‘Ant-Man And The Wasp' Punches Above Its Weight

Not since Animal against the advice of Dr. Bunsen Honeydew and Beaker ingested Insta-Growth pills has a movie had as much fun with scale as “Ant-Man and The Wasp.”

Not since Animal against the advice of Dr. Bunsen Honeydew and Beaker ingested Insta-Growth pills has a movie had as much fun with scale as “Ant-Man and The Wasp.”

Among the greatest threats to the shapeshifting heroes of the Marvel sequel are windshield wipers, salt shakers and seagulls. This is surely the first movie to weaponize that most fearsome of terrors: a giant Hello Kitty Pez dispenser. In one of the film’s finest moments, a loud, careening chase culminates in a dramatic fall into the ocean sounded not with an explosive splash but with a tiny ripple and a “Plink!”

In both scale and ambition, “Ant-Man and The Wasp” is an altogether more modest affair, and it’s so much the better for it. Most Marvel movies strenuously insist on how much they matter — how much a carefully stitched together comicbook apparatus hangs in the balance — with only an occasional aside to acknowledge their inherent silliness. But slapstick is in the DNA of “Ant-Man and The Wasp.”

For some Marvel devotees, “Ant-Man and The Wasp” will be a clever enough diversion in between the more main-event releases. But it’s pretty much exactly what I’d want in a superhero movie: a funny cast, zippy action scenes and not an infinity stone in sight.