Make: Marvel Studios/Disney

Model: Superhero/heist

Year: 2018

Sometimes, you feel like a robust, rich feast. Thanksgiving with all the fixings in perfect balance (as all things should be). And sometimes, you just want a nice slice of pizza. Something simple that puts a smile on your face. After the rich and heavy Infinity War, Marvel Studios served up the fun frolic Ant-Man and the Wasp as the lighthearted follow up. But instead of pepperoni, Ant-Man/Wasp came with pineapples and olives. The main issue is that every character’s problem could have been solved by staying out the others way. The conflict is driven by a time crunch, but there is no reason for the time crunch. Janet Van Dyne needs saved ASAP…except, if she’s managed to survive for 30 years in the Quantum Realm, what’s a couple more days? Scott Lang feels guilty about letting down Hank Pym and Hope Van Dyne, but he could help them in 2 days after his house arrest is over. Hank and Hope won’t help Ghost, but only because they don’t know anything about the Quantum Realm. Ghost is suffering, and soon to die, sure, but by any measure, she will live long enough for Scott to finish house arrest, Janet to be rescued, and Quantum Energy to be released. And Sonny Burch? He was getting paid! He got exactly what he bargained for, but decided that wasn’t good enough. He betrayed his customer, Hope Van Dyne, because she used an alias? It’s the black market. Who isn’t using an alias in illegal transactions?

So, yeah, the entire conflict is a little thin. Our goal is to tweak the characters’ motivation so that the conflict is natural, not forced, and the time crunch is sincere and not stupid.

REBUILD

With just a matter of hours left on his house arrest, Scott Lang receives a message from Janet Van Dyne. The Quantum Realm, after 30 years, has begun to destabilize (perhaps as a result of the Infinity Stones). She can’t stay much longer, or she will disintegrate along with the Quantum Realm. Janet must escape, and thanks to Scott, she has a means to do it.

Hank and Hope learn about Janet’s predicament. They have been working on a device that could stabilize a path to the Quantum Realm, but it’s not finished. They need parts from the Black market dealer, Sonny Burch.

Sonny is happy to help, but lately, he’s had a problem with parts walking off. Someone is building a Quantum device, and if Hope wants the parts, she’ll have to track down the thief. Ghost shows up and steals the part Hope is there to buy. After a tussle, Ghost gets away with the part.

Hank, Scott, and Hope have to track down Ghost, so they visit Bill Foster, Pym’s former lab partner.

Foster tells a little about how to track Ghost. The team leaves when the FBI shows up.

They track Ghost to a house in the woods where they find a weird chamber. They find the stolen parts, start packing them up. But Ghost returns and gets the drop on them. She goes them up and tells them her problem: she is phasing so hard she will soon vanish. She has been stealing parts so her partner can build a machine that will stabilize her.

Turns out her partner is Bill Foster.

Foster realizes that their devices are two sides of the same coin. They all agree to help each other. Small problem, though. The FBI is now after them, as is Sonny Burch, thanks to some truth serum (The best scene! Of course it stays). So, it’s the physicists and their quantum kids versus the might of the US Government and five black market thugs in a race against time.

And in the final battle, Ghost joins forces with our heroes so Bill Foster and Hank Pym can bury the hatchet and save Janet. Scott beats his house arrest, and convinces Wasp to give him a second chance. Ghost and the Quantum Realm were both stabilized thanks to the work of Pym and Foster’s combined mental prowess. Sonny Burch got busted by the FBI, and Scott and his boys keep their business going with a big security contract from Pym-Foster Labs, a new startup physics company working on stabilizing quantum fields.

Post-credits: Lang dives into the Quantum Realm to measure the stability and hears radio music from earlier time periods. When he tries to contact Hank and Hope, we see they have been snapped.

WRAP UP

Ant-Man and the Wasp is fun flick, and with a couple tweaks, pineapple becomes pepperoni, meaning that the movie makes sense. (Not that Marvel needs my help making money.)