Ant Man 2 just suffers from a huge Scott Lang problem. After the first Ant Man, there really is no reason for him to keep putting on the suit other than the MCU just needs him to. Of course, they have an even better character for the role in the Wasp, both thematically and in fighting acumen, but they can't bring themselves to fully commit to her.

Add into that all the plot rigamarole -- we gotta have a conflict here, we gotta have another conflict there -- and a ridiculous deux ex machina that I'm guessing will completely vanish in Ant Man 3. I just don't like the movie at all.

I think this movie had potential to be a bizarre epic, but I struggled to understand literally every decision in the movie.

There's little to no reason for some of these characters. Sprite and Druig play almost no role in the movie and could have been excised completely. Gilgamesh is largely useless as well but gives you a bodycount. It's possible you could ax Thena as well, but Angelina Jolie was great in the role -- honestly, you could have just had her serve the dark role of Ajax. Selma Hayek was wrong for that role, and Jolie always has a dark undercurrent to her that fits the Ajax role better.

The film made two great decisions, and that's having Sersi operate basically as the protagonist, and Ikaris change sides and act as the antagonist. Gemma Chan and Richard Madden crush it.

Their decision to basically bench Kingo for the 3rd act was bizarre; perhaps it was true to the selfishness of the role, but he was an Eternal tasked with Earth, how did that selfishness come about? Why did we spend half the movie rounding up characters? What the hell was up with that evolved Deviant? Even a Celestial emerging slightly from the ocean would destroy Earth -- how did it not destroy Earth? (I've read from some theorists online that Tiamut sided with the Celestials and therefore willing allowed him(?)self to be transformed, but that's not even hinted at in the movie.) Kit Harrington had nothing to do.

There's just a lot to work with here, and maybe because the plot was so off the wall nontraditional, they didn't even know how to go about and fix it up. But that's a major failure.

The Ikaris fight with Thena/Sersi/Makkari/Phastos is one of the best in the MCU, hands down, and some of the casting decisions were phenomenal. All of the Celestial appearances are awesome, they feed the MCU and really give the movie an epic feel. It's shot beautifully, and again, I think the plot is just fantastic because it's so out of left field.

I just think some of the casting decisions, movie decisions, and writing was so weird and didn't fully work.