By Adam Froggatt

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Following his short but memorable stint in ‘Captain America Civil War’, Scott Lang slips into the Ant-Man suit once again after a short time under house arrest, but this time with a partner.

 

Ant-Man and the Wasp is often found among the likes of ‘The Incredible Hulk’ and ‘Thor Dark World’ when ranking the MCU movies but I believe it is unbelievably underrated. The first scenes have a joyful feel to them with Scott playing the drums, reading a Fault in our Stars and singing karaoke to ‘The Partridge Family’, which contrast the heartbreak felt 2 months ago during Infinity War. We’re also introduced to Jimmy Woo, who’s appearance in is made ten times better by ‘Wandavision’, specifically the magic trick scene which Jimmy then learns by ‘Wandavision’, character development at its finest. Luis and his fellow ex-cons also have great character development, I loved the irony of ex-convicts creating a security firm, but it was also strangely quite heartwarming to see them get rehabilitated from their ways, compared to the first movie.

 

The Restaurant fight scene is by far my favourite fight scenes of the movie, being the first time, we get to see the Wasp fight in the MCU. Whilst she is only fighting a few street level henchmen, I just love everything about this scene from the giant salt pot to the way wasp runs along a flying knife. Villains are and will always be my favourite part of Marvel and later in the scene we get our first look at Ghost, who is undeniably the most underused character in the movie. Her powers are unique compared to anyone else we’ve seen in the MCU, however not for Marvel as we saw with Kitty Pryde from X-Men First Class. Her status as the main villain in the film is undermined by the appearance of Walton Goggins’ Sonny Burch, who I would argue is completely not needed whatsoever. it was also great to confirm the existence of Black Goliath within the MCU, and despite being played by the great Laurence Fishburne, once again the character wasn’t needed. Ghost isn’t done any favours being shrouded by side villain such as Goggins and Fishburne, but when you see her true motivation, she’s one of the complex villains, what’s better motivation than the will to live? I hope she gets the recognition she deserves, her character has so much potential and ‘Thunderbolts’ for example is the perfect storyline to explore that.

 

One of my very few dislikes of the film is the storyline involving the rescue of Janet Van Dyne, which I found quite purposeless other than to reunite Janet with her husband and daughter. The movie spends so much time chasing the Quantum Tunnel building around San Francisco rather than developing on underused characters such as Ghost or Wasp. However, ‘What If…?’ episode 5, my favourite What If episode, made me like this storyline more as it showed Janet’s rescue as a catalyst for the zombie apocalypse. Giant Man’s reappearance was almost expected after his debut in Civil War, so it was mildly disappointing to see Marvel Use Giant-Man just because they could, then again it would be difficult to top what they with Giant-Man in Civil War.

 

It’s often said ‘Ant-Man and the Wasp’ is boring and forgettable, but I would argue the only reason the movie is forgettable is due to it coming out right in the gap between ‘Avengers Infinity War’ and Avengers Endgame, two of the best MCU movies to date, which certainly didn’t do it any favours. The purpose in the movie was not to be the best MCU movie but to create a branch between two of the best MCU movies as it introduces us to one of the most critical parts of Avengers Endgame, the Quantum Realm.

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