While fans are still reeling from the events of Avengers: Infinity War, the Marvel Cinematic Universe marches on. Ant-Man and the Wasp had its world premiere last night and James Gunn has revealed what he thought of it. Unsurprisingly, he sings the praises of the movie, but while you might expect the Guardians of the Galaxy director to say the film was funny or fun, and he does, he also implies it has an emotional punch to it that we might not expect. Also, it may be more important to the future of the MCU than we thought.
Ant-Man was one of the more light and fun entries in the Marvel Cinematic Universe when it debuted, and the trailers for Ant-Man and the Wasp have shown that level of humor will be present in the sequel as well. While Ant-Man wasn't entirely without heart, it wasn't the most deeply emotional Marvel movie, but James Gunn specifically calls out Ant-Man and the Wasp for being "sweet" and "moving." With part of the film's storyline being about the attempt to rescue Janet Van Dyne from the Quantum Realm, that could be the part of the film that has a bit more of an emotional core to it.
The other interesting thing about James Gunn's Twitter review is his Pro Tip that everybody should be sure to see Ant-Man and the Wasp prior to Avengers 4. This would seem to imply that the new movie will include some important information that fans will want to know before we get to next year's big blowout. Beyond giving us an idea of what these characters were doing prior to the events of Avengers: Infinity War, we didn't necessarily expect this movie to relate directly to the Avengers films in any meaningful way, but Gunn's comments certainly imply that it does. Whether this is something core to the story, or just a post-credits sequence which contains something interesting, remains to be seen. Regardless, if you were thinking you might skip this one because it wouldn't be as important as Captain Marvel to the larger story, you might want to rethink that.
While Ant-man and the Wasp won't be the massive blockbuster that the last two Marvel movies have been, it sounds like it's still set to be a great summer movie that fans will enjoy. Sometimes you just need a fun superhero movie to take your mind off all the emotional events of the last superhero movie.
