving that problem, a Ghost-like figure attacks them, steals the technology, Pym's lab and then vanishes. This forces Hank, Hope and Lang to turn to Hank's former partner Bill Foster (Laurence Fishburne) who eventually reveals that he has been helping the ghost, Ava- a daughter of another one of Pym's former partners to try and stabilize her condition- as she had be caught in the quantum explosion that killed her parents as a child. Foster and Ava hope to harvest energy from the quantum realm to stabilize her on a more permanent basis. So it becomes a race against time, than eventually culminates in the successful retrieval of Janet Van Dyne from the quantum realm. She stabilizes Ava with some of her energy- at least on a temporary basis and in short order she and Foster head into hiding. Lang gets home just ahead of the FBI to get released from house arrest- the FBI never having been able to prove that he had left the house.

In the mid-credits scene, Hank, Hope, Lang and Janet head into the quantum realm again to get more energy to stabilize Ava. As Lang retrieves the energy from the quantum realm, the other three disintegrate (victim's of Thanos' snap.)

I hope they keep making Ant-Man movies, because they're just so much fun-- and, unlike some of the other Marvel movies, their connections to the other movies in the expansive MCU are light. It's not necessary to watch other Marvel movies to throw one of these in your DVD player or spool it up on your Netflix-- you can if you want too, but if you have literally seen no other Marvel movie and are some kind of Paul Rudd or Evangeline Lilly superfan, you can pop on both Ant-Man movies and still have a great time. They're fun from start to finish and the way they play with the whole shrinking and expanding thing is nothing short of genius.

 Overall: An excellent sequel and I hope there are more. Ant-Man and The Wasp is just pure fun from start to finish. My Grade: **** out of ****

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