Ant-Man and the Wasp (2018)

Jack, Greg, and I really enjoyed this sequel, chock-full of special effects, science fiction, and, especially, jokes. Returning from the original Ant-Man we have Paul Rudd as Ant-Man (and co-writer), Evangeline Lilly as the Wasp, Michael Douglas as her father, Michael Peña (last blogged for The Martian) as Luis, and director Peyton Reed (all but Peña most recently in these pages for the 2015 movie).

This time we have additional talents of many, including Lawrence Fishburne (last blogged for Passengers) and Michelle Pfeiffer (most recently in Murder on the Orient Express).

Reed directs from a script credited to four other co-writers: Chris McKenna & Erik Sommers (last blogged for Spider-Man: Homecoming), Andrew Barrer (his second produced screenplay), and Gabriel Ferrari (his first), and it moves along nicely, with plenty of laughs, as noted above. We saw it the day after it opened about two weeks ago, so my memory isn't solid.

Jack wanted me to be sure to include the parallel with the TV series The Streets of San Francisco, starring Douglas in the 1970s, which often had chase scenes where cars zoomed off hills and smacked down below, and the same thing happens in this movie.

Composer Christophe Beck's (most recently in these pages for American Made) action-y score can be streamed from this playlist.

Many have pointed out that no one has appeared in as many MCU (marvel Cinematic Universe) movies as writer/producer/actor Stan Lee. We were worried about Lee (he's 95 years old!) when his Deadpool 2 cameo was just a wall painting--so inconsequential I forgot to write about it then but I went back and added to the original post. He's back in fine form for this one with a funny bit, about 3/4 of the way through, during yet another car chase.

Rotten Tomatoes' critics at 87% and its audiences at 79 agree, for the most part, with us. It's still playing pretty much everywhere.