‘Ant-Man And The Wasp: Quantumania’ More Mediocre Marvel
Ant-Man and the Wasp: Quantumania is the latest in the seemingly never-ending Marvel saga and we all know what to expect at this point. Superhero living his life, bad guy threatens things, punching, CGI lasers, nanotech helmets that disappear whenever someone has to say dialogue, villain speech, a moment where it looks like the hero couldn’t possibly defeat the bad guy, he defeats him anyway, life is good again, post-credits teaser for the next installment. People love it and these movies make money, but the formula is really starting to burn me out.
The third in the Ant-Man trilogy sees Scott Lang (Paul Rudd) living a happy life as a famous Avenger and being a dad to his teenage daughter Cassie (Kathryn Newton). He’s enjoying his normal life as a street-level hero with Hope Van Dyne (Evangeline Lilly) and her family Hank Pym (Michael Douglas) and Janet Van Dyne (Michelle Pfeiffer). He may not be in that top tier like Iron Man or Thor, but he’s famous and well-liked enough to get free stuff or have fans wave at him on the street, and that’s good enough for him.
Cassie joins the ranks of Marvel’s other genius, STEM-obsessed teens (Peter Parker, Riri Williams, Shuri, etc.) by creating a device capable of communicating with the Quantum Realm. Having been trapped in subatomic space for decades, Janet knows what’s lurking there and tries to warn everyone against it, but it’s too late and the whole gang is sucked into the quantum universe. In their quest to return home, they encounter a whole slew of generic wacky characters and eventually face off with Kang The Conqueror (Jonathan Majors) to try to save the multiverse and themselves.
Right off the bat, this film is no different from the myriad of others in the franchise, particularly the more recent entries which seem to trade weak humor and paper-thin scripts for the richer storytelling we saw pre-Endgame. Quantumania is not annoying like Thor: Love and Thunder and it’s not awkward like Eternals, but it feels largely forgettable—just something to keep the money train rolling.
The CGI battles, in particular, have really worn out their welcome and they no longer feel epic or grand. Marvel seems so concerned with shoving as many moving parts as possible into one frame that they forget important things like highlighting characters or grounding the battle in some kind of geography. It’s like if someone threw a handful of glitter at your face and told you to focus on any one individual piece. For as many stressed-out CGI artists worked under (presumably) terrible conditions to make it, the final battle in Quantumania ends up looking like a big pink and brown mess.
Thankfully, there are a few bright spots. Rudd might be one of the most effortlessly charming actors around and his charisma absolutely carries the first act. Likewise, Majors clearly enjoys playing Kang and presents a solidly menacing villain, even if they spend most of the movie telling us how dangerous he is instead of showing us. Still, Douglas was the standout for me because it’s clear he doesn’t give a shit and he’s just having fun with it. Every time he popped up to deliver some line about ants, his level of phoning it in had me thoroughly entertained. It was the tone this movie needed.
Maybe it’s superhero fatigue, or maybe I’m just not as into it after a string of disappointing movies, but I wish I could have enjoyed Quantumania more than I did.
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