Ant Man and the Wasp (spoilers)

[Civil War Man]

I didn't see any threads about this yet, which is strange since there's usually one several days before I see it.

Overall, I found it to be a pretty thoroughly average MCU movie, which isn't quite as damning as it sounds since I consider the MCU to be by far the most consistently entertaining modern movie franchise out there, where even the worst ones rise to the level of watchable.

The basic premise, established from the very opening of the movie, is that Scott returning from the quantum realm back in the first movie made Hank realize that Janet could still theoretically be alive, and so the driving force behind the plot is finding a way to locate her so they can try to bring her back. Scott's involvement in this is primarily that he's the means to locating Janet, since she managed to plant something in his brain when he was in the quantum realm.

As is typical with the MCU in general and Ant Man in particular, the movie leans pretty heavily on comedy, but that's not necessarily a bad thing since the MCU was getting pretty serious recently with Black Panther and Infinity War. I will say, though, without spoiling too much right out of the gate, that the mid-credits stinger at the end is a really huge tonal shift, which then swings right back into silly comedy in the after-credits scene.

Now, I'm not a big proponent of the "Marvel can't do good villains" meme, but I would not be ranking the ones here very high on the list of compelling villains. Ghost is about on the same level as Whiplash from Iron Man 2, right down to having a similar grudge against the main characters, while the greedy black marketeer is almost absurdly one-dimensional (though his involvement is responsible for one of the better running jokes of the movie).

[Steve]

The lack of strong villains is alright with me, since the movie wasn't about the conflict so much as the theme of family. And Ghost's backstory and motivation even runs with this theme, and the outcome regarding her works.

[The Romulan Republic]

I thought that Ghost was a perfectly fine villain. She had a motivation that made sense, and was sympathetic while still being dangerous and ultimately, well, villainous. And as Steve noted, it fits the theme of the film. Yeah, her goals are more small-scale, but not every villain has to have dreams of world domination.

Overall, I enjoyed the movie, especially the start. Later on, I felt it dragged a bit and sometimes got a little too over-the-top in some of the action sequences (as sequels often do), but I think that if you liked the first film, you'll probably like this one. I like that the film pretty much portrays Ant Man and Wasp as equals, even if Ant Man gets a bit more screen-time. And if you can suspend disbelief for a level of technobabble that would make a Voyager writer blush, its probably the most downright fun film I've seen yet this year.

Until you get to the after-credits scenes. I was expecting something like it, but it still sucks. Fuck you Thanos.* Also, fuck you SHIELDRA.

Overall, I'd give the film probably 6 or 6.5 out of 10, but I'll bump it up to 7 for Ant Man naming one of his ants Ulysses S GrANT.

*Despite the rather jarring shift to comedy with the giant musical ant, the second after-credits scene was arguably darker. That slow pan through the empty house gives you just long enough to start wondering where everybody went, and what happened to Ant Man's daughter? Did she turn to dust as well, and/or watch her family dissolve in front of her?

Well, they certainly are keeping the momentum going on building suspense for Infinity War II/Avengers IV.

[Gaidin]

I'm not sure I'd call Ghost a villain. So much as a victim of circumstance that happened to be acting in desperation in opposite direction of them and they were perfectly willing to help them once killing Janet was no longer on the table. In fact, Janet was the first person to help her, and they started working the science for her up to the Snappening and Lang got stranded.

The villain, if anything, would be Sonny Burch. He found out who Hope was, tried to use it against her, and then tried to steal the lab for whoever he was working for while they were on their timetable.

I loved this movie. It was a nice drop down from the seriousness of Infinity War. And I loved how it was concurrent, sort of a "Meanwhile...in San Francisco..."

[The Romulan Republic]

I do kind of wonder why Ant Man and the Pyms were just working on their experiments while shit was going down in Wakanda. I mean, helping Ghost is a worthy goal, but you'd think Ant Man would have tried to get in touch with his Avengers friends once it became clear that the an alien invasion was going on. Even if news of the Wakanda attack was kept from the public, he had to have known about the attack on New York by then. It wasn't exactly low-profile.

[Gaidin]

Be straight about how you read the characters in this movie. Really. This was a very personal movie.

The only one with any trust for any in that group is Lang. The Pyms have no use for Stark, and were hella derisive of Cap. And they had their priorities. They had a possibility of getting their damn family member out of the Quantum Realm after thirty years of being stuck there. Thanos is not exactly a real threat on their radar as they haven't exactly been read into anything resembling intelligence since the late nineties when Pym walked right out of SHIELD. Not that anybody on Avengers knew what Thanos was and what he was doing, that was pretty much an ambush. So when the Avengers are busy getting blindsided, the Pyms have no reason to stop what they're doing until it literally effects them. And they weren't exactly sitting down on the couch watching news about New York City, nor was news flying about Wakanda. The first time anything hit them sideways was when Thanos snapped his fingers. Until then, they were living and working under the radar to get their work done.

[The Romulan Republic]

Be straight about how you read the characters in this movie. Really. This was a very personal movie.

I'm sorry if my comment somehow offended you, though I don't know why it would.

The only one with any trust for any in that group is Lang. The Pyms have no use for Stark, and were hella derisive of Cap. And they had their priorities. They had a possibility of getting their damn family member out of the Quantum Realm after thirty years of being stuck there. Thanos is not exactly a real threat on their radar as they haven't exactly been read into anything resembling intelligence since the late nineties when Pym walked right out of SHIELD. Not that anybody on Avengers knew what Thanos was and what he was doing, that was pretty much an ambush. So when the Avengers are busy getting blindsided, the Pyms have no reason to stop what they're doing until it literally effects them. And they weren't exactly sitting down on the couch watching news about New York City, nor was news flying about Wakanda. The first time anything hit them sideways was when Thanos snapped his fingers. Until then, they were living and working under the radar to get their work done.

I was talking about the after-credits scene, which took place some time after they had saved Janet. So, I absolutely get that saving Janet would matter more to them than helping the Avengers, but that's beside the point. As to them not being in the intelligence loop (and IIRC, Pym walked in '89), that might explain them not knowing about the Wakanda attack, since Wakanda is kind of isolated and the finger-snap happened very shortly after the Wakanda attack, but there's no way that the slug-fest in the middle of the streets of New York wouldn't have been all over the news for days or weeks before the battle of Wakanda.

The Pyms disliking Cap and Tony, yeah, that makes sense. But it just seems weird that in the after-credits scene, they're just going ahead with their experiments and seem to not even be aware that the world is being invaded by aliens.

[Gaidin]

Let me put it this way. What'd I do on 9/11? Went to school. Did we actually do work? No. But about all we did was watch news. We still went from class to class. Someone as focused as Pym, probably still going to do his thing. In the space of a single day an alien attack on New York happens(again), he can bring a radio to where he's working and we can hear news reports in the background for ten seconds before they just do what they did. But Pym..."Yea, we can't get there in time to do any good so let's focus on Ava, <clicks radio off>."

And it really doesn't matter since they'd have to get on an airplane for a country that's probably grounding all flights anyway. "Hey can we get a ticket to NYC today...yea that NYC that's gotten attacked..." I'd love to see the look they get from across the counter. Nevermind Wakanda, if anything is really heard about that given the only real military worked there is Wakandan and anything known would be known to Militaries and Intelligence agencies and groups with technologies that could otherwise see what was happening on the ground(read: satellites looking down).

Does it effect Pym? No. You're reading a bit too much about how someone like Pym should be helping in this BECAUSE HE CAN. But can he even? His day just literally continues on.

[ray245]

Be straight about how you read the characters in this movie. Really. This was a very personal movie.

I'm sorry if my comment somehow offended you, though I don't know why it would.

The only one with any trust for any in that group is Lang. The Pyms have no use for Stark, and were hella derisive of Cap. And they had their priorities. They had a possibility of getting their damn family member out of the Quantum Realm after thirty years of being stuck there. Thanos is not exactly a real threat on their radar as they haven't exactly been read into anything resembling intelligence since the late nineties when Pym walked right out of SHIELD. Not that anybody on Avengers knew what Thanos was and what he was doing, that was pretty much an ambush. So when the Avengers are busy getting blindsided, the Pyms have no reason to stop what they're doing until it literally effects them. And they weren't exactly sitting down on the couch watching news about New York City, nor was news flying about Wakanda. The first time anything hit them sideways was when Thanos snapped his fingers. Until then, they were living and working under the radar to get their work done.

I was talking about the after-credits scene, which took place some time after they had saved Janet. So, I absolutely get that saving Janet would matter more to them than helping the Avengers, but that's beside the point. As to them not being in the intelligence loop (and IIRC, Pym walked in '89), that might explain them not knowing about the Wakanda attack, since Wakanda is kind of isolated and the finger-snap happened very shortly after the Wakanda attack, but there's no way that the slug-fest in the middle of the streets of New York wouldn't have been all over the news for days or weeks before the battle of Wakanda.

The Pyms disliking Cap and Tony, yeah, that makes sense. But it just seems weird that in the after-credits scene, they're just going ahead with their experiments and seem to not even be aware that the world is being invaded by aliens.

I think you've underestimated just how quickly the fights were over. The battle over New York was so short that even the Avengers themselves barely had time to react. The battle in Wakanda is not something that's on national news ( seems like Wakanda has not fully revealed themselves to the world at this stage.) And it's not like the battle in Wakanda was something that took a long time either. The battle was over in less than half a day, so maybe a few hours at best? Maybe even lesser considering they were trying to extract Vision.

The rest of infinity war took place in outer space. So there's very little chance Ant-man and co are fully aware of the situation.

[LadyTevar]

I had to leave the theater after the mid-credit scene. What happened in the End Credit? Was there one? There seems to be some confusion there.

[Civil War Man]

It showed Scott Lang's house, completely empty, and you could see out the window that the streets were also deserted. It pans around the house for a few seconds, and then right before it cuts to black you see the giant ant that the Pyms programmed to follow Lang's routine playing the Rock Band drums.

[EnterpriseSovereign]

Sorry I'm late to the discussion but the distributors thought that moving the release date until 3 weeks after the World Cup final was a smart move...

The thing with the whole "Marvel can't do good villains" to me is true until Infinity War when they produce Thanos, the greatest villain in the entire MCU. Of course, seeing as the other villains are pretty 'meh', it makes Thanos look all the more awesome by comparison. That, and his underlings were
sufficiently powerful they were only defeated by the combined efforts of multiple superheroes working together.

Ghost and Wasp were very effective counters to one another since they were both able to dodge each other's attacks. And AM's suit constantly breaking down with him either ending up either half normal size or double it was pretty hilarious.

Interesting that shrinking appears to be recursive, otherwise when they shrank the van with the lab inside it the building would stay the same size but the vehicle would contract around it.

The whole "quantum healing particles" thing (and where they could be collected in a flask) was stupid, mind. When Thanos snapped his fingers, at least one of the Pyms should have been left standing with the whole "kill half of all life" thing. Hope this doesn't mean Ant-Man is out of action for the conclusion of IW.

I didn't notice the whole "empty house" thing at the very end, I only saw the ant playing the drums. I didn't make the wider connection!

[Steve]

When Thanos snapped his fingers, at least one of the Pyms should have been left standing with the whole "kill half of all life" thing. Hope this doesn't mean Ant-Man is out of action for the conclusion of IW.

Keep in mind the finger snap means you effectively have a fifty-fifty chance of dusting away, and this carries to each individual. So all three Pyms getting dusted is an unlikely but not impossible scenario, since each had the flip the coin, so to speak.

And from what's been said, Ant-Man is going to be in IW Part 2.

[The Romulan Republic]

Yeah, the finger snap being a random 50% chance across the universe means that by chance, there'd probably be some places where no one, or almost no one, died, and some where everyone, or almost everyone, died.

I read a pretty decent fanfic recently which discussed this issue at some length:

https://archiveofourown.org/works/14544 ... adult=true

Well, I know why we couldn't find any ships. Everyone who had one working used it to get the hell off this planet. Mass exodus, after the disappearances."

"Why?" Tony asked. "They think it's better somewhere else? Every planet in the universe is in the same boat."

Although if Thanos had truly been random, then the law of averages said that some planets had to have minimal losses. Maybe there was even one out there with no disappearances at all. Maybe...

"What is it?"

"A planet in Beta Quadrant," Nebula said. "According to Samaya's employees, all the people have disappeared."

"All of them?" Tony said.

"All of them."

The law of averages, rearing its ugly head.

Also this:

"You know what's bullshit?" Stark said.

"What?"

"He didn't kill 50 percent."

"I'm pretty sure he did," Nebula said. She was thirsty. Where had they put the water?

"Hear me out, though. At any given time, there's about 5,000 commercial airplanes flying over the U.S. Do you know what the US is?"

"A stupid place that makes Star-Lords." Nebula tripped past the pyramid of alcohol they'd made in the corner and fumbled open the rations hatch. There was the water.

"Among other, better people," Stark said. "Each commercial airplane has a pilot and a co-pilot, so when Thanos snaps his fingers, a quarter of those planes is left with no one at the wheel. That's 1,250 planes, times 150 passengers, divided by two to take care of the disappeared people, so just in the US, just from airplanes, that's an extra 94,000 people who died. Assuming none of the airplanes landed on anyone."

Nebula pulled a long draught from the water canteen and tossed it to Stark. He fumbled it, then caught it again.

"On Aramis," she said, "all the public transportation is by submarine. Without a pilot they'll never come up for air. All those people probably suffocated."

Stark guzzled water, spilling some down his shirt. "How many?" he asked.

"I don't know the numbers."

"You know, for a methodical, genocidal madman, your dad was kinda sloppy."

Something occurred to Nebula. She laughed.

"Really?" Stark said. He was pouting. "That gets a laugh? After all this time, it's that?"

"Not what you said." Nebula was still laughing. "I just thought - somewhere out there, someone was about to be murdered, and the murderer just disappeared."

After a moment, Stark laughed too. "That bastard. He did it. He saved a life."

[EnterpriseSovereign]

True, the granularity of Thanos' plan will probably only be revealed in the conclusion. It's like, did Thanos kill half the population of each planet, or half the population of all planets? Since he's doing it to conserve resources, does he get rid of those using the most while contributing the least?

Assuming it really is a 50/50 for each Pym, in effect the probability of all three of them biting the dust is 1 in 8. As Janet (somehow) survived being lost in the quantum realm for decades he'll probably survive there, assuming he doesn't just use the same method he used in the first film to escape.

[Tribble]

what happens if the mother disappeared, but the fetus is still around?

Or worse, vice versa - I imagine those flakes cant be good while inside someone?

What about conjoined twins who have critical organs attached?

Was it all life, or just sentient life? If all life, what happens when a good chunk of the food chain goes missing?

[Vendetta]

He made a big deal about it being totally fair. Half, completely at random with no fear or favour.


(AMatW was the MCU in neutral. Satisfying enough, action ticked over, jokes landed, but nothing super stood out except Michael Peña.)

[The Romulan Republic]

True, the granularity of Thanos' plan will probably only be revealed in the conclusion. It's like, did Thanos kill half the population of each planet, or half the population of all planets? Since he's doing it to conserve resources, does he get rid of those using the most while contributing the least?

As Vendetta said, his whole thing was to be "fair" by killing randomly. Presuming he wasn't full of shit about that, then each Pym family member probably had an equal shot.

Assuming it really is a 50/50 for each Pym, in effect the probability of all three of them biting the dust is 1 in 8. As Janet (somehow) survived being lost in the quantum realm for decades he'll probably survive there, assuming he doesn't just use the same method he used in the first film to escape.

About that... does one not have to eat in the Quantum Realm, or was she hunting tiny invisible organisms for thirty years?

what happens if the mother disappeared, but the fetus is still around?

Or worse, vice versa - I imagine those flakes cant be good while inside someone?

What about conjoined twins who have critical organs attached?

Ugg.

I guess the fetus issue depends on whether the Gauntlet/Thanos recognizes unborn fetuses as living people.

Hmm, I wonder if Thanos is pro-life or pro-choice.

Was it all life, or just sentient life? If all life, what happens when a good chunk of the food chain goes missing?

I wondered about that, but its almost certainly just sentient life, since we don't see half the plants in Wakanda suddenly turn to dust.

Thanos's beef seems to be with the universes' resources being consumed too quickly, so this paints him as basically the ultimate eco-terrorist- IIRC, kind of like DC comics Ras Al Ghul but on a cosmic scale.

He made a big deal about it being totally fair. Half, completely at random with no fear or favour.


(AMatW was the MCU in neutral. Satisfying enough, action ticked over, jokes landed, but nothing super stood out except Michael Peña.)

The ending aside, I think its a nice bit of light-hearted fun, a well-needed breather between the epic tragedy of Infinity War and the major plot stuff coming down the line with Captain Marvel and Avengers 4/Infinity War part 2.

Though its also nice to see them follow up on the consequences of prior films, with Ant Man under house arrest and the Pyms as fugitives due to Civil War, and Ghost being a product of SHIELD/Hydra. And of course the post-credits nod to Infinity War. It makes the whole universe feel more interconnected, and it makes the events of the earlier films feel like they matter more.

Edit: This film and Infinity War have kind of retroactively salvaged Civil War for me, to an extent. One of my gripes with Civil War was that it felt like they wanted to do a film about a serious, even tragic subject-the heroes turning against one another, friendships being destroyed in a civil war-but tried to keep the usual light-hearted Marvel tone too much, and it didn't come off. Part of that is that it felt like there were no real consequences. Nobody died, Cap's people get sprung from prison at the end of the film, and Rhodey is crippled but already well on the way to recovery. It felt vapid, and cheap.

Now in Infinity War we see that the Avengers falling apart left them divided and weaker against Thanos and his minions, and we see the fallout for Scott and his family and the Pyms in Ant Man and the Wasp.

It really kind of saves Civil War for me.

[EnterpriseSovereign]

I wondered about that, but its almost certainly just sentient life, since we don't see half the plants in Wakanda suddenly turn to dust.

OTOH, it could be just half of animal life. Mind you, prey animals can be thought of as a 'resource' to predators. In this case it comes down to what Thanos classifies as a 'resource'.

[streetad]

With regards to the ending, remember even Nick Fury barely knew what was going on by the end of Infinity War and was still running around trying to get a handle on the situation. The Pyms and Scott Laing are totally out of the loop unless someone comes to fetch them specifically.

The events of infinity war as far as a typical bystander is concerned:

1) An alien spaceship turns up in NY, does 'something' and leaves. Tony Stark is missing.

2) Some drunken idiot fell through the roof of Edinburgh Waverley train station in the middle of the night, causing travel disruption throughout the UK.

3) You have just started hearing reports that something major is going down in the newly opened-up nation of Wakanda when the 'snap' happens.

[The Romulan Republic]

Again, my issue was not that they were unaware of what was happening in Wakanda. That's absolutely believable.

Its that they don't even seem aware of or concerned about the fact that aliens just attacked New York (again)- because that would be all over the news.

For that matter, I very much doubt that Edinburgh would be waved off as just "Some drunken idiot", considering that a) train stations tend to have security cameras, and b) those blasts of red energy Scarlet Witch was throwing around weren't exactly subtle. So that means that the public is likely aware that there is an ongoing series of alien incursions, or at least suspects that to be the case. Tony missing would likely be front-page news by itself, as well.

But maybe they just figured there was nothing they could do about it and decided to go about their business. Especially given how it worked out for them the last time Scott tried to help Cap with Avengers business.

[J Ryan]

Again, my issue was not that they were unaware of what was happening in Wakanda. That's absolutely believable.

Its that they don't even seem aware of or concerned about the fact that aliens just attacked New York (again)- because that would be all over the news.

For that matter, I very much doubt that Edinburgh would be waved off as just "Some drunken idiot", considering that a) train stations tend to have security cameras, and b) those blasts of red energy Scarlet Witch was throwing around weren't exactly subtle. So that means that the public is likely aware that there is an ongoing series of alien incursions, or at least suspects that to be the case. Tony missing would likely be front-page news by itself, as well.

But maybe they just figured there was nothing they could do about it and decided to go about their business. Especially given how it worked out for them the last time Scott tried to help Cap with Avengers business.

Or they may have considered something big happening is the perfect time to resurface and do their science stuff as all the authorities would be distracted. They are still in hiding as of the end of the film after all.

[The Romulan Republic]

True enough. It struck me as odd initially, but its not a huge deal or anything. Just wanted to clarify that it wasn't them being unaware of Wakanda that was bugging me. Wakanda's pretty isolated still, yeah? Not sure how much news would have got out to the general public (beyond maybe the appearance of some ships in orbit) before people started dusting.

[Crazedwraith]

Saw this two days ago. Not got anything to really complain about it, some petty stuff maybe. There's nothing to say 'omg that was so amazing' about really either. As someone said it's in neutral. It doesn't help that something from basically every big scene was in the trailer.

I think it's a strength and a weakness, that character development seems to have stuck and we're following up on Janet. Everyone is basically okay with each other, Scott's ex-wife and her husband are complete on his side. It's all hunky dory and well a little bland.

If they had wanted a little more character development Hank could have own up a little more to literally everyone other than Janet seeming to hate him at one point or another. And also clarified who's account about Bill Foster/Ghost's dad is closer to the truth. (It's understandable that he waves it off because they're on a tight schedule) Likewise their contempt for Cap and Scott going to Germany isn't really resolved, its understandable as it fucked up their plans to rescue Janet. But in this film... Ant-Man and the Wasp are not superheroes, they're not vigilantes. They're just super powered people going through their own affairs.

Still I really liked Bill Foster and his morals, he really was trying to do the right thing with the least harm through out. If he has any fans from the comics though I wonder how they reacted to him being an antagonist albiet a sympathetic one.

The humour was fine, basically expected, I think the thing that really made me chortle was the crime boss under truth serum. And the seagulls bit. Maybe the high pitched rendition of Ant-Man when Scott is tiny.

Overall it was good, not brilliant but good.

eta: and on an entirely separate note, has their been a Captain Marvel trailer yet? Or even a teaser. Why are Venom and Aquaman the trailers I'm seeing before an MCU film and not MCU's next entry?

[EnterpriseSovereign]

eta: and on an entirely separate note, has their been a Captain Marvel trailer yet? Or even a teaser. Why are Venom and Aquaman the trailers I'm seeing before an MCU film and not MCU's next entry?

Yes: