You all know the drill by now (whoever reads this blog anyway)...there be SPOILERS AHEAD, so anyone who claims to have been spoiled by this post is simply being disingenuous.
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LAST CHANCE.
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Okay. After blowing fandom's minds with Avengers: Infinity War, Marvel smartly went a bit more low-key with its follow-up, the lighthearted Ant-Man and the Wasp.
Apart from a fairly predictable twist involving Laurence Fishburne's character Bill Foster, i.e. that Foster was actually in league with Hannah John-Kamen's Ghost, one which plays out fairly early in the film, unlike Marvel's usual third-act shockers, there's not much by way of "OMG, I don't believe it" surprises in the main narrative, even though there are a few fun bits peppered throughout.
Luis' "storytelling" moment, which I was almost afraid wouldn't feature, didn't disappoint, and it was even funnier that Paul Rudd and Evangeline Lilly got in on the Michael Pena lip-syncing action.
The big bombshell, however, dropped in the mid-credits sequence, when Thanos' population-eradicating finger snap is finally felt in this corner of the MCU, taking out the entire Pym family and leaving Scott stranded in the Quantum Realm. This is unique in that it's the first credits sequence to leave the hero hanging off the proverbial cliff, and it's no doubt a direct lead-in to Ant Man's participation in Avengers 4, or whatever they're ultimately calling it. And yet, even after this gasp-inducing twist, Marvel reassures us that "Ant-Man and the Wasp will return" thereby confirming what just about everyone else already figured out: that being reduced to ash by Thanos doesn't necessarily mean a final death.
Another point worth discussing is not so much a twist as it is a plot device: Janet Van Dyne's weird grab bag of powers. I mean...telepathy? Quantum energy healing? The ability to project her consciousness into someone else...to do...mind control? The screenwriters don't exactly bother to explain how the Quantum Realm has endowed her with these powers, instead contenting themselves with just asserting that she has them, and they both drive the plot forward and even resolve it in the end. Apart from that, these astonishing abilities are basically played, in the case of Paul Rudd doing his best Michelle Pfeiffer impersonation, for laughs.
The thing is, these powers are, in a word, awesome, and quite unlike anything else in the entire MCU, short of Thanos' near-omnipotence. There is incredible potential for what can be done with her powers. A sympathetic character with healing powers? A telepath (albeit one with apparent conditions) without the X-Men? Janet is the second hero (after Guardians of the Galaxy's Mantis) to have powers in the MCU that don't involve fighting with someone, and there is a heck of a lot they could do with what she's got. I wonder if they realize this. Honestly, Janet Van Dyne has got to be one of the gems of the MCU right now, or at least, she will be, once she's been reconstituted from a pile of ash.
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