Coming on the heels of Avengers: Infinity War is a very different sort of film with Ant-Man in the Wasp. While Marvel's last movie was full of heavy drama and life and death stakes, the sequel to Ant-Man promises to be a bit lighter and have some fun.
How well it succeeds is a question for the review. You can find that here. Or, give the latest episode of ReelBlend a spin. The hosts of our new podcast break the film down, FREE of spoilers!
The question we want to answer right now, however, is if it's worth it to you to spend the additional money on a 3D showing of Ant-Man and the Wasp. We break down the good and the bad of the film's 3D below, so you can make an informed decision.
Superhero action movies are almost always a good fit for 3D presentation. There's always a lot going on, including great action and visually stunning special effects. 3D gives the characters another dimension to move in, and can give the action a very different feel. Ant-Man and the Wasp might be even more fitting for a 3D film than you're average special effects blockbuster, as the additional dimension means that as the movie plays with the size of characters and objects, it gets to play with their depth as well as their height.
It's clear that the filmmakers knew they had the ability to do some interesting 3D work, as the movie feels like it was filmed specifically to take advantage of it. The 3D allows tiny objects on the screen to pop a bit more, making them easier to follow. The 3D also means that when Ant-Man and the Wasp shrink down to insect size, the rest of the world feels all the more massive and imposing. Even in the simple shots that aren't full of CGI, care is taken to make everything feel deep and real.
Part of the fun of 3D movies is when objects come flying out of the screen toward the audience. Some may think it's a gimmick, but done right, it can add to the experience in fun ways. Ant-Man and the Wasp clearly knows it has this space to play with, and while it doesn't ignore it entirely, this is the one place where you feel it could have done more. When some tiny object grows to an incredible size it feels like they should start to fall in your lap, and while they do push the boundaries of the front of the screen, it never really goes beyond that.
Where Ant-Man and the Wasp lacks in before the window 3D, it more than makes up for it behind. San Francisco feels like a real city when you get to see it stretch out beyond the foreground action. When our heroes are tiny everything around them feels massive and imposing thanks to the depth of the 3D and when objects grow beyond their normal size the added depth makes them feel more tangible and real. Action fills the background as well as the foreground, and moves between the two effortlessly.
Brightness is a tough category to judge objectively because, to some degree, this is dictated by the brightness of the projector being used, meaning different theaters can have different experiences. However, I had no particular issues with the brightness of the Ant-Man and the Wasp. This is at least partially aided by the fact that there simply aren't many dark scenes in the movie on the whole. The movie is bright in every sense of the term. As such, the natural dimming that 3D glasses provide is never so much that following the action becomes difficult.
The glasses off test is entirely unscientific but it can be a gauge of just how much depth is being created on the screen. The blurrier the image is when you take the glasses off, the more work is being done. This was tested for me at the very beginning of the film when my screening started with essentially no warning, so I didn't have my glasses on yet. Even the simple image of a house at night, a shot that doesn't need excessive 3D, was hard to look at. Other sequences in the film are downright unwatchable.
Motion sickness isn't an issue of mine outside the teacups at Disneyland and nothing in Ant-man and the Wasp is anywhere close to that. However, my guest at the screening found the opening sequence of the movie to include some motion that felt a little off and I thought the first major action sequence making my eyes cross slightly as I tried to follow all the motion with the added 3D. Nothing here is a dealbreaker, but just some stuff to be aware of.
Ant-Man and the Wasp isn't perfect when it comes to 3D, but it is an absolutely solid presentation. If you tend to see your action movies in 3D, you absolutely won't be disappointed. If you're a movie fan who tends to be more on the fence when it comes to the technology, it may be worth it to take the plunge with this one. There is some really impressive technical work done here that is worth seeing in its own right, but it also adds to the fun of the experience of the film itself.
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