THE REEL: Ant-Man and the Wasp is full of comedy and wit

After the long wait since the previous Ant-Man came out in 2015, the sequel Ant-Man and the Wasp is finally here.

Now, in its second week at the cinema, Marvel’s PG, comedic superhero is back with a sidekick, Wasp. Or maybe we should just call them partners, as Wasp actually holds a lot on her own.

Just so there’s no confusion, the movie takes place in a timeline of the Marvel Cinematic Universe that places it just about two years after the events of Berlin in Captain America: Civil War.

The movie starts with Scott Lang (Paul Rudd) serving a two-year house arrest sentencing as part of an Avengers team that went against the Sokovia Accords. We had gotten to learn of his restricted movement when Captain America mentioned it in Avengers: Infinity War.

During this time, he gets to strengthen the bond with his daughter. What else can you do with two years of just being indoors? He has shared all the adventures of his time as Ant-Man with her and she even knows all the names he gave to the ants.

During this time, however, Dr Hank Pym (Michael Douglas) and his daughter Hope van Dyne (Evangeline Lilly) sever ties with their once-ally in order not to be lumped with Scott as accomplices to his participation in that tussle in Europe. That hasn’t stopped the FBI from trying to lock them up, believing that Scott wouldn’t have acted outside of the knowledge of the two scientists.

TEAM UP

When Dr Pym and Hope build a portal that could go into the quantum realm in order to retrieve Hope’s mother, Janet van Dyne. But a situation arises that needs Scott’s Ant-Man to team up together with Hope’s Wasp so that they can arrest it.

Their push to build the portal was motivated by the (movie) fact that Scott was able to go into the quantum realm and come back, while they had previously believed that anyone who went into that realm, like Janet, was lost forever. It is at the moment where the portal manages to successfully work that a lady with powers appears – her suit gives her the ability to control the movement of her molecules from a solid state to the point where she can walk through things and then go back to being solid.

So Scott looks to his old crew of burglars to help get to the bottom of the woman’s identity and acquire the technology that Dr Pym has created, while keeping the FBI off their trail at the same time.

This is a fun and hilarious movie. It’s made for the family so one can enjoy it with their young children without a fuss. Scott is a very likeable character and Rudd is a natural at comedy.

Maybe I’m stiff, but the other characters, namely Luis (Michael Peña) and Dave (Tip 'T.I.' Harris) felt like they were trying to force the funny out. The action is well executed, especially when you have two women giving the men in the movie a hard lesson.

The story is well told and it has elements of funny, heart wrenching bits and a love story too.

How can you not win with watching this movie? It’s a friends’ movie, family movie and date movie all rolled into one.