BELATED POST-WEEKEND REVIEW OF 'ANT-MAN AND THE WASP'

Year of Release: 2018

ANT-MAN should have his name changed to Size-Shifter. That's what he does, and what everyone around him does. And every single thing for that matter: from buildings to suits to vehicles. Which makes sense because there's only so many visual gags where you see a Hot Wheels-size car rolling down the street in its realistic silence after being loudly inside it during an action scene set-up...

Score: **1/2

Still, those moments are kinda funny, and maybe the best thing going for ANT-MAN AND THE WASP, yet another Marvel sequel that seems more made for the cast & crew of inside-joke-sharing friends than an audience of strangers that need a dose of old-school entertainment. With a barrage of family oriented plot-lines, including elder genius Hank Pym's ex partner helping a badass female anti-heroine named Ghost; or Pym himself trying to free his beloved wife (and Wasp's beloved mom) from an inner-space dimension visually liken to FANTASTIC VOYAGE and...

Well you better get used to the sciencey stuff because this ANT-MAN hardly takes a physical step forward without a ton of rambling exposition while constantly reminding us of the CAPTAIN AMERICA: CIVIL WAR, after which Paul Rudd's much more mellow and this time, lethargically-sarcastic ex-thief got on house-arrest where he spends corny playtime with his daughter...

Thankfully, Evangeline Lilly keeps him centered while her dad (with his past catching up) really just gets in the way: Making the entire third act... taking place on the famously steep streets of San Fransisco (where Michael Douglas feels at home)... a prolonged chase-epic homage to BULLITT, and feeling more like a fresh start from all the previous get-the-important-device-back-in-time frenzy, rather than the winding-down of what eventually tries to be the same kind of urgent heist flick that the original was most of the way through. And Michael Peña, the comic relief, isn't funny. At all. Because he never stops constantly trying to be.