In Ant-Man and the Wasp – which I need not remind everyone is one of the many standalone, loosely connected movies in the Marvel film universe – a lot of the action is supplemented by some fine comedy bits. Then again, that’s also something I didn’t need to remind anyone.

As long as I am listing things I needn’t remind people, let me also point out that the movie also suffers from the curse of the sequelitis – a problem every second part of a film franchise is infected from by birth; the nasty burden to live up to the first film. This doesn’t mean that returning director Peyton Reed (Yes Man, Down with Love) doesn’t try shaking things up a bit.

Actually in all honesty, there really isn’t much to shake-up. Ant-Man and Wasp keeps its head low in the world of bombastic super-heroics. There is no world-ending agenda here from the villains (in this case, a woman donning a white suit and mask calling herself “Ghost”, who can phase-through matter).

The story primarily wraps up the briefly mentioned backstory from the first Ant-Man – the journey into the microscopic quantum realm. Hank Pym, Scott Lang and Hope van Dyne (Michael Douglas, Paul Rudd, Evangeline Lily) try to save Pym’s long-lost wife Janet (Michelle Pfeiffer) from the micro-universe she’s been trapped in for decades. Side-plots include a villain who wants to exploit Pym’s research, Lang’s friend’s folding business (Michael Pena is quite a bit of fun this time around again), and helping out a desperate character who ultimately has a few hours to live.

Given the tone of the Ant-Man series you know things aren’t as desperate as the characters say it is.

Most of Ant-Man and the Wasp is good, clean fun, a lot of refined, tricky-to-pull-off visual effects and neat, comedic-action sequences. It’s not laugh-out-loud comedy, or even as original as the first film – but then again, very few follow-ups are. •