Silver Arts Award Art Review Ant Man & The Wasp By Owen Bedford

We last saw Ant Man in action in 2016’s Captain America: Civil War which was a much more grown up film than the new movie, Ant Man And The Wasp. The latest in the Ant Man franchise has the same comedic tone as the first film (from 2015) and includes many of the same characters such as the Ant Man suit inventor, Hank Pym (Michael Douglas) and his daughter, Hope (Evangeline Lilly). This means that Scott Lang (Paul Rudd) who reluctantly powers down into Ant Man again also continues his funny and awkward relationships with Pym and Hope.

Most of the film’s other characters, whether from the old film such as Rudd’s business partner, Luis (Michael Pena) or new such as cyber gangster, Sonny Burch (Walton Goggins) build the comedy which makes the film quite light hearted compared to other recent Marvel films such as Avengers Infinity War and Dead Pool 2, which had a funny and dark tone. The Ant Man film does also have a more sinister character, Ghost (Hannah John Kamen), who causes everyone trouble with her ‘phasing’ power. CGI is used well to show Ghost’s power to phase through matter and has the effect of looking like editing within the frame. 

The trouble with the film is there is too much going on. Scott also has to be a good dad to his daughter and trick the cops into believing he is at home under house arrest. One of my criticisms of the film is that there are too many  peripheral characters in set piece scenes whose main purpose is to distract the audience from the fact that the main narrative arc, about going back into the ‘quantum realm’ to rescue Pym’s wife, The Wasp (Michelle Pfeiffer) is actually quite weak.  As with the first film there is lots of stereotypical science which gets a bit tedious. At one point Scott says to Pym “why does every word have to quantum before it”.

Although the plot is a bit on the thin side the visual effects come thick and fast. Ant Man shrinks and grows like a yoyo, supersonic cars turn into hot wheels toys and a whole building transforms into a suitcase. One of the best scenes is early in the film where Burch and his gangsters are chasing Ant Man through a hotel kitchen. It is watching Ant Man dodging giant kitchen knives and potato mashers that is great fun. It’s the same kind of comedy that made the giant bath and plug hole scene so memorable about the first film.