Scott Lang, aka Ant-Man, is counting the last days before the official end of his house arrest. However, he has to use the shrinking suit to secretly flee from the house and help scientist Hank Pym to find and enlarge his wife Janet who is trapped in a sub-atomic level shrunk state, but a Ava Starr, who became the victim of a failed experiment that made her molecularly unstable, wants to use Janet to become solid again, in an experiment that may kill Janet. Scott also teams up with Hope, Hank's daughter, who uses another shrinking suit. At the same time, criminal Burch wants to steal Hank's technology to sell it to the black market. Using the shrinking suit, Scott stops Burch, Janet is returned to normal levels, and Ava is healed. When Scott goes to sub-atomic level for an experiment, Hank and Janet dissolve due to Thanos' snap, leaving Scott stranded there.
The 2nd film in the Ant-Man stand-alone film series and the 20th film in the Marvel Cinematic Universe, "Ant-Man and the Wasp" is a rather routine and bland story that was saved thanks to a great action chase sequence in the finale. Paul Rudd is charming as the hero Scott Lang, yet most of his lines seem as if they were written on the spot, without much ingenuity or strategy planned beforehand. Like most of marvel films, this one is also a naive, carefree kids movie with a 100 million $ budget, a light fun that has no pretense to aim at anything higher, yet it is like sweets: you just can't resist it. The silly-bogus story is enriched thanks to a lot of humor. Most of that humor is hackneyed: in one sequence, Ant-Man's suit malfunctions, so he is shrunk to be 3'5 ft tall, so when the secretly exits a school to enters the car, Hank makes a joke: "Hiya champ, how was school today?" There is certainly too much 'exposition' in the plot, buying time all until the great chase sequence, which is where the authors rise to the occasion: several creative ideas in using the power of shrinking and enlarging are used there. For instance, how to steal a laboratory? By simply shrinking the entire building to the size of a box, and then taking it away in the car. How to stop someone during a car chase? Enlarge a PEZ toy and throw it out on them. While driving on the streets, Hope shrinks her van to the size of a toy, goes under the vehicle of the bad guys, and then enlarges her van again to normal size, thereby tipping the villains underneath. And Ant-Man's suit malfunctions again, so he enlarges himself to be 20 ft tall, and uses a trucks as a skateboard. If at least the whole first 90 minutes of the film were as fun at this finale, "Ant-Man and the Wasp" would have been better, yet it is enough to enjoy it.
Grade:++
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