Rotten Tomatoes Gives The Smallest Award To Ant-Man & The Wasp

In recognition of the film being Certified Fresh, review aggregator site Rotten Tomatoes has given the smallest, most adorable award ever to Ant-Man & The Wasp. The sequel to 2015’s Ant-Man teamed Paul Rudd’s Scott Lang with Evangeline Lilly’s Hope Van Dyne, and marked the first time ever a female Marvel character had her name in the title. The movie’s director Peyton Reed recently said he’d like to see The Wasp return as the leader of an all-female team of Marvel superheroes.

It’s obviously been a huge year for the MCU, with Ant-Man & The Wasp joining Black Panther and Avengers: Infinity War to form a blockbuster trifecta. Rotten Tomatoes has been kind to the MCU in 2018. Black Panther briefly carried a rare 100 percent rating on the site before ultimately being knocked down to a still very strong 97 percent. Infinity War meanwhile stands at 83 percent on the site, but is actually stronger than that among non-critics with a 91 percent audience score.

Related: Ant-Man & The Wasp Was (Barely) A Box Office Success

Though Ant-Man & The Wasp can’t boast box office numbers as massive as Infinity War, which has made $2.046 billion worldwide to date, it can brag about having a better RT critics score at 88 percent. And in honor of its official fresh certification on Rotten Tomatoes, Ant-Man & The Wasp has been handed an appropriately tiny award. See the minuscule prize below with Pez for scale:

With $465 million in worldwide grosses so far, Ant-Man & The Wasp may be a relative lightweight compared to its fellow 2018 MCU releases, but it still qualifies as a success for Disney as they continue their utter box office dominance. After the relatively somber tone of Infinity War, the light-hearted Ant-Man & The Wasp was seen as something of a palette cleanser for audiences. Of course, being part of the overall MCU continuity, the movie also served its purpose as a springboard into Avengers 4, which will definitely involve Ant-Man in some capacity and will likely take place at least partly in the Quantum Realm where Scott Lang found himself stranded.

Would Ant-Man & The Wasp have been an even bigger hit but for a small feeling of MCU fatigue in the wake of the universe-shattering Infinity War? It’s hard to say. Critics surely embraced the movie, as reflected in its 88 percent RT score. In this instance, the movie’s genuine standalone nature may have helped it with critics, as it wasn’t forced to bear the burden of a lot of momentous plot development or complicated set-up for future movies. Being an (almost) pure standalone, Ant-Man & The Wasp was able to tell its story in relative freedom, and arguably was a more purely entertaining movie as a result.

More: Avengers 4 Theory: Ant-Man & The Wasp Started Doctor Strange’s Endgame Plan