As Scott Lang balances the challenges of being both a superhero and a father under house arrest, he is confronted by Dr. Hank Pym and Hope van Dyne with an urgent new mission. Scott must once again put on the suit and learn to fight alongside The Wasp as the team works together to uncover secrets from their past and rescue Janet van Dyne from the Quantum Realm.
Information |
|
|---|---|
Language |
English |
Country |
United States |
Premiere date |
July 6, 2018 |
Running time |
118 minutes |
Genre |
Action Adventure Comedy Sci-Fi |
Budget |
$162,000,000 |
Box Office |
$622,700,000 |
Crew |
|
Directed by |
Peyton Reed |
Produced by |
Kevin Feige Stephen Broussard |
Written by |
Chris McKenna Erik Sommers Paul Rudd Andrew Barrer Gabriel Ferrari |
Music by |
Christophe Beck |
Cinematography |
Dante Spinotti |
Edited by |
Dan Lebental Craig Wood |
Production Co. |
Marvel Studios |
Distributed by |
Walt Disney Studios Motion Pictures |
Official Trailer
The Plot
The Sacrifice of 1987
The film opens in 1987, as Hank Pym and his wife, Janet Van Dyne, prepare for a critical mission, leaving their young daughter, Hope, in the care of their housekeeper. Operating as the original Ant-Man and the Wasp, the couple shrinks down to intercept a Soviet nuclear missile aimed at American soil. Upon reaching the target, they discover they cannot shrink small enough to slip between the missile's titanium plating to disable the detonator. Realizing there is no other choice, Janet turns off her suit's regulator and goes subatomic. She successfully shrinks between the molecules, disabling the missile and dropping it harmlessly into the ocean, but the act leaves her lost in the Quantum Realm. Presumed dead, her sacrifice haunts Hank, who devotes decades to understanding the microscopic universe, eventually alienating his daughter.
House Arrest and Magic Tricks
In the present day, Scott Lang is nearing the end of a two-year house arrest sentence resulting from his violation of the Sokovia Accords while fighting alongside Captain America in Germany. With only three days left on his sentence, Scott tries to keep himself entertained and bond with his daughter, Cassie, who is visiting for the day. He has transformed his home into an elaborate indoor playground, complete with a cardboard maze and a slide that leads out the back door. To make ends meet, Scott has established X-Con Security Consultants with his friends Luis, Dave, and Kurt.
During a play session, Scott accidentally steps one foot through his garden fence, tripping the perimeter alarm. The FBI, led by Agent Jimmy Woo, immediately raids the house to ensure Scott hasn't escaped. Scott explains he was just "getting creative" to entertain Cassie. Woo is suspicious but eventually impressed by Scott's newfound skill in close-up magic, which he learned to pass the time. The FBI leaves, warning Scott that any further slip-ups will result in twenty years of prison. Cassie leaves with her mother, Maggie, and stepfather, Paxton, telling Scott she wishes he had a partner to watch his back.
The Quantum Entanglement
Trying to kill time, Scott takes a bath and falls asleep, drifting into a vivid, hyper-realistic dream. In the dream, he sees through the eyes of Janet Van Dyne, playing hide-and-seek with a young Hope inside the Pym residence. Startled by the realism of the vision, Scott retrieves a burner phone he had hidden away and leaves a voicemail for Hank Pym—breaking the silence between them for the first time since his arrest—detailing the dream. Shortly after, Scott is stung in the neck by a small flying object and tranquilized.
Scott wakes up in the back of a van, finding Hope van Dyne driving. She reveals she kidnapped him, having replaced his ankle monitor with a programmed decoy attached to a giant ant back at his house to fool the FBI. She takes him to their new lab, a massive building that Hank can shrink down to the size of a suitcase to remain mobile and hidden. Hank and Hope explain that when Scott entered the Quantum Realm and returned (during the events of the previous film), he may have become quantumly entangled with Janet. Scott's dream is confirmed to be a message from Janet, proving she is still alive. The Pyms are building a Quantum Tunnel to retrieve her, but they are missing a crucial component to stabilize the portal.
The Wasp and the Ghost
The trio heads to a restaurant to purchase the final component from Sonny Burch, a black market technology dealer. While Scott and Hank monitor from the van, Hope meets Burch, who knows her under the alias "Susan." Burch realizes who she is and refuses to hand over the component, intent on partnering with them to sell their quantum technology. Hope refuses, dons her Wasp suit, and engages Burch's henchmen. Utilizing her wings and blasters, she effortlessly takes down the goons in the restaurant kitchen, at one point enlarging a salt shaker to block a path and running across knives thrown in mid-air.
Just as Hope secures the component, she is attacked by a mysterious, phasing figure known as Ghost. The entity's ability to walk through solid matter makes Hope's physical attacks useless. Scott joins the fight in a new, work-in-progress Ant-Man suit, but the Ghost manages to defeat them both and escapes, stealing Hank's shrunken lab with the tunnel inside.
Project Goliath
Desperate to locate the lab, the team retreats to X-Con Security to strategize. Hank reluctantly decides to visit his estranged former partner, Bill Foster, who teaches at UC Berkeley. Disguised as academics, they infiltrate the university. Foster and Pym trade barbs about their past work on "Project Goliath," a size-changing experiment where Foster reached a record height of 21 feet. Foster deduces that if they can modify a regulator on an Ant-Man suit, they can track the lab's specific energy signature. However, Hank's new suit lacks the older regulator.
Scott realizes the only compatible regulator is in his original Ant-Man suit, which he hid in a trophy that Cassie took to school for show-and-tell. Scott and Hope sneak into the school, but Scott's malfunctioning prototype suit leaves him stuck at the size of a preschooler. They manage to retrieve the suit from Cassie's classroom just as the students return, barely escaping undetected.
The Origin of Ghost
Using the regulator, they track the lab to the home of Ava Starr (Ghost). They infiltrate the building but are ambushed and knocked unconscious by Ava. When they awaken, they are tied up, and Bill Foster reveals he is working with Ava. Ava explains that her father, Elihas Starr, was a colleague of Pym's who was fired and discredited. In an attempt to restore his name, Elihas conducted an unstable quantum experiment. The resulting explosion killed her parents, and as a child, Ava's molecular structure was destabilized, causing her to constantly phase in and out of existence—a painful condition that is slowly killing her.
Bill and Ava plan to use the Quantum Tunnel to extract energy from Janet Van Dyne to "fix" Ava, a process Hank warns will kill Janet. Hank fakes a heart attack, prompting Bill to open a tin of Altoids for medication. The tin actually contains trained ants, which enlarge to human size and thrash the room, allowing Scott, Hope, and Hank to escape with the shrunken lab.
A Message from the Realm
Having reclaimed the lab, the team sets it up in a secluded forest. They successfully open a stable version of the tunnel. Suddenly, Scott's mind is taken over by Janet. Speaking through Scott, Janet inputs a precise algorithm to locate her exact coordinates in the Quantum Realm. She warns them that the coordinates are shifting and they have a strict two-hour window to retrieve her before the realm becomes unstable again for a century. Restoration of Scott's mind leaves him disoriented but hopeful.
Meanwhile, Sonny Burch tracks the group down by infiltrating X-Con and injecting Luis, Dave, and Kurt with a "truth serum." Luis, unable to stop talking, reveals Scott's location. Ava, who is monitoring Burch, overhears this information. Burch tips off the FBI, and Agent Stoltz (a mole working for Burch) relays the info to Jimmy Woo. Luis calls Scott to warn him. Realizing he cannot be caught violating house arrest again without ruining his life with Cassie, Scott abandons the mission and rushes home.
Captured and Cornered
Pym and Hope are surrounded by the FBI in the woods. They are arrested, and the lab is confiscated. As Agent Stoltz attempts to steal the lab for Burch, he is knocked out by Ava, who takes the lab for herself. Scott makes it home just as Woo arrives to inspect him, barely maintaining his cover. However, seeing Cassie's disappointment that he isn't helping his friends, and with her blessing to be a hero, Scott breaks out again to rescue the Pyms.
Scott uses his trained ants to infiltrate the FBI holding cells, covering the surveillance cameras and breaking Hank and Hope out. They track the lab to a location near the docks. To even the odds, Luis, Dave, and Kurt arrive in a getaway van to provide backup.
The San Francisco Chase
The team initiates a multi-pronged assault. Hank enters the lab to board a quantum pod and dive into the Quantum Realm. Meanwhile, Scott and Hope distract Ava and Bill Foster. As the lab is shrunk and carried away by Luis, a chaotic chase ensues through the streets of San Francisco involving the heroes, Ava, and Sonny Burch's henchmen.
The chase features heavy use of size-shifting technology: the van shrinks to go under other cars and grows to knock them over. Hope enlarges a Hello Kitty Pez dispenser to crush a motorcycle pursuer. Eventually, Burch gets hold of the lab and sprints to a ferry. Scott grows into Giant-Man, wading into the ocean to stop the ferry and retrieve the lab. However, the exertion causes Scott to pass out and fall into the water, forcing Hope to dive in and rescue him.
Return from the Quantum Realm
Inside the Quantum Realm, Hank suffers hallucinations but eventually locates Janet in a wasteland of vibrant colors. They share an emotional reunion and kiss before heading back to the pod. In the real world, Ava and Bill regain control of the lab and begin the extraction process, which starts to drain Janet's life force. Scott and Hope arrive just in time to disable the machine. Hank and Janet safely materialize from the tunnel.
Hope is tearfully reunited with her mother. Janet, sensing Ava's pain, approaches her. Using her newfound quantum energy, Janet voluntarily places her hands on Ava, transferring some of her energy to temporarily stabilize Ava's molecules and stop the phasing pain. Outside, Luis and his crew utilize the truth serum on Burch and his men, leaving them for the police to find. Bill Foster decides to go into hiding to protect Ava, and they flee as the police approach.
A Fresh Start
Scott rushes home once more, shrinking his suit into the toy trophy just as Jimmy Woo bursts in. Seeing Scott playing drums and seemingly bored, Woo finally accepts that Scott has served his time. He removes Scott's ankle monitor, declaring him a free man. Scott immediately runs into Cassie's arms. Later, Hank and Janet shrink their house and move it to a beachside lot. Scott, Hope, and Cassie sit in a shrunken car, using a laptop as a drive-in movie screen, though they are briefly interrupted by a giant butterfly.
The Thanos Snap
In a mid-credits scene, the group has set up a smaller Quantum Tunnel on a rooftop van. Scott—wearing his Ant-Man suit—enters the Quantum Realm to harvest healing particles for Ava. He successfully collects the energy and radios for extraction. Hank, Janet, and Hope, who are manning the controls on the roof, begin the countdown. "Three, two, one..." suddenly, the line goes dead.
Scott jokes that they are playing a prank, but the camera reveals that Hank, Janet, and Hope have all disintegrated into dust, victims of Thanos's snap that wiped out half the universe's population. Unaware of the catastrophe, Scott is left trapped in the Quantum Realm, screaming for help.
In a post-credits scene, the emergency broadcast signal blares on the TV in Scott's empty house, while the giant ant, still wearing Scott's ankle monitor, cheerfully plays a drum solo.
Top Cast
- Paul Rudd as Scott Lang / Ant-Man
- Evangeline Lilly as Hope van Dyne / The Wasp
- Michael Douglas as Dr. Hank Pym
- Michelle Pfeiffer as Janet van Dyne
- Hannah John-Kamen as Ava Starr / Ghost
- Laurence Fishburne as Dr. Bill Foster
- Michael Peña as Luis
- Walton Goggins as Sonny Burch
- Randall Park as Jimmy Woo
- Abby Ryder Fortson as Cassie
Movie Collection
- Ant-Man (2015)
- Ant-Man and the Wasp (2018)
- Ant-Man and the Wasp: Quantumania (2023)
