Ant-Man and the Wasp

Ant-Man is a bit second tier in the Marvel universe, but purely feeling-wise I’m a bit more satisfied with the resulting product in many aspects than I with the A-list blockbusters about destroying the world in a number of ways. It's more intimate script-wise, emotionally lighter, and at the same time fresh and mostly funny. An exceptional Marvel movie with a good script that is full of twists and turns, but at the same time the core makes sense, without any twists pulled out of thin air. Bombastic visual effects that culminate brilliantly in the most breakneck action scenes, but the digital rejuvenation is good too. It’s still mass-produced stuff from the M brand, but it’s watchable, at least once. (10/10/2018)

Hamster in a Nightshirt 2! Great family entertainment, made more special with quantum fun. The story picks up from part 1 with a detour to the Civil War. The action is more impressive, enlarging and shrinking things plays a larger role this time. The chase around San Francisco is seething with ideas. The Wasp gives a better performance than Ant-Man himself. It is set immediately before and during the Infinity War, but it reveals nothing new, which is a bit of a shame. They stole our damn lab! (07/04/2018)

More of the same, you could say. I wasn't particularly interested in the first Ant-Man, I don't really like Paul Rudd. Visually, the film reminded me of a more expansive episode of a TV series and I rank it as one of the last among the Marvel movies. On the other hand, I can easily respect it as popcorn entertainment that's supposed to be for the whole family. And that's what Ant-Man and The Wasp is. If you liked the first one, the second one won't disappoint you because it relies on the same things. Logically, I wasn't that blown away by it. Peyton Reed still can't do anything that is visually interesting and relies on Rudd, jokes and weird side characters. It's a shame, because he's got a very interesting villain that someone more skilled and with a more serious approach could have pulled off much better. Here, though, he crams in a lot of fun up front, which was unnecessarily too much for my taste, plus it often teetered on the edge of awkwardness. I don't want to be unfair to the film, however. With Marvel, I appreciate that they try to make the films somehow genre-specific. And for me, this genre simply doesn't fit well. (07/27/2018)

I had a problem already with the first Ant-Man. I said to myself that within the entire Marvel Universe, he is a very average character that, on the other hand, has the setting in which it takes place working for him. Well, and the sequel? It lost even the entertaining setting, or well, it depends… There isn’t much going on in the first 80 minutes of the film and every now and then Michael Peña comes in to the rescue, as he is at least a bit entertaining. But in the final almost 40 minutes, things finally start happening, which fortunately makes the movie a bit livelier. Otherwise, I would have had to go with less than three stars. All in all, however, the Ant-Man did not convince me even the second time around and I rank him among the least interesting heroes in the entire Marvel Universe. (12/16/2018)

Very nice and a big surprise for me. Ant-Man hasn’t changed, doesn’t give a crap about the fatefulness the Avengers and offers an enjoyable ride that manages to work with many characters, always keeping itself together, even though the humour is repetitive at times and the action is so cheesy that it’s almost pointless to root for the heroes. In terms of style, it’s nothing earth shattering, but Reed has a lot of entertaining ideas up his sleeve, the heroes are all great (as are their actors), the narration escalates well connecting all the four subworlds in a sensible way. I really had fun and I don’t feel guilty about it. (10/29/2018)