Ant-man And The Wasp

The Diminishing Duo

- Stephen Kelly

If the Marvel Cinematic Universe is the closest that cinema has come to serialised storytelling, then Ant-Man And The Wasp is its filler episode. It is, after all, a relatively low-stakes story, and has little to contribute to the events of Avengers: Infinity War, which overshadowed its theatrical release earlier this year. You could even skip it if you wanted to. But taken on its own merits, divorced of Thanos’s finger-snapping context, it’s a lot of fun.

Directed by Peyton Reed – now out of the shadow of the Edgar Wright departure drama that plagued his Ant-Man debut – the sequel catches up with Scott Lang (Paul Rudd) two years after he was placed under house arrest for his role in Captain America: Civil War. These early scenes, where a housebound Lang tries to show his daughter (Abby Ryder Fortson) what it’s like to shrink by building her an elaborate cardboard set, are typical of why the film works so well. It’s driven by heart, warmth, imagination, a marriage of the ordinary and extraordinary, and a performance by Rudd that’s almost supernaturally charming. It’s also packed with gags – although perhaps too many at first, like an overcompensating host desperate to get the party started.