Unlike the initial trailers for Black Panther, Thor: Ragnarok, or Avengers: Infinity War, the reception to the first trailer for Ant-Man and the Wasp one was decidedly more mixed across the board. The reasons for the reactions are varied; releasing the trailer the morning after glowing reactions to Black Panther feels admittedly silly, and some are still unhappy with the whole shakeout with Edgar Wright and the original film. One of the most popular ones complaints, however, seems to be how strange it is to release this film after Infinity War, though this film will have its events take place prior to Thanos' arrival to Earth.
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To be honest, coming in hot off the heels of Infinity War may be the best course of action for this particular staple of the Marvel Cinematic Universe. Following up Age of Ultron in 2015 with the first Ant-Man film allowed for an outsider's perspective on the Avengers universe, succinctly explaining its existence with the fact that, to the larger world, a team of superheroes literally blew up a country just for the hell of it. With the exception of the Guardians of the Galaxy, every other corner exists in relation to the Avengers in some capacity.
Even though the first Ant-Man film contains Avengers by way of Falcon, it's a brief enough acknowledgement of the larger universe that could be cut and you wouldn't lose anything from the larger narrative. The original movie was originally designed as a standalone film before being integrated into the larger narrative of the world, after all.
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Other MCU properties can't really afford this; Spider-Man exists because of the Avengers, Captain America's social circle is the Avengers, the Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D. and Defenders deal with the fallout of each respective Avengers movie, and Doctor Strange's area of expertise is a magical equivalent of the Earth's Mightiest Heroes. That refusal for superhero help is what allows Scott and the Pyms to carve out a smaller, but no less necessary and vital corner of the MCU.
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Every superhero film these days promises big action and even bigger stakes, and at times, it can be just incredibly overwhelming. It's a problem that the MCU has become all too accustomed to, with several films and TV shows failing to live up to their own rather grandiose ambitions. Infinity War is coming in three months, promising to be a swan song for a decade's worth of films and the actors associated with those films. Since the second film won't release until the following year, most of the storylines in the first Infinity War will have no other choice to end on incredibly tense cliffhangers to keep fans hyped. When the marketing for that second film is underway, it's going to build a lot of that on the idea of the end of an era, and whatever you feel about each individual film in the series, it can't denied that this culmination is a big deal for superhero movies.
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The idea of Ant-Man and the Wasp coming in to give us a breather before the big guns come rolling in 2019 is a more than welcome respite before every hero in the MCU takes the fight to Thanos for a last-ditch heroic effort to save everything. By design, these movies are self aware enough to realize that they work best as comfort food entries in between the heavy material of other films.
Not every MCU film needs to have big ramifications or promise the world to be good, they can be smaller in stakes while being crucial for the characters. That's how Thor: Ragnarok managed to get away with blowing up an iconic planet while also giving a much needed evolution to the titular God of Thunder. With only two films under its belt, the Ant-Man franchise has quickly proven to serve as a much needed breather from all the cataclysmic goings on in other corners of the MCU.
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Are we really expecting anything monumental to happen in this new movie beyond the return of Janet van Dyne? No, and that's perfectly fine. If Marvel wants to use the tiny power couple to use as its first true romcom that also happens to feature bugs, the studio can go right on ahead and do that. Romcoms are designed by their very nature to be easily consumed comfort food, and after Thanos has all the Infinity Stones on that big, ugly hand of his, some small comforts may be what we need at that moment.
Opening July 6, director Peyton Reed’s Ant-Man and the Wasp stars Paul Rudd as Scott Lang, Evangeline Lilly as Hope van Dyne, Michael Douglas as Hank Pym, Michelle Pfeiffer as Janet van Dyne, Judy Greer as Maggie, Bobby Canavale as Paxton, Michael Peña as Luis, T.I. as Dave, David Dastmalchian as Kurt, Walton Goggins as Sonny Burch, Hannah John-Kamen as Ghost, and Laurence Fishburne as Bill Foster.