Ant Man and the Wasp: Quantumania and Shazam! Fury of the Gods

Another Marvel vs DC match up!

Ant Man and the Wasp: Quantumania

Ant-Man (Paul Rudd) and his family get sucked into the Quantum Realm and end up in a civil war between the resident Quantumites and their over lord ruler. Since the setting is super alien they really just went wild with the story and ideas here, some of which are great and some... less so... like the main villains power level fluctuating between disintegrate and knock back. Awesome CGI though, and an entertaining enough story for the most part but it still falls under non-mandatory viewing with no real major change pushed forward. If you like Ant-Man and / or Marvel films then this one is for you, but even if you skip it you'll probably be fine story arc wise for the rest of this set of Marvel movies.

Shazam! Fury of the Gods

Freed from their not so eternal prison a few goddesses hunt down Shazam (Zachary Levi) to retake their powers. It's a super simple plot and while the actiony back end of it is pretty decent the first half is simply bad and corny. The characters on screen are as bored as the audience and the poor over acting from the primary "child" actor ruins most of the film. Somehow, Shazam acts more like a teenager than his "normal" self too probably is a lack of direction. Some funny moments but not enough to save this. If you're looking for a no brainer action movie with superheroes in it you could watch this, but I'd recommend Quantumania instead.

Ant Man and the Wasp

One size fits all!

Scott Lang aka Ant Man (Paul Rudd) is the only hope to save someone from the quantum realm in this action comedy sequel where he continues making bad decisions. Fortunately, this is mostly done in a way that makes him more likable which is great. Also Evangeline Lilly fixed her hair from the first film - yay!

All the actors charisma, humor and those high budget special effects and action sequences are almost enough to hide those niggly plot holes such as "why not just stay shrunk?", "why is [x] still alive then?", "magic hands? what?". The villain is somewhat weak character wise too, but serviceable enough.

What plot holes?

Despite the gloss-over treatment for the above, I really enjoyed this movie. It's also suitable for kiddies since it's pretty light in subject matter (until you hit the mid credit extra scene). Definitely would watch this one again, and give it 3.5 "other-stuffings" out of 5.

Ant-Man

Greatness in small doses!

From the outset this film leans towards being more comedy which doesn't take itself too seriously, than a superhero movie, and that really plays to its favour. The CGI is on the money, and acting wise everyone is pretty solid though Michael Pena is occasionally hard to understand and Evangeline Lilly's hair doesn't suit her (probably fits character though). Corey Stoll is an enjoyable antagonist too.

The well-written story also manages to integrate itself nicely into the Marvel universe and somehow be pretty epic on a small scale, pun intended. All up I can't really think of any negatives to this light-hearted action film and think that it's suitable for a pretty wide array of audiences - probably even those not into superhero flicks. I give ant man four train sets out of five and would definitely watch it again. Go watch it now! :)

Big thumbs up for you, Ant Man!