Buzz about ‘Ant-Man and The Wasp’
Hope flies, and it’s family first for Scott.
Still a little down after the oh-so-tragic “Avengers: Infinity War” sent some favorite superheroes away in a snap? “Ant-Man and the Wasp” director Peyton Reed feels you.
The first “Ant-Man” movie arrived three years ago on the heels of the heady, world-saving “Avengers: Age of Ultron,” and now the sequel (in theaters Friday) follows “Infinity War” with lighthearted, dimension-hopping high jinks featuring the return of shrinking hero Scott Lang (Paul Rudd) and his new partner and love interest, Hope Van Dyne (Evangeline Lilly), now sporting a fresh superhero suit and name.
“It’s indicative of what Marvel is doing in a really cool way, which is telling all these interconnected stories that stand alone and can also be wildly different tonally,” Reed says.
Hannah John-Kamen, who makes her Marvel debut as the mysterious antagonist Ghost, figures it’s perfect timing following “Infinity War”: “We all need to laugh and give each other a hug.”
Here’s what you need to know about the return of Ant-Man and the Wasp’s debut:
The sequel takes place before ‘Infinity War’ (but after ‘Captain America: Civil War’).
The last time Scott Lang was on the big screen, he was jailed in the underwater supermax prison The Raft for helping Captain America save his best friend, Bucky Barnes. Unfortunately, because he used the tech of his ally, inventor Hank Pym (Michael Douglas), both Hank and his daughter, Hope, are on the lam from the government as well. When “Ant-Man and the Wasp” starts, Scott is finishing the last few days of his FBI house arrest but getting to spend a lot of quality time with his young daughter, Cassie (Abby Ryder Fortson). His incarceration has made this “ultimate everyman” rethink some choices when it comes to his work/life balance, Reed says. “He’s not a scientist or a billionaire. He’s got very real-world issues to deal with. He wants to be a hero, he likes it, but not if it’s going to cost him his daughter.”
Hope spent much of the first film irked that she couldn’t use the Ant-Man suit and had to train Scott. Now that she’s got her own — and takes the Wasp mantle of her mother, Janet (Michelle Pfeiffer) — Hope is a highly skilled heroine with killer moves and confidence. “There is that understanding that, OK, when the chips are down, she’s all in and she’s a much more qualified hero” than Scott, Reed says. Ant-Man is well aware of her capability, Rudd adds. “I never felt like he’s threatened by that. If anything, (he) celebrates it.”
There’s a romantic-comedy vibe to Scott and Hope’s relationship.
Reed revisited his “holy trinity” of classics — “His Girl Friday,” “It Happened One Night” and “The Philadelphia Story” — to find the right “mutual respect” between his leads. But while Hope is “a much more content, happier person” in the sequel, Lilly says, she’s still ready to jab at all of Scott’s shortcomings. When they discuss him going rogue to go toe-to-toe with Avengers in “Civil War,” Hope tells him, “If I was there, you wouldn’t have been captured.” “She says it with kind of a twinkle in her eye,” Lilly adds, “which suggests that she’s both serious and she’s just in love with this guy.”
We get a great look at the Quantum Realm.
Hank, Hope and Scott discover a way to return to the submicroscopic dimension where Janet’s been lost for decades — and where Ant-Man visited briefly in the first movie — so Reed pulled from a bunch of different influences to flesh out the Quantum Realm that the heroes explore: real electron microscope photography, plus some visuals inspired by “Fantastic Voyage” and “whacked-out stuff ” like “Robinson Crusoe on Mars.” But as fun as the theory of quantum entanglement is, “you certainly can’t make a movie where you think, ‘Oh, I’m going to teach the audience a little something about quantum mechanics!’ ” the director says. “That’s one of the great strengths of having Scott Lang as a character, because he’s always a step behind with the science: ‘Wait. Quantum phasing, what is that? What are you talking about?’ ”
Ghost is one haunted soul.
Pym’s technology is targeted by the enigmatic Ghost, who wants it to cure herself: Because of a quantum accident in her youth, she has wondrous phasing abilities (allowing her to walk through walls or karate kick through moving vehicles), but they’re also tearing her apart on a molecular level. “She’s definitely the threat in the movie, but you feel mixed emotions with Ghost,” says John-Kamen, whose character has reached a point of desperation after years of pain and anguish. “It’s that thing of every man for himself. In her life, she wasn’t shown that same love — why the hell should she?” There’s also a personal connection between Ghost and Pym tied to her abilities, Reed says. “Hank doesn’t really play well with people, and maybe this is a little bit of a result to that.”
This hero is all about his kid.
While Scott is often torn between being Ant-Man and being Dad, it’s pretty apparent that Scott would rather pal around with Cassie than hang out with Cap. “He’s coming to terms with this idea that to really commit to being a superhero is maybe not the best thing for a parent to do,” Rudd says. “At the end of the day, the thing I’m interested in are characters connecting and talking about real stuff, and that’s really what resonates for me after you walk out of a film.”