Ant-Man and the Wasp review round-up: Paul Rudd is 'witty', Evangeline Lilly 'radiant' in upcoming Marvel film

Marvel’s next, Ant-Man and the Wasp, will hit the big screens on 5 July. The movie has already started to stack up on the hype as reviews have started to pour in from around the globe. Ant-Man and the Wasp, the sequel to 2015’s Ant-Man, is the 20th movie in the Marvel Cinematic Universe. It stars Paul Rudd, Evangeline Lilly, Michael Peña, Walton Goggins, Bobby Cannavale, Judy Greer, Tip “T.I.” Harris, David Dastmalchian and Hannah John-Kamen. Directed by Peyton Reed, this is what crtics have been saying about Ant-Man and the Wasp: Variety writes, “That each of these films is somehow ‘relevant’ to the greater MCU is a conceit that isn’t always borne out by what’s on-screen. Yet Ant-Man, by living in his own universe of wisecracking micro obsession, justifies his existence. Rudd’s performance has only gained in confidence (having a hit will do that for you). In ‘Ant-Man and the Wasp,’ he’s direct and witty and alive…” Vox writes, “The director, Peyton Reed, also made the first Ant-Man (2015), but at the time he’d never helmed a special-effects blockbuster before, and his inexperience showed… In Ant-Man and the Wasp, Reed keeps the entire movie — one-liners, Macy’s Parade effects, hand-to-insect-wing combat — spinningly aloft. " [caption id=“attachment_4621041” align=“alignnone” width=“825”]  A still from Ant-Man and the Wasp/Image from Twitter.[/caption] AV Club writes_, “Throughout, the characters keep changing size; Hope, who has taken on her mom’s role as the new Wasp, now has a winged high-tech suit of her own, while Scott has been saddled with a malfunctioning older model, at one point getting stuck at the height of a small child. It all climaxes with a fun car chase through the streets of San Francisco, with our heroes using Pym’s technology to shrink their pursuers’ bikes out from under them and lob giant Pez dispensers in their way. But the scale of the stakes never changes. For better and worse, ‘Ant-Man and the Wasp’ knows it’s small potatoes.”_ Entertainment Tonight writes, “The sequel to 2015’s Ant-Man, whether by nature or by design, is as close to the polar opposite of Infinity War as can be: Like something of a palate cleanser, light and a whole lot of fun and on a significantly smaller scale. " Rolling Stone writes, “Sometimes better-than-good things do come in small packages. The proof can be found in ‘Ant-Man and the Wasp,’ a fizzy treat of a sequel that retains the becoming modesty of the original, but with a timely new twist. The Wasp, played by the radiant Evangeline Lilly, becomes the first female character ever to appear in the title of a Marvel movie. (Time’s up for sexism in the MCU.) Hope gets her own power suit this time – and wings! Eat your heart out, Black Widow. And her relationship with Scott, combative and romantic often at the same time, fires up the plot.”