Marvel’s presentation of the superhero Ant-Man (Paul Rudd) in the few movies in which he has appeared denotes, to my mind, the best and the worst of the genre.  The best is a highly clever, sometimes hugely entertaining adventure with humor and characters that are wonderfully relatable.  The worst is pseudo-science run amok, with action that moves so quickly it’s difficult to tell what is happening, let alone why it is happening.  This particular adventure, entertaining as it certainly is, suffers from its own complexity, as well as forcing its hero, Scott Lang (Rudd, without the miniaturizing suit), into dour posturing for much of the proceedings.

Peyton Reed’s film is thought-provoking and fun, even when it dives into the ridiculously-envisioned quantum realm.  It gives Michael Douglas (as Dr. Hank Pym) lots to do and is rarely boring.  But the fact that it tries so hard sometimes works against it, and the constant switching of sizes, as clever as it seems, can be wearing; it’s cute that ordinary household objects can be enlarged to fight bad guys, but it is purely out of the realm of reality that such items can be manipulated and maneuvered into just the right position every single time.

This movie has twists and turns galore, many featuring Dr. Pym’s former partner Dr. Bill Foster (Laurence Fishburne) and a young woman Foster took in as a child, Ava (Hannah John-Kamen).  The subplot involving Ava takes center stage as the story develops, yet it felt extraneous to me, despite the urgency with which it is presented and played.  I felt that Ava’s issues would be addressed in due course, so all the fuss made about her was more distracting than dramatic.  And then there’s the whole rescue effort directed toward the quantum realm, which made the story more fantasy than adventure in my book — and I’m not big on fantasy.

I would expect that fans of this stuff would eat it up and want more.  Certainly the ending cries out for more.  It’s handsomely-produced razzle dazzle, with a fair amount of heart, but I’m still fairly indifferent.  It was hard to get excited about a guy under house arrest who questions every single move he makes, or is asked to make; until he embraces his destiny, like the kid in the Spider-Man suit, he just isn’t particularly interesting to me.  The best character is undoubtedly Hope Van Dyne (Evangeline Lilly), the Wasp of the title, although I don’t recall her ever being addressed as such.  Now that’s a superhero!  ☆ ☆ 1/2.  4 September 2018.