Unlike Marvel’s Captain America and Black Panther, who pack muscle with gravitas, Ant-Man (Paul Rudd) is a lightweight, a former burglar whose antiauthoritarian streak matches his reluctance to grow up. In this sequel to Ant-Man (2015), the hero’s ability to shrink becomes the perfect metaphor for a man-child with a battered ego and poor impulse control. Father-and-daughter rogue scientists (Michael Douglas, Evangeline Lilly) shanghai the hero as part of their plot to rescue the long-lost superheroine Wasp (Michelle Pfeiffer) from a space-time purgatory called the quantum realm. The screenwriters (Rudd among them) frequently mock their own sci-fi jargon, their snarkiness the strong suit in a movie offering little more than souped-up car chases. Peyton Reed directed; with Michael Pena as Ant-Man’s scene-stealing majordomo.