Marvel takes a break from the war, and just shoots the shit with Paul Rudd for a bit
Film Features The Marvel Moment
Marvel movies often operate an epic scale: Either the world is ending, or the films are filled with larger-than-life characters, or both. And for the most part, this strategy has paid off. After all, what would the Guardians Of The Galaxy look like going up against a small-time space crook? But 11 years of never-ending peril can get exhausting, turning every MCU climax (with a few exceptions) into epic, numbing CGI light shows where entire wars are fought, but the impossibly high stakes aren’t fully felt by the audience.
That’s where Ant-Man comes in. The Ant-Man franchise carved out a corner in the Marvel Cinematic Universe as a sort of superhero digestif between the high-stakes meals of the Avengers movies. The first film came at the end of the second “phase” of the MCU, serving as a breather between the character-packed Avengers: Age Of Ultron and Captain America: Civil War. The second, Ant-Man And The Wasp, was released just after the devastating conclusion of Infinity War. Whether intentional or not, by juxtaposing its biggest events with its smallest character (literally), Marvel proved it doesn’t need massive stakes to keep audiences invested. Fans are perfectly happy spending an afternoon in the low-impact universe of the Ant-Man franchise, and there’s perhaps no greater example of this than Scott Lang’s “daily routine” scene from Ant-Man And The Wasp.
Like his comic book counterpart, Paul Rudd’s Scott Lang is the antithesis of a prototypical Avenger. He has no god-like superpowers, exuberant wealth, or military training. He’s the everyman Avenger, like Spider-Man without the superpowers (or the name recognition), a small time crook, ex-con, corporate whistleblower, and devoted father who occasionally suits up to take a swing at Iron Man. He’s not a spy or a genius—although he does have a master’s degree in electrical engineering—and he didn’t even make his Ant-Man suit. Lang is barely the hero in his own story, and seems to be just along for the ride as Hank and Hope Pym carry out their plans.
Rather than shy away from that aspect of Scott, or play up his importance, Rudd and director Peyton Reed lean into his insignificance. At the onset of Ant-Man And The Wasp, Lang needs to pass the time with only three days left on his house arrest sentence. (He was given two years due to his involvement in the big airport battle in Civil War.) But instead of an elaborate training sequence, we get a full minute of Paul Rudd doing Paul Rudd things: he dances and sings karaoke, practices his close-up magic tricks, and sobs while reading The Fault In Our Stars. It’s a short, endearing sequence indicative of the Ant-Man franchise’s priorities: lighthearted, low-stakes entertainment meant to add a bit of levity to the rest of the MCU. And sometimes, that’s all you need.
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As much as I liked Ant Man and the Wasp, I struggled to think of what scene would be appropriate for this feature.
I’d say either the school scene where Rudd shrinks to the size of a child, or the Giant Man scene with Tim Heidecker.
I do think this scene works really well, though!Hopefully the next Ant-Man movie includes Larry Fishburne going full Goliath!
I’m hoping Bill Foster has a son, so we can at least get a younger Goliath.No offense to Mr Fishbourne, but I’m not fussed about seeing a geriatric Goliath.
“MY SCIATICA!” ~ Giant Lawrence Fishburne
He’s only 57, it’s not that old.
Another commenter (misterbones) suggested Luis could be his Goliath protege. That could be fun.
I’d be on board with that.
If you wanted to spotlight a more serious moment, I would say the conversation between Scott and Cassie where she tells him to go save the day. That relationship is the best part of the movie, and probably the most distinctive feature of Scott’s character in the wider franchise context, as he’s the only MCU protagonist with a child.The scene also ends with a joke that doesn’t completely undermine the preceding more dramatic stuff, which is something the MCU can struggle with (and in fact the previous Ant-Man film had one of the worst examples of).
Hawkeye also has kids. But yeah, my pick would also be Scott and Cassie, specifically the first scene of them “adventuring”.
Um, Hawkeye has two (three now).
Hawkeye isn’t the lead in his own film, which is what I meant by “MCU protagonist” (that could have been clearer, apologies). His relationship with his kids also doesn’t get remotely the same amount of focus; Cassie has more dialogue in the one scene I mentioned than all of the Barton kids got collectively in their one appearance so far.
Um, Hawkeye has two (three now). Or maybe none now. I haven’t seen Endgame yet
Only MCU protagonist with a child? Hawkeye would like to have a word with you.
Already addressed. Hawkeye is a supporting character who has never had his own film.
Couple it with the goofy way his ex-wife’s new husband is so perfect and nice that you can tell Scott wants to hate him but can’t … and if anything he’s frustrated that he can’t hate the guy. He’s the Beta in a crowded world of Alphas. The whole Pym family is a trio of Alpha studs. Circling back: the only time Scott gets a break from Alpha-world is during those moments when he can turn to his daughter and connect one-to-one.
No one ever remembers Hawkeye. Or his kids…
Doesn’t Barton have three?
The opening sequence with Cassie would have accomplished the same as the daily routine with the added bonus of Scott’s priorities being a little different than Tony or Steve.
I mean, he hasn’t had his own film, but Hawkeye has kids…
People don’t seem to read the comments before commenting themselves.
To be fair, this is a garbage commenting system which makes it all but impossible to figure out who is responding to what.
he’s the only MCU protagonist with a child.Hawkeye would like a word with you.
I swear this is the only superhero movie where the antagonist’s plan is to just call the cops on the protagonists.
I loved this movie. Ant-Man has become the grounding force for the MCU. Whenever it gets to big and unwieldy, they make one of these to remind us that not all movies need to feature someone throwing a city around or moons at people. That being said, as much as I love this I think a better scene would have been the opening heist scene with his daughter.
I love when she yells “THE FUZZ!” at Luis.
I was thinking the Hank / Hope reunion with Janet, but this makes sense in the larger context.
I might’ve gone with the Wasp’s first battle. Perhaps they are saving a similar write-up for Captain Marvel, but Evangeline Lily kicked ass in that scene (and not just for the fisticuffs), and her performance in the movie definitely earned the first female character to be in the title of an MCU movie.
For Captain Marvel I’d go with the memory probe stuff. That was weird and somewhat different for MCU films.I’m not sure any of the action scenes in the film were particularly memorable, which I hate saying as it sounds like criticism of a film I found very enjoyable.
I like Wasp running along the edge of a knife and Giant-Man using a flatbed truck like a scooter.
Either the memory probe, or the black box recording flashback. Because the most Marvel moment of Captain Marvel definitely is a scene with Mar-Vell in it.
I kind of thought it would be the mid-credits snap back to “oh fucking hell this digestive apertif just came crashing back to (movie) reality.”
IMO they could have potentially picked the end credits here to show in two scenes, Ant-Man both showed the goofy and humorous side of the MCU and the way other movies events can have a devastating impact on even the lighter heroes of the universe.
Clearly it’s the scene where he impersonates Michelle Pfeiffer and winds up holding hands with Michael Douglas. Show me that scene in any Zack Snyder/David Ayer dick-measuring contest movie.
That’s a great scene. Rudd plays the femininity quite nicely, without going over-the-top for a cheap gag.
I love the scene where Randall Park as the Shield agent explains to Lang’s daughter about why he’s under house arrest, basically summating everything that happened in Civil War.
I also like when Judy Greer keeps shouting “YOU CAN’T JUST DO THAT” and everyone including Scott is like, “No, they really can.”
That moment is so well delivered. This guy sees nothing weird about giving a lengthy explanation about UN accords to a small child.
Yeah he nails it. And that fact that he starts off patronizingly with “Aw, this probably seems like a bunch of confusing grown-up talk, doesn’t it?”Then Rudd follows that up with “Wow, you’re really great with kids!”“Thanks. I’m also a youth pastor.” Reminded me of quality Simpsons writing.
I would have gone with:”Ant playing drums”.
For me, it’s Scott and Bill comparing sizes. It’s a funny moment, Hope and Hank stewing, but it’s also part of a larger scene showing that there is a richer past to the MCU, and each of those moments means something to those who were part of them.
This movie was also the first time in over a decade that Marvel has given a shit about Bill Foster, a character who was unceremoniously killed off in Civil War by an illegal, cybernetic clone of Thor that was created by Tony Stark, Reed Richards, and a Skrull duplicate of Hank Pym.Not only did Stark and Richards never suffer any long-term consequences for Bill Foster’s murder, this was how they buried him…
Mark Millar is the worst.
Also Warren Ellis – see Synch.
Man, to this day I’m still upset about what they did to Synch. He was such a great character and it’s sad no one even though to bring him back. Although Skin’s fate wasn’t much better.
I wouldn’t put Ellis anywhere near the same category as Millar. Every writer makes mistakes, or kills off a character for bad reasons now and again. But Ellis’s material, across all his writings, is mostly thoughtful and interested in really exploring his ideas and pushing at the boundaries of his stories.Millar’s writing is full of shocking and juvenile gross moments seemingly for the sake of it. It’s bad enough when he does it with his original characters, but its fundamentally awful when applied to pre-existing ones. There’s a reason the adaptations of Civil War and Old Man Logan diverge so much from their source material.
I’ll concede that I may be wrong to lump Ellis in with Millar. I’m just pissed at his decision to kill off a nice grounded non-stereotypical black superhero.His reasoning that he felt he couldn’t do anything with Everett, because he found him a boring character is annoying. Write him off the team by all means, but don’t kill him off in the standard X-Men trope of slaying the minority characters (and keeping them dead).It was bad enough having to wait until 1991 before Marvel deigned to give us a black male X-Man in Bishop, but killing off Synch really sucked. I finally had a Marvel mutant superhero that looked like me and from a background I could relate to, then six years later he’s bumped off.Ellis may well be a great writer, but I disliked him for what he did on Generation X.
Ellis is not at his best on the big two’s traditional superhero books. He’s much better with his creator owned and/or science fiction work. I can totally understand being upset at losing a favorite character.
Licking goats will do that to a man.
I thought the Foster-Pym conflict was pretty well done, and it’s the kind of thing comic book movies typically fumble badly. You get a decent sense of where both guys are coming from, the characters are reasonably well balanced, and the acting makes about as much sense as it can when they’re saying impossible pseudo-scientific jargon.They had the good sense to make sure Foster didn’t follow the usual trope of nice guy who is really a fake, and Fishburne did a really good job in his early scenes in not just showing his own character, but building up Pym’s character.I wouldn’t say it was great moviemaking, but it was certainly solid.
Movies of all kinds struggle to show conflicts where both sides are A) fundamentally decent, and B) not staggeringly dumb. That a movie primarily concerned with comedy and action spectacle pulled it off is unusual.
“I don’t THINK so.”
Real snappy dialogue there.
“Hey, wha’ happen?”
Thank you for the periodic reminder of just how fucked that was.
Yep no doubt Civil War (comic book version) was pretty crappy for Giant Man/Goliath and half of New Warriors. Millar used those characters to create/further a rubbish plotline in order for our heroes to fight each.I’m bitter about Dwayne Taylor being killed off in such a pointless way, even though he was brought back via time travel shenanigans.
That was fucked up, and frankly I’m still a little surprised real Thor didn’t snap Tony’s neck for it. As I recall when he first found out he was understandably furious.
Very much so.
I really enjoyed Thor admitting here “yeah, every other time I’ve been fucking around with you.”
Mark Millar thought that Tony and Reed were the heroes of the story. This should be brought up as much as humanly possible.
The only good thing to come out of that Thor clone storyline within Civil War itself was Hercules shouting “Thou art no Thor!” while smashing the hell out of the cyber-clone.
I’m looking forward to this movie paying off in the climax of Endgame. Thanos, standing tall, about to snap more people out of existence. Then… who’s this! It’s SCOTT LANG AND HIS CLOSEUP MAGIC! It’s no match for the power of the gauntlet.
Or he’ll show Thanos a clip from Mac and Me, Thanos will stand there wondering what the fuck he just watched, and then everybody kicks the shit outta Thanos.
Then Star-Lord comes in, turns off the VCR, and starts yelling at him about his girlfriend.
Cause no one but Gunn can write for Star-Lord. That was clearly the problem of Star-Lord in the movie, other than someone needing to be the one who ruins it.
I had no problem with Star-Lord in Infinity War. It fit his character to be such a big-headed dumbass who would be selfish enough to fuck up the plan.
I think he was a little too much of that in the movie. Most of the character’s behavior was a little too close to self-parody throughout, his insecurity ramped up to 11. That version of Star-Lord could never successfully lead two movies.
Eh, I thought he was just as arrogant as he had been before.
I have to disagree. I hated Star Lord in IW as soon as Thor entered. SL should have been bro’ing out, not wimpering in a corner. I understand it was to create some hysterical conflict, but it cheapened him. If he had been reasonable and people kept ignoring him then it would have been funny too, without dumping on two movies of character development.
It also cheapened when he couldn’t kill Gamora. If they had kept up the cocky “12% of a plan is all I need” Star Lord, his weakness later would have been poinant rather than expected.He’s the punk in every scene he is in. It wasn’t fair to the character and cheapened a lot of conflict IMHO. He’s supposed to be the leader, but Rocket clearly is and should be based off of IW. I’d love to see about 20% more Gamora character in him as a leader, and 50% more Rocket in Gamora. She has been the mother of the group, rather than the woman who fuck broke Tony Stark. I can’t think of a single time in these movies she has lived up to what the inmates in the first movie’s prison said about her.And I like the GOTG movies.
I agree. He’s borderline cringey in Infinity War.
I WOULD CHEER SO LOUD
“This mere human is producing an infinite amount of handkerchiefs! I must learn his secrets.”
“You… human… how did you know my card? What telepathy is this?”
They should just let Michael Pena ramble on at Thanos until he loses the will to live.
I dunno. I mean, it would be funny. However, wouldn’t that basically be a retread of Peter Quill dancing to distract Ronan?
I enjoyed Ant Man but I can’t help but feel sad that we never got the full Edgar Wright film
I think Edgar Wright is a more interesting director, but I think these movies don’t work as the family oriented palate cleansers that they are if he is involved.
I still struggle to see what would have been vastly different. By the time preproduction is over a ton of ships have already set sail. Wright definitely has an idiosyncratic camera work and editing flourish, but I think the bones of the film would have been more or less identical.
I dunno . . . Wright has become a Director of largely diminishing returns. It’s not a good sign when the best thing youve done this decade is a spotty Scott Pilgrim adaptation.
That dead horse has just got to be a sack of bone dust by now.
Hey, at least it’s better than people bitching about the Snyder-cut of Justice League.
Is it?
It was quite fun to watch the contrarians insist that everything that worked about the movie must have been left over from Wright’s script, only to find out nope, they were all Reed.
Marvel really knocked it out of the park when they cast Paul Rudd. Apart from anything else, they’ll never need to expensively de-age him with CGI for flashbacks since he’s a functional immortal who has looked exactly the same for the past 20 years.
Marvel casts immortals. Sam Jackson and Paul Rudd are only two that we know of.
Tom Holland, on the other hand, maintains his boyish looks because of gruelling contract-mandated drug treatments at the Shirley Temple Clinic.
Thomas Holland is 83 years old.
His full name is actually Tom Hollander, he started going to the clinic after Rev. ended.
He is, perhaps, castrato. This how he maintains youthful appearance, preadolescent voice. No testosterone to pervert body into hairy, misshapen lump! Always he remains pure.
You forgot Angela Bassett.
I haven’t <3
This is the first time that sentance has been uttered in the history of time.Because NO ONE forgets the lovely Angela Bassett.
Pharrell would like a word.
Since when is Pharrell in the MCU?
I thought we were just listing vampires.
Just a reminder, Ming-Na Wen is 55.
Heck, she almost looks young enough to play Mulan again in the live-action version.
Marvel casts immortals, but ironically miscast the character with “Immortal” in his name….
Ming-Na Wen would have words with thee.
They also cast Rosario Dawson for the Netflix series, and she’s still able to convincingly play high school students.
She’s not bad in that department but as good as she is, even she’s no Bianca Lawson.
Technically, as an Immortal, the only Paul Rudd can die is by decapitation. When that happens, another Immortal can absorb his Qickening.
And yet they haven’t cast Keanu Reeves in anything yet. Unless John Wick is secretly part of the MCU.
Two words: Silver Surfer.
Mr Fishbourne wants another shot, this time in full mo-cap suit.
Whoa, that’s pretty good. He’s got that detached thing going on anyway, and that would be great for the Surfer. And hell, Morpheus played the Surfer the last time, so there’s some fun there.
Give it another decade, and I’d love to see Keanu play the Punisher.
Or Daredevil, with BRIAN BLESSED as Wilson Fisk.
That’s America’s Sweetheart Paul Rudd to you. Anyone who doesn’t love Paul Rudd is clearly either a complete asshole or most likely the President.Edgar Wright did a wonderful job with casting (at least for the original) across the board.
I remember Eva Larue co-hosting the Candid Camera revival back in the early ‘90s, and she truly hasn’t aged a day.
I really was enjoying this move until I saw Tim Heidecker. Disappointed in the producers for ignoring his crimes and casting him. Justice for the Electric Sun 20!
Agreed. Series jumped the shark when they left out the deep character work of actors such as Gregg Turkington from the original Ant Man.
Hey! Mr. Heidecker was acquitted (through a mistrial) after putting up an earth-shattering courtroom defense. It was all the fault of Dr. San (R.I.P.).
He also proved in a court of law that Star Trek 2 DOES NOT take place in San Francisco. So take that, Gregghead.
Ant Man 3 will become a 5 bag of popcorn movie if both Tim and Gregg make it in and have a duel.
I love those 5 lb bags of popcorn
He’s not crying because The Fault in Our Stars is sad. He’s crying because he wasted good money on something that goddamned terrible.
It was a wasted opportunity to show him saying while crying: Man, this book is awful!
Teen-oriented fiction when I was young: Hey, we might have sex at this upcoming party!Teen-oriented fiction now: Hey, we both have cancer, and also you’re half-Angel, and also it’s the apocalypse.Get off my lawn, is what I’m saying.
I was SUPER bored by the first Ant-Man (it was just never as funny as it thought it was) so I put off watching this one for a long time … and I very much regret that! It’s much more confident in what it is than the first one. The first one felt exactly like it’s behind-the-scenes shenanigans would lead you to expect: Someone took the script to a straight up action-comedy and tried to shove it into the Marvel mold that was prevalent at the time. This one felt like it was exactly what it wanted to be—and I’m so glad Marvel let it happen! Also, because movies/Marvel/whatever have led me to expect bittersweet endings, I did NOT think both Janet Van Dyne and Hank Pym would survive—I thought one of them would end up sacrificing themselves or something—but the genuine happy ending somewhat surprised me. And it seemed fitting for the type of movie it was. (This is excluding the coda where Scott gets stuck, which I liked but I’m glad it was a coda)
Yeah. Like Deadpool and Captain America, the sequel is superior.
I only agree 50 percent. DP2 (no, not THAT one) was weak tea compared to the original.
I just watched this movie last night for the first time— as I prep for Endgame this weekend— and you know a movie’s quality is good when it can be this goofy and instead of an eye-roll, you giggle like an 8 year-old and are thoroughly entertained.
The lack of any real stakes made me enjoy it so much more. No world ending plot just “hey lets save janet”.
Personally, I think that should be the plot of every film. But I guess it would be exhausting getting endangered that often.
It was also quite a pleasant surprise after the marketing people apparently panicked at the idea of having to sell a movie with such low stakes right after Infinity War, and so they straight-up created a fake line where someone says Ghost is trying to destroy the world.
Wasp and Ant-Man in a battle vs the mob and an ex- SHEILD assassin for some of the most dangerous tech on the planet while learning to transport between dimensions isn’t a world ending plot?No, it is that Peyton Reed is that good a director. He, Rudd and the gang are that good at story telling. They make world ending stakes seem fricking whimsical.
I enjoy superhero movies like this where the stakes are serious, but not necessarily earth-shattering. I find ANT-MAN to be the most charming series inside the MCU and a welcome change of pace from everything else, which is always so ***BIG***. I’d happily recommend ANT-MAN 1-2 to any friends of mine who have zero MCU interest and instead just want to see a fun pair of movies.
Decided to watch this instead of Infinity War* last night. Once you know that Infinity War ends with the Snap, there’s really no reason to wait on this one, and honestly, it’s probably better to go straight from Infinity War to Endgame.*My wife and I are kinda running behind on our rewatch, but we’ve got Friday tickets and we decided to skip Captain Marvel because a) it’s not on home video yet and b) we just watched it a few months ago, so we’re still on track.
You watched Captain Marvel a few months ago? In January? The rest of us had to wait until March!
Congratulations! You are Petty AND Pedantic! Quite a feat!
Goddamn, that was only March?
This was a fun movie. The scene where Janet takes over Scott’s body and Paul Rudd has to play Michelle Pfeiffer is great as is any interaction between Paul Rudd and Randall Park.
I had forgotten about his Michelle Pfeiffer moment. That was incredible, actually – it was Michelle Pfeiffer, right there.
Love love love that scene. Any male actor who can do a credible impersonation of a woman like that without going campy or insulting is clearly talented.
There’s such an insane balancing act in that scene of playing the genuine emotions of Janet reuniting with her family, along with the inherent comedy that she’s doing it with Scott’s body. Paul Rudd really walks that tightrope well.
Yeah, I think what’s great is that the concept is comical, but the execution is not. Rudd just plays the emotions sincerely, and nails it – there’s so much tenderness in the way he speaks to Hank.
And he looks and sounds just like Michelle Pfeiffer! Let’s not downplay that!
That is one of the best acting scenes in the whole franchise. Rudd’s a great comedic actor, but he definitely has the chops to a more dramatically nuanced scene like that.
I really wish we could have gotten some Goliath action scenes… This was a solid sequel and the villain had some extremely valid points. Also, the Wasp is cool
My personal favourite scene is the final one between Rudd and Randal Park. Absolutely hilarious in its Rudd-ness.
I saw the movie a couple months after my wife and I decided we want to have kids (following years of believing we wouldn’t want to), and going into the movie with that mindset, Scott’s relationship with his daughter pulled at my heartstrings more than I ever expected. One of the things I really liked about the movie was how much it focused on the importance of family, regardless of whether it fits the traditional meaning of the word.
One of my favorite moments in this movie is when it is revealed that Scott is in fact The World’s Greatest Grandma.(I’m not kidding, I thought it was hilarious and the kid who plays Cassie is wonderful throughout both movies)
“Not my turn of the century chandelier!”
“It is truth serum!”
I like Woo’s “You know how they’re are rules? Like at school, you’re not supposed to color on the walls? Well, your Daddy colored all over the walls in Germany…”I’m probably paraphrasing as I’m exhausted right now, but that cracked me up.
That’s only a 17 year old chandelier, Walt.Man, folks in Georgia* sure are worried about their history ever since Sherman.*I know where the movie takes place, but it was filmed in GA at Chick- Fil-A Studios.
This is my favorite MCU film, and yeah, this is a great scene. His ugly crying reading “The Fault in Our Stars” gets me every time.
You picked the wrong moment, for the wrong reason.The correct moment is when pint-sized Scott runs away from the hall monitor at Cassie’s school. Why? Because that’s when the soundtrack—which has until this point been a loud, unrelenting rhythmic drumbeat—gets reduced to a twee little MIDI-track version of itself. It perfectly mirrors so many thematic elements of the movie: Ant-Man’s ability to go small, the low-stakes plot in place the typical “EPICNESS!!!!!!” of your standard superhero movie (their superhero mission is to infiltrate…an elementary school?), and the movie’s tendency to deflate those epic moments with gentle humor. Also, it refutes any claims that Marvel doesn’t know what they’re doing in their music department.Not to mention it’s hilarious. As much as I like the first Ant-Man, it has glaring issues that bug me every time. But I feel like AM&W doubles down on what worked, sheds the stuff that didn’t, adds in a lot of new enjoyable side characters, and generally meshes them all together better so the movie just flows. It’s still not benchmark cinema, but it is hugely entertaining with a ton of replay value.
I think my only complaint about this movie is that it kind of neuters Scott. Yeah, he was a charming doofus in the first one, but he was also an idealist and a gifted engineer who could tinker with the Ant-Man suit and figure out how to escape from the Quantum Realm. The sequel eliminates everything but the “charming doofus” trait, and while no one plays charming doofus quite like Paul Rudd, it’s still a bit of a bummer.
I get what you’re saying. But it’s kind of refreshing to see just a regular guy trying to do good in his own average guy way, not being a supergenius billionaire, super soldier, green superpowered monster, norse god nor a military trained assassin. I mean he still looks and acts like the heavenly charm that is Paul Rudd, which is a super power on its own, but still…
He is still the one who designed the security system that saved the company.I didn’t see him a neutered, just someone who was trying to be all things to all people and not doing a great job. Then he got a partner who excelled at the things he didn’t, and they lived happily for a few weeks until she was dusted. But he still saved the company and the lab. He also hid the suit and the phone from the FBI for 2 years and came up with the escape plan from the FBI at the end.
Also, Hope and Hank are super geniuses messing around with a guy who really messed up their lives and hurt them. They could have been much nastier than asking if he wanted string cheese and a juice pouch.
Ant-Man and the Wasp. My most hated Marvel movie.
You’re fun.
Low-key humor is the secret sauce that makes all the good MCU movies work. It gives you permission to not take the material too seriously, which is totally necessary for a superhero movie. It also makes the characters much more likable.
This is why the Infinity War scene should have been Thor, Cap, and Groot. Universe ending battle, still time for quips and comedy completely in character.
I was surprised by how pretty good this movie was. I had some director’s notes during the very PG climax just after the Pyms return from the Quantum Realm—mainly, Ghost being knocked aside left an uneasy tension during the heartfelt mother/daughter reunion — I kept thinking “and now Ghost is going to appear and put her fist through Michelle Pfeiffer”— and adding a 1-second glance where they can see she is “knocked out” would’ve diminished that. But it was funny and well-put-together, despite being kinda … not? On a second watch, I really noticed the clunky dialogue. They’re locking onto Janet’s signal and Hope says “…It’s just like tracing a call back to it’s source!”. So clunky.Leela: “It’s like blowing up a balloon [with air]!”
Of the five or six Marvel movies I’ve seen, the funniest moment is when that Russian guy screams “Baba Yaga!” when the ghostly bad lady appears suddenly during Michael Pena’s interrogation.
No, the funniest moment was Bobby Cannavale’s “You put the dime in him, you gotta let the whole song play.” But his “Baba Yaga” was a close second!
IT’S NOT TRUTH SERUM!….it IS truth serum…
I love Paul Rudd, and I love these movies. They’re just fun. No overly weighty themes, no real need to keep track of the larger mythology, just fun action sequences and a wide-ranging sense of humor from everyone on board. I appreciate the fact that Scott pretty much plays second fiddle in his own movies, and isn’t too cool to just step aside sometimes, let the people who actually know what they’re doing do their job, and provide help and support where he can. Not a usual trope for these movies.
I thought this was great, a definite improvement over the first Ant-Man, but I can’t help but be annoyed that they fall into the surprisingly large subgenre of science fiction films where Judy Greer is there but doesn’t do much.
This is has great trailer (But make sure you’ve seen the movie first as it shows way too much.)
I understand why it couldn’t be the one highlighted in this article, but there is no more entertaining scene in this movie than the whole Walter Goggins-and-crew vs. Michael Pena-and-crew “truth serum” scene. Not that I could say Marvel has dropped the ball in this whole endeavor given they’ve made all the money, but it was a real missed opportunity that they didn’t do any sort of “the story so far” segment leading up to either Infinity War or Endgame that was just Pena’s Luis recounting the events of the previous movies over reenactments by the actors involved.
And I’m now intrigued by the implication that there’s some kind of latinx Morrissey fan base of which I was previously unaware.
You seriously didn’t know about this? It’s actually a very large, very known thing. Especially in Southern California.
It takes ages for these trends to reach the Northeast. Especially Pennsylvania.
You hurt them with that remark. Did they mention that they cry? Is it wrong not to always be glad?
If I were to call a single Marvel moment, it would be where Paul Rudd’s Scott Lang and Laurence Fishburne’s Dr. Bill Foster compare sizes while the increasingly-prickly Hank Pym (played expertly by Michael Douglas) and daughter Hope van Dyne (Evangeline Lilly, now the unsung best female superhero in the MCU) grow impatient. It speaks to the fact that everyone in the MCU has a past between the panels, or in this case, between the frames. Things did happen between Captain America crashing into the ocean and Tony Stark getting blown up by his own missiles in the desert, and those things mean something different to each character.
This movie is a delight: it’s fun, it’s funny, there’s some good story beats and twists that make you rethink the motivations of certain villainous characters, it gives everyone something entertaining to do, it takes place in some gorgeous settings, it thinks hard about what it wants to do and how each character will act or react without feeling like a ton of weight is on each action, it shows solid family dynamics, and it’s just charming as all get-out. It also has some kick-ass superheroing (mostly by The Wasp) and some trippy comic booking, and it even has some genuine stakes both personal and global. I don’t get why people are so down on this film or its predecessor. I may have rewatched it last night with my decidedly un-MCU-fan girlfriend, who loved it.
The attic fort scene in that movie now represents the standard I hold myself to as a father.
I think this is the worst MCU movie so far. The plot is a meandering, non-nonsensical mess. The entire Walton Goggins subplot could have been cut without really affecting the main plot. The great actors managed to make a terrible script passable, but I thought it was a huge disappointment. It was a big step down from the first Ant Man. It’s also the first MCU movie I didn’t buy on Blue Ray.
I kinda wish the Moment for this film had been one that featured Hope. She’s the best part of this film for me – it’s not one of my favourite MCU entries, to be honest – and brings so much new energy to the series, plus she’s one of only two female Marvel superheroes to get her name in a movie. (The only one, actually, if you consider that no one calls Carol “Captain Marvel” during the movie.) I also really like the way the Wasp uses her powers differently to Ant-Man: he seems to mostly try to evade and bamboozle people with his shrinking, where she becomes a living weapon.
They play up Lang’s insignificance in his own movies but he’s important in movies that aren’t his. He’s a pivotal (and the best) part of the airport fight scene in Civil War and (by some theories) the key to time travel in Endgame.
“what would the Guardians Of The Galaxy look like going up against a small-time space crook?”The crew of the Bebop?
So Ant Man is basically Ron Delaney with a suit.Deadpool was on to something, just didn’t take it far enough.
The first one isn’t low stakes. If Hydra (or the Government) get the Pym particle / Yellow Jackets then it’s the end of the world as we know it.