As much of an exaggeration as that sounds, it's honestly the plot in a nutshell. While under house arrest, Scott begins to have strange dreams where he's playing hide and seek with a young girl. The problem is that those dreams are actually memories. His memories? No, they're the memories of Janet van Dyne, the missing wife of Hank Pym, and mother of Hope van Dyne. The spark of this has been Hank's experiments on the Quantum Realm, sparked by Scott not only going into the Quantum Realm in the battle against Yellow Jacket but also being able to return. Since then, he and Hope have been working on a Quantum Tunnel and trying to track Janet. Unfortunately, their actions, including Hope taking up the mantle of The Wasp, caught the attention of three separate parties out to get them, the lab, and the technology inside of it. The FBI, who are trying to arrest the three of them due to violating the Sokovia Accords (remember that thing?), Sonny Burch, who just wants to sell the tech due to being a low-level criminal, and a new... villain? I think she falls into that category due to her actions, but it's up to interpretation, Ghost, a former S.H.I.E.L.D weapon who was exposed to Quantum energy, and now has unstable molecules. While she can somewhat control it, her body is becoming more and more unstable and the only way to restore her body is to use the tunnel to gather enough particles in the realm to hopefully cure her body. While I like how the story plays out, and the character interactions, the whole thing is a clear cut "you know this would all be fixed if you would just talk to each other". Would it fix the FBI part? No, but in regards to Ghost, that whole thing can be fixed by the following lines. "We'll fix you, can I get my wife back first?".
The comedy is still on point, and they do have fun with the size changing gimmick, things like driveable Hot Wheels cars, using a Hello Kitty Pez Dispenser as a weapon in a car chase, and a building shrunk down to the size of a luggage bag. The writing does help look past the basic, flimsy plot (well aside from the whole "It's like this because there wouldn't be a movie" thing). It's certainly a nice change of pace compared to Infinity War, but it does feel like a drastic tonal shift, which might have worked better before Infinity War came out. Due to its placement, my biggest question often comes back to "Wait, Tony Stark just got taken by aliens, alien ships are falling into Wakanda, why the hell does the government care about Ant-Man right now?" Yes, he's breaking the accords. You'd think an Alien invasion would be the higher priority, especially when you remember what happened last time aliens invaded. Bigger picture guys.
It's hard to come up with more to say about this movie's presentation other than "mediocre, but with fun use of the gimmick". The cinematography, score and soundtrack are nothing spectacular, though the cinematography has some good moments in action scenes. I'll admit the seagulls were funny, along with the entire scene at the school. Honestly, my biggest problem is it came out after Infinity War. I think it would have been better to cut the mid-credits scene short, not show the family being dusted, and having Scott's call for help close out the movie. It would have been a nice "what's going on?" moment that would have fed nicely into Infinity War. Best Marvel movie? No. Worst Marvel movie? No. it's mediocre, but pushed above that by the cast, who do pull it off very well. The chemistry between Scott and Hope is really well done and is the biggest reason to watch the movie.
I'll be taking a break from the movies next week, to look at a show that some consider being the worst casualty of the MCU. The Avengers: Earths Mightiest Heroes.
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