Ant-Man and the Wasp

I found this by accident on Netflix last week. I figured it would make it there eventually, but I didn't know when. Scott (Paul Rudd) is nearing the end of his house arrest for helping Captain America in violation of the Sokovia Accords in Captain America: Civil War. He and his friends from the last movie are trying to keep their security business afloat. Then Scott has a dream that involves Janet van Dyne (Michelle Pfeiffer) and reaches out to Hank and Hope (Michael Douglas and Evangeline Lilly), who are on the run as accomplices to Scott's crime (since they gave him the suit).

Let's call it what it is. Whoever is trying to enforce the Sokovia Accord stuff just wants Pym's stuff. They're probably a remnant of HYDRA, or AIM. Have we seen AIM in the Marvel movies? We need science guys with weird weapons and beekeeper suits.

Anyway, those two are trying to put together a machine to go search the quantum realms for Janet, but get double-crossed by the black marketeer (Walton Goggins) they've been buying stuff from, and then a mysterious ghost lady (Hannah John-Kamen) shows up. Scott gets roped in, while trying to avoid the feds learning he broke house arrest.

The film makes a mention of storing quantum energy early, which once you've heard that, and you see the problems Ghost is having, the solution is readily apparent. It's just a matter of waiting until the film gets around to that point.

It's still weird for me to see Walton Goggins with a fairly large role in these big budget movies, or Tarantino's stuff, because I still think of him as that dipshit Shane Vendrell he played on The Shield. I would never have expected that guy to have this big of a career. Go figure. I did feel like, somewhere during the chase sequence near the end, he should have accepted he was simply out of his league and called it a day. I guess he figured he could just keep close and then swoop in once everyone else took each other out.

It depresses me the agent responsible for keeping tabs on Scott is a pitiful schlub, and is supposed to be Jimmy Woo. Man, Agents of Atlas was so cool, and Jimmy Woo was very cool in it, and this version of him is very much not. It's not Randall Park's fault; they clearly decided Woo needs to be a probably very lonely dumbass, and Park did his best. Still, when that dawned on me, it bummed me out.

Then again, Comic Hank Pym is a neurotic mess, while Movie Hank Pym is trying to give Odin and Tony Stark a run for his money in being a dick, so some things are off-model. I like that Pym was entirely OK with risking Scott being sent back to prison or killed for his own ends in the first movie, but now he's pissed that Scott made a decision which has (greatly) inconvenienced him. Oh, boohoo, shoe's not so comfy on the other foot, is it Hank? You had Hope right there, ready and willing to take care of Cross, and decided to extort Scott into helping you, regardless of the fact it would have made is little girl sad if he gets killed cleaning up your mess.

Granted, "conceited dick" is much more in Michael Douglas' wheelhouse than "guy constantly on the verge of a breakdown", but it makes it hard to want him to succeed in whatever is otherwise a perfectly good mission to rescue his wife. Because Pym has clearly been and continues to be an arrogant ass towards everyone.

The shtick with Luis (Michael Pena) did not irritate me as much as it did in the first movie. Maybe because they didn't lean as heavily on him telling long-winded and meandering stories this time. So he was a lot funnier to me this time. I don't know if the movie overall was funnier; I didn't really laugh out loud at this one or the first one. The gags where Scott's stuck with a suit that only partially works weren't great. I guess they needed something to compensate for him knowing what he was doing compared to the first movie, so he'd still look like kind of a putz.

I did enjoy some of the fight scenes, the back and forth of Wasp shrinking to avoid attacks, only to have Ghost phase through her counterattack. Although you would think shrinking and growing repeatedly in such a short time like that would be a real strain on your system. Oh well, Hope's young, I'm sure she can handle it. The car chase through San Francisco wasn't too shabby. The parts with Scott and Cassie were cute, especially the one where she wants to be his crime-fighting partner, and he says she'd be great at it, but he'd be a terrible dad to let her do it.