How one cataclysmic screenplay decision doomed the most joyful franchise in the Marvel Universe.
Genre: Superhero
Premise: When Dr. Hank Pym uncovers information that his wife, who went missing decades ago after descending into the “quantum realm,” may still be alive, he sets out to find her.
About: The new sequel to Ant-Man had the difficult task of being the first Marvel Film to follow Avengers: Infinity War. And yet it did pretty well, finishing with 76 million dollars at the box office this weekend. With a low budget by superhero movie standards (120 million), that ain’t so bad.
Writers: Chris McKenna & Erik Sommers and Paul Rudd & Andrew Barrer & Gabriel Ferrari
Details: 2 hours long
I am always entertained by Marvel movies.
I may not be bowled over by them. But the combination of solid screenwriting, great casting, and a set piece or two that you’ve never seen before, makes me feel like my money was well spent.
Ant-Man and The Wasp is the first Marvel movie where I wanted my money back.
Scott Lang (Ant-Man) is on house arrest for his participation in some crime from the last film. Across town, Hank Pym, the man who built the original Ant-Man suit, and his daughter, Hope, start having mysterious dreams that Hank’s wife, who he lost during a mission when she went into “subspace” forty years ago, is still alive. So he wants to go save her.
Scott, who had a similar dream, likely due to his journey into subspace himself, is recruited to help Hank and Hope find Hank’s wife. When they try and buy a piece of technology from Walter Goggins that will help them get to the quantum realm, a superhero named Ghost, whose molecular structure is so unstable, you can’t hit her, shows up to steal Hank’s lab (which has been turned suitcase-sized) so SHE can get into subspace and fix her molecular issues.
The suitcase-sized lab then works as a McGuffin. Everyone is after it for their own reasons. Because the tunnel to subspace will close soon, time is running out for Hank and Hope to save their wife/mom. They will have to get the lab, figure out where the wife is, then rescue her, all before the movie is over.
Here’s the thing about Ant-Man and The Wasp. It should’ve worked. The core of the plot is not only character-driven, but emotionally poignant. Hank is trying to rescue his wife who disappeared 40 years ago in sub-atomic space. Building a superhero movie around something so personal is usually a recipe for a good film.
On top of this, you had, in theory, a complex villain in Ghost. Here’s this woman whose power is also the source of all her misery. That’s the best kind of power to give a superhero, one that’s also a burden, as it adds a complex layer to every choice the character makes.
So then what happened?
Well, for starters, Ant-Man and The Wasp had enough exposition in it for four Marvel movies. And it’s not hard to figure out why. You had Hank and Hope’s story with their mom. You had Scott’s story with his daughter. You had Scott’s house arrest story. You had the story for why Hope and Hank needed Scott’s help. You had Ghost’s story. You had Ghost’s dad’s story. You had Michael Pena’s Security Company story. And you had Walter Goggins thief story.
The more storylines you add, the more explaining you’re going to have to do. Explaining is exposition. Exposition is a MOMENTUM-KILLER. Therefore, every time this movie felt like it was getting somewhere, we’d stop and have to explain 20 million things. There’s a scene where Ghost has tied up Scott, Hank and Hope to extract information from them and it goes on and on and on because of how much everybody needs to say. Why does everybody need to say something? Because there’s SO MUCH INFORMATION the audience needs to know in order to understand what’s going on.
I don’t even know why I say this anymore since clearly nobody’s listening. But the more characters and storylines you add, the clunkier your screenplay is going to be. The only time this isn’t true is when you have forever to smooth everything out. That wasn’t the case here. They were on a typical rushed sequel deadline. So they signed their own death warrant when they decided to include 6 simultaneous story threads amongst a script that already was going to be exposition-heavy with all the quantum realm stuff that needed to be explained.
At the very least, they should’ve cut Walter Goggins out of the story. What was he doing here?? He was just some random dude. He didn’t even understand the technology he was after. At least with Ghost, the technology had the capability to save her. So her pursuit made sense. But come on. That simple cut would’ve brought your movie down from 90% exposition to 80%, which is still 60% too much, but it would’ve been an improvement.
Now you may say to me, well hold on Carson. Avengers: Infinity War had a really complex plot and it worked. Actually, Avengers: Infinity War wasn’t as complex as you think. A guy was trying to get 5 crystals so he could destroy the universe. That plot engine was so prevalent throughout every scene (save for some of the Thor stuff), that we were never confused about what was going on. Ant-Man and Wasp, by contrast, had to give us updates every five minutes on where the characters were, why they were doing what they were doing, and what needed to happen next.
But it was only as the movie was wrapping up that it occurred to me what the true problem was. And it was a mistake so baffling, I can’t believe nobody making this film caught it.
Ant-Man and The Wasp has nothing to do with Ant-Man.
Think about it. This storyline has zip to do with Scott Lang. He has no emotional tie to Hank’s wife or Hope’s mother at all. It’s their story. They’re the characters driving the plot. As a result, the entire movie is one big series of scenes where they’re trying to come up with reasons for Ant-Man to be in the movie.
It got so bad that at one point, I kid you not, they have Scott BECOME THE WIFE! She pulls a Whoopi Goldberg and somehow takes over Scott’s brain so that she can let her husband and daughter know where she is. That’s how desperate they were to figure out ways to include Ant-Man.
In retrospect, this may be the worst plot decision ever made in a superhero film. You’ve created a plot that doesn’t need your main character!!! How dumb is that??!!!!? And look. Maybe – MAYBE – they could’ve saved face if the people going after the mom were, you know, likable. But Evangeline Lilly’s Wasp was a big fat whiner who sucked the happiness out of every scene. And I don’t think Michael Douglas even knows what a superhero is. He’s the equivalent of a dad at his teenage daughter’s birthday party pretending to understand Snapchat. Good god is he miscast.
The final problem is the budget. They had 120 million dollars and decided to spend 10 of it on the first 90 minutes and 110 on the last 20. Therefore, the first hour and a half is people in rooms talking about really exciting things such as where they have to go next. The next 10 minutes is all the big special effects shots, every one of which was already shown in the trailer. And then, when we get to the culmination of the story – the quantum realm – the place where we assume all the moola has been spent, it’s a big fat nothing-burger. Sub-space looked like a half-rendered effects shot for one of those early computer generated Saturday morning cartoons. We’ve spent the entire movie building up to this moment and this is what we get??
The reason I’m so passionate about this is because Ant-Man was my favorite Marvel superhero. Now I kind of hate him. He’s pointless. I hope this isn’t a new trend going forward. Will Black Panther 2 focus on Martin Freeman’s daughter getting kidnapped and his quest to get her back? Maybe, if Black Panther is lucky, he’ll get to fight side-by-side with Martin. What a disaster.
[x] What the hell did I just watch?
[ ] wasn’t for me
[ ] worth the price of admission
[ ] impressive
[ ] genius
What I learned: There are screenplays where the hero drives the plot. There are screenplays where the villain drives the plot. But I don’t know many screenplays where a secondary character drives the plot. I’m not saying it can’t be done. There are probably a few examples in history where it’s worked. But I will say that if that’s the way you’re structuring your story, you’re doing it wrong. When you trace all the problems of this script back to their source, it’s that the best thing about your property, Ant-Man, aka the TITULAR CHARACTER, is a background player. I can’t fathom why they did this.
