Bug's Life 2-Directed by Marvel.

Hey, another Marvel sequel, lucky us! I can’t remember the last time Marvel released a film. Since the last one, erm about 5 months ago, there’s been huge anticipation. ‘I can’t contain my excitement any longer’ ‘I need my quarterly drug of a Marvel film’ ‘I hate not knowing when the next one will be’. Just a few complaints I’ve heard about the lack of releases in recent years. Ant-Man and The Wasp is the final Marvel film of 2018; Hallelujah I hear you cry!

To begin, backstory. AMATW is set two years after Civil War, but before Infinity War. Christ, I'm already confused. Paul Rudd is under house-arrest because he got caught after the big fight in Civil War. It also means that Hank and Hope Pym are also being sought after by the po po because of their activities. I think. Hank and Hope hate Paul Rudd because of it. But they can’t hate him for long, because he’s Paul Rudd, and, like all the latest Marvel heroes are loveable doofuses. Thor. Star-Lord. Spider-Man. Original, good job. Well in the last Ant-Man, Paul Rudd shrunk really small, which meant he travelled into the Quantum Realm which should’ve killed him, but he didn’t. Anyway, Hank’s missus is trapped in the Quantum Realm and they have to use Scott (oh yeah Ant-Man is called Scott, I just love saying Paul Rudd because it’s a great name) to try and rescue Mrs Pym from the place. Hank and Hope have been building a machine that can take them into the Quantum Realm but they need Scott for something. I don’t know, probably the jokes. They team up, even though they shouldn't because they aren't allowed contact and do some Marvel saving the day hero stuff. 

After Infinity War, everyone needed a lift and I have an exclusive from Marvel HQ during the following meeting after the release of IW.

That’s another post all together. However, AMATW was very light-hearted, some of the comedy in the film was very funny but yet again it’s just too much and all too similar with other Marvel films. I get that as a company they want continuity but it would be far more interesting too see directors have their own style to suit a particular film. The action scenes were very impressive, I absolutely love how they film the shrinking scenes, and the interaction with the normal sized characters. It’s very impressive to watch on a purely technical basis and just as a paying customer. 

Really though, Ant-Man lacked any depth nor was there an improvement on the old film. As amazing as those scenes were, we saw all that in the last film. We saw Ant-Man go super large in Civil War. There was nothing new. Even the introduction of The Wasp was a bit flat; a bit underwhelming. She had some good additional powers but it didn’t really add anything in terms of her character development. The villain wasn't a villain. She was just stuck in a body full of Quantum energy that meant she was going to die, so wanted to kill Mrs Pym to absorb the energy. It was pointless in the end, because she wasn’t a bad guy and they probably could’ve worked something out if they just spoke. 

3/5 All in all, this was a pretty big let down. Sure, it was fun. It had a lot of great laughs but Marvel have set themselves a large pedestal due to their current films and each of their films should be judged on the previous one. It would have taken a lot to top, or even match Infinity War because of the scale of it, but Ant-Man didn't really come close. If this was a Disney film back in the 90′s, it would've gone straight to VHS.