With Avengers: Endgame less than a month away, I decided to continue the rewatch of the MCU. You can find my other articles on this site as well as reviews by A Winged Potato. https://the-avocado.org/2018/07/05/movie-reviews-ant-man-and-the-wasp-2018/

Title: Ant-man and the Wasp

Director: Peyton Reed

Writer(s): Chris McKenna, Erik Sommers, Paul Rudd, Andrew Barrer, and Gabriel Ferrari.

Characters created by: Stan Lee, Larry Lieber, Ernie Hart, Jack Kirby, Don Heck, David Michelinie, John Byrne, Bob Layton, Al Feldstein, Joe Maneely, Tom DeFalco, Ron Frenz, John Jackson Miller, and Jorge Lucas.

US Release Date: July 6, 2018

Budget: $162–195 million

Worldwide Box-office: $622.7 million

Returning characters: Scott Lang, Hope Van Dyne, Hank Pym, Luis, Dave, Kurt, Maggie Paxton, Cassie Lang, Jim Paxton

Summary: Scott Lang is on house arrest due to his involvement with the Avengers. Hank Pym and his daughter Hope van Dyne briefly manage to open a tunnel to the quantum realm. They believe Pym’s wife Janet van Dyne might be trapped there. When he had previously visited the quantum realm, Lang had unknowingly become quantumly entangled with Janet, and now he receives an apparent message from her.

Lang contacts Pym about Janet and Hope and Pym kidnap Lang, leaving a decoy so as not to arouse suspicion from FBI agent Jimmy Woo. The trio work to build a stable quantum tunnel so they can take a vehicle to the quantum realm and retrieve her. They arrange to buy a part needed from black market dealer Sonny Burch, who double-crosses them. Hope fights off Burch and his men until she is attacked by a quantumly unstable masked woman. Lang tries to help fight off this “ghost”, but the woman escapes with Pym’s lab, which has been shrunk down to the size of a suitcase.

Pym reluctantly visits his estranged former partner Bill Foster. Foster helps them locate the lab, where the ghost captures the trio and reveals herself to be Ava Starr. Her father Elihas died along with his wife during the experiment that caused Ava’s unstable state. Foster reveals that he has been helping Ava, whom they plan to cure using Janet’s quantum energy. Believing that this will kill Janet, Pym refuses to help them and escapes with Hope, Lang, and the lab.

Opening a stable version of the tunnel, Pym, Hope, and Lang are able to contact Janet, who gives them a precise location to find her but warns that they only have two hours before the unstable nature of the realm separates them for a century.

Using a truth serum, Burch learns the trio’s location from Lang’s business partners Luis, Dave, and Kurt, and informs a contact at the FBI. Luis warns Lang, who rushes home before Woo can see him violating his house arrest.

Pym and Hope are arrested by the FBI, allowing Ava to take the lab. Lang is soon able to help Pym and Hope u custody, and they find the lab. Lang and Hope distract Ava while Pym enters the quantum realm to retrieve Janet, but Burch and his men also attack Lang and Hope which allows Ava to begin forcibly taking Janet’s energy. Luis, Dave, and Kurt help incapacitate Burch so that Lang and Hope can stop Ava.

Pym and Janet return safely from the quantum realm, and Janet voluntarily gifts some of her energy to Ava to temporarily stabilize her. Lang returns home once again, in time for a now suspicious Woo to release him at the end of his house arrest. Ava and Foster go into hiding.

MCU Continuity Nods: The events of Captain America: Civil War are referred to several times, including the Sokovia Accords

Easter Eggs: Janet’s disappearance and return from the quantum realm is similar to a storyline that happened to Jan after the Secret Invasion storyline. Ghost is male in the original comics and part of Iron-Man’s rogues gallery, never actually crossing paths with Ant-Man. Bill Foster adopted the name Black Goliath.

Agent Jimmy Woo dates all the way back to The Yellow Claw in 1957, where a Chinese-American lead was unusual for the time. He later returned as a high-ranking S.H.I.E.L.D. agent. Sonny Burch is a foe of Iron Man. Elihas Starr is the villain known as Egghead, an evil scientific genius and archenemy of Hank Pym.

Stan Lee Cameo: A man whose car gets shrunk by accident.

Infinity Stone: None

Post/mid Credits Scenes: Pym, Lang, Hope, and Janet plan to harvest quantum energy to help Ava remain stable. While Lang is in the quantum realm doing this, the other three disintegrate, leaving Lang stranded. The ant who doubled for Lang while under house arrest performs a drum solo.

My Take: I enjoy how low stakes the Ant-Man films are. They’re not saving the world, but they are saving individuals. I like the idea of Hank’s past coming back to haunt him. It’s going to be interesting to see how the quantum realm is going to play into Endgame. Again, Michael Pena is hysterical

Next: Captain Marvel