We are trying something for the first time with this review, as we got to see an early screening of ‘Ant-Man and the Wasp’. In the coming months, we will be slowly seeing more and more movies ahead of time. For now, we will do this type of review a week early, but if people want us to stop and go back to normally timed reviews, we will. We write these reviews so you can know what to (roughly) expect from each movie based on our tastes and thoughts. Let us know what you think!

STATEMENT ON COMIC BOOK MOVIES: Look, we love Marvel movies. Along with much of the movie-going public, we got invested in the Marvel Cinematic Universe (MCU) and look forward to going to these movies. I think anyone who says Marvel doesn’t crank out mostly objectively good movies is insane. With that said, movie opinions are just that, opinions and you do not have to like comic book or Marvel movies. If you don’t care for them? Great. If you do like them? Hopefully, you enjoy these reviews. But these are major releases that make hundreds of millions of dollars and we will review every single one. Anyway, it’s time to be Marvel shills (kidding)…

Jeff (87/100): I was a fan of ‘Ant-Man’ but admit that my 85/100 might’ve involved some Paul Rudd bias. He is my favorite celebrity and just the fucking man, but with that aside, I think ‘Ant-Man and the Wasp’ is a straight-up fantastic addition to the MCU library.

The movie is an absolute blast and filled with great comedy that doesn’t stumble over itself, a problem some Marvel films have had before. I am a sucker for the more small-stakes Marvel movies, and after the big-time moments in ‘Avengers: Infinity War’, this is a nice change of pace. As a lot of critics are saying, this is a pretty self-contained movie in the MCU. Sure, there are references to the Avengers and big Marvel fans will make more connections than the average moviegoer. It’s always great when you can focus on the isolated story rather than worrying about other factors outside of the movie.

Kick up the 4d3d3d3 because Paul Rudd, brings the heat. Celery Man does it again!

It’s still insane to think that Paul Rudd is in this role and situation… and is absolutely fucking shredded. Evangeline Lilly is a great new superhero and a total badass. I can’t wait for more Wasp in the MCU. The duo of Wasp and Ant-Man is a great dynamic that hopefully lives on past ‘Avengers 4’. Michael Douglas is great as always, Randall Park is hilarious and I thoroughly enjoyed Hannah John-Kamen and Walton Goggins (one of my favorite underrated actors). The show stealers were Abby Ryder Fortson, who played Scott’s daughter Cassie (she will return plenty in the next phase of MCU movies), and, of course, Michael Peña.

One of the issues with ‘Ant-Man’ was that it felt like a movie made by two people, and that’s because it was. Peyton Reed did most of the movie, but only after taking over for Edgar Wright. It was enjoyable but always felt like the tone of the movie was a bit rigid due to the two different minds behind the camera. Despite my love for Edgar Wright movies, it’s great to see Peyton Reed get his chance to make the movie from start to finish. The action scenes are top notch, thrilling and look absolutely incredible. They dip much more into the shrinking and expanding of the suits and other objects and the flow of the action is nearly flawless (as you can see from the trailer below).

Two big thumbs up to Peyton Reed, who has a wild filmography.

My only real complaints from the movie stem from the villains and the length. As I said above, Hannah John-Kamen and Walton Goggins do a great job in their roles, but it’s tough to follow up from Killmonger and Thanos. Their motives are very relatable, and the small stakes help a lot, but they don’t feel too fleshed out. Film critic David Ehrlich had a pretty good rebuttable to this, however, saying they weren’t really “villains.”

That’s up for debate for me, but I won’t get hung up on it. Lastly, the length comes into because it felt about 15-20 minutes too long. It’s a weird thing for me to say because it’s incredibly engaging and the movie is under two hours long. Trimming some stuff in the middle might’ve helped a touch. All in all, the complaints are very small amongst a very enjoyable movie.

This isn’t going to be an MCU movie that lights up the world and moves mountains, but we really don’t need that. It’s a fucking comic book movie damnit, we just need a competent story and a good time. With ‘Ant-Man and the Wasp’ we get all of that and I couldn’t be happier. My credits tip is that the mid-credit scene is a must-see but the post credit scene is more of a joke although it does have a cool Easter egg.

SIDE REVIEW: Tim Heidecker is very prominent in the movie. This brings me great happiness as I am one of the biggest Tim & Eric fans you’ll ever meet. If you know Tim & Eric, you know the humor is super bizarre and very niche. It is the definition of comedy that “isn’t for everyone.” But this screen time for Tim in a major blockbuster makes me very happy. He has a connection to Peyton Reed and Gregg Turkington, his co-host for his show ‘On Cinema’, was in the last movie. I’ll post two of my favorite skits below.

KenJac (87/100): We say it over and over in our reviews, it’s very hard for sequels to be better than the originals. Jeff and I just talked about this issue with ‘Deadpool 2’ because, while independently good, it didn’t capture the same things we liked in the first one. ‘Ant-Man and the Wasp’ breaks that trend in my opinion, as it’s funnier, more thought out, and has a better overall plot.

Starting with the good, I think it’s incredible that they were able to make the concept of Ant-Man’s powers interesting a second time. Once you see Ant-Man shrink and grow, you figure that’s basically all there is to see right? They did this by focusing less on Ant-Man and more on the new characters. The action sequences were all very well done, and the special effects were insane, particularly in the quantum realm and with Ghost’s mechanics. Ghost herself was an okay villain with way better motivations and powers than Yellowjacket.

The acting performances were great across the board, and a big shout out to Abby Ryder Fortson (Cassie) who is probably the most adorable kid of all time. Lastly, the humor worked on every level, even better than the first, with Michael Peña, T.I. and David Dastmalchian all serving as the hilarious comic relief. Also, Randall Park left me in stitches basically every time he spoke.

As for the bad, I would have liked for a more singular focus. There was a whole lot of different things going on at once, with plots revolving around what felt like way too many people. There also seemed to be sloppy editing at points, with people responding too fast to lines or talking too much. I also left thinking some characters went underdeveloped. My last gripe is that maybe it was 15-ish minutes too long?

Overall, it’s a really great time and easily in the top 25th percentile of Marvel movies for me. Ghost marks now the fourth villain in a row for Marvel, after Killmonger, Thanos and Cable who you almost kind of root for because they are three-dimensional, with motives better than just wanting to kill everyone (still you, ‘Thor: Ragnarok’). Oh, and the post-credit in this bad boy, WOOF.

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So that’s our ‘Ant-Man and the Wasp’ review, which doesn’t come out until next Thursday. You can enter your 0 through 100 rating for the movie starting next week. Make sure to subscribe to Lights, Camera, Barstool, where PFT Commenter is going to join us to review ‘Jurassic World: Fallen Kingdom’ and join our listeners in finding who has the lowest rated list of movies we love but critics hate.

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