Ant-Man and the Wasp is lighter on its feet than its predecessor, which means star Paul Rudd is able to do what he does best—pop in here and there to deflate seriousness and pretension—rather than use every ounce of his charm to lift an otherwise leaden movie. He gets a lot of help from supporting players Michael Peña and Randall Park, whose non-sequitur scenes are the movie’s highlights (especially the bit where Peña’s motormouth security consultant is given truth serum). Yet despite returning director Peyton Reed’s generosity on this front, Ant-Man and the Wasp is still beholden to an overwritten superhero/sci-fi storyline that involves lots of quantum talk and way too many players. The plot mostly concerns the father and daughter scientist team (Michael Douglas and Evangeline Lilly) who invented Ant-Man’s incredibly shrinking suit and are trying to reunite with their long-lost wife and mother (Michelle Pfeiffer). There is also an intriguing and underserved adversary named Ghost, who is given an eerie anger by Hannah John-Kamen that the movie doesn’t have the time nor the sensibility to fully honor. The action, at least, is decent, especially when it plays with scale so that objects become smaller or larger at crucial (or comically inopportune) moments. And the closing credits design, in which miniature figures are used to restage some of the film’s bigger action moments, still makes me think Wes Anderson would be the perfect director for this Marvel property. Not that I really want to see that happen.
