Our church just had a group get together and go see the new Marvel super hero movie Ant-Man and the Wasp I am a big fan of superhero movies - especially Marvel Comics movies - and have been largely impressed over the years at the writing and production of these movies.
With Ant-Man and the Wasp, I was surprised at...
Wait. Let me just say that there might be a few spoilers ahead. Just so you know.
Ok. So I was surprised at the fact that the movie had no real villain. Certainly not like Avengers: Infinity War or even Dr. Strange or Black Panther. But there were some amazing portrayals of characters with conflicting moral and ethical points of view. For that, it should be required viewing for an ethics class somewhere.
What I mean is that all the characters are electing to act on behaviors predicated on their own idea of what is right and what is important. For a quick run down, Hank Pym and his daughter Hope want to find Janet, Pym's wife and Hope's mother. For them, nothing else matters, even the house arrest of Scott Lang. If he gets in trouble for their whisking him off on a mission, that hardly concerns them.
The Ghost simply wishes to find a cure for what seems, at first, to be an awesome power. Again, nothing else matters to her but finding the cure. She will do whatever it takes to be made whole again. Against that, is the character of the man trying to facilitate that healing, Bill Foster (who was the character Black Goliath in the comics - hint!). There comes a point where Bill and the Ghost come into conflict when the Ghost wishes to utilize Lang's daughter as a means to get Lang to do what the Ghost wants. Foster steps up to the plate and says that hurting a child is out of the question. Clearly the man has a strong moral compass in that regard! In fact, it is Foster who keeps trying to direct the actions of the Ghost in ways that are not harmful to others. In that respect, he is the ethical ground for the Ghost and does his best to be the voice of reason.
Pym, however, does not care what becomes of Lang, at least not in the immediate sense. He only wishes to accomplish his goals. Lang and his concerns are a distant second to his own agenda - a point that Foster makes in explaining why he and Pym had a falling out years earlier.
In the middle of this is Scott Lang, Ant-Man. His concern is largely to stay out of trouble. He wants to do right by his daughter, his ex-wife, and certainly by the FBI who have him under house arrest at the beginning of the movie - which are the consequences from his actions in the Captain America movie Civil War. He is drug into the action unwillingly, and keeps asking for the other characters to take his concerns and needs seriously - which they often do not.
I found that the movie was a good one, but I also found that it fit right in with the series I am currently doing on ethics. As such, if you are so inclined to do a little more study on the ramifications and ethics of our actions, you might want to give Ant-Man and the Wasp a try.
Oh, and you might want to see Avengers: Infinity War first. Just to prevent you from some confusion with a scene...
Well, I don't want to give any more away than I have to.
