Ant-Man and the Wasp (July 6, 2018: Marvel)

[Dr Mordrid]

Synopsis: Set after the events of Captain America: Civil War, Scott Lang tries to balance his home life as a father with his responsibilities as Ant-Man, when Hope van Dyne and Hank Pym present him with a new mission to bring to light secrets from their past, requiring him to team up with Hope van Dyne as the new Wasp.

Paul Rudd: Scott Lang/Ant-Man II
Evangeline Lilly: Hope van Dyne/Wasp II
Michael Douglas: Hank Pym/Ant-Man I
Michelle Pfeiffer: Janet van Dyne/Wasp I
Hannah John-Kamen: Ghost
Randall Park: Jimmy Woo, Agent of S.H.I.E.L.D.
Laurence Fishburne: Bill Foster

[Elie]

I actually enjoyed Ant Man, I am looking forward to seeing this.
But first thing first....The Black Panther!!!!

[Dr Mordrid]

YES, and the pre-sale of Black Panther tickets is through the roof. Looking at up to a $120m opening weekend.

Sounds like the premiere reviewers liked it, a lot

[VJ]

I really enjoyed Ant-Man... perhaps more so than some of the other comic-based movies. My biggest gripe that I cannot always identify with the bad guys, they are often just bad for the heck of it. And at one point there are just too many superheroes that it just pushes it all too far (a bit of a problem of the shared universe).

The only I had with Ant-Man was the inconsistency of the mass: they clearly state that mass is kept when shrunken down, but then some things are impossible. Normally I'm not bothered by such things but here it bothered me a bit. But the movie had such a nice momentum that it was easily overlooked.

I hope that for this movie they keep the other superheroes away...

[Dr Mordrid]

There will always be crossovers, especially since Ant-Man has already done so.

Sounds like this one is "going there" WRT Hank Pym's past troubles with Janet van Dyne/Wasp I..

[VJ]

Yeah, a bit of cross-over is ok, but they should keep the character.

For example, in Spiderman homecoming, the suit was almost an iron-man suit (minus the flying), and he has the strength of hulk... Both are a bit too much of a deviation from the character in my opinion. Spiderman's man is not about technological gadgets or super strength. While the comments/one-liners are more inline with the character it also was a bit overdone, almost like they were trying to imitate Deadpool.

But my point is better shown in Avengers: age of Ultron. In the end you had all Avengers fighting the enemy, but the whole battle was more like a normal fight with extra strength and resilience; not really exploiting the specific powers of the characters. To me that is a shame: you have a wide variety of special skills, yet all they do is just punch as in any other action movie without superheroes. It would be so nice to see them come up with a battle technique that really benefits from the skills. And then one more superhero added to it just increases the possibilities rather than just adding an extra pair of fists.

[Elie]

VJ, have you seen The Ultimate Spiderman series?
Spiderman is recruited into Shield and gets the most awesome suit full of tech compliments of Tony Stark. So the movies are in tune to that series at least.
Also Spiderman convinces other superheros and criminals to join Shield Academy with some major challenges. Have you also heard of the Spiderverse? Man that was interesting in itself, and I believe they will be making a movie about this as well.

[VJ]

No, I did not... But I e.g. preferred the Spiderman from 2002 over the Amazing Spiderman from 2008, but perhaps because it fits better with how saw Spiderman in the cartoons as a child. In way, Iron Man does not have any powers; he just has the suit. If you start giving such suits to other people, the everyone can be a superhero (what is the point of Spiderman's powers if he has a suit that does a lot)?

Heroes, for better or for worse was at least trying to optimize the different powers of the people, and tried to make situations where powers needed to be combined. I miss that a in e.g. Age of Ultron: the whole battle has everybody just punching others while Iron Man is flying around a bit. Maybe it is laziness on the side of the scriptwriters, but aren't there more original things they could come up with for Hawkeye and Black Widow?