I’ve still got a lot of pruning to do when it comes to catching up with the remaining 2022 films, but time keeps on rolling right along. Since I finally got around to writing about Wakanda Forever, I figured this is as good an excuse as any to stay within the Marvel Cinematic Universe.
Ant-Man and the Wasp: Quantumania was a colorful and entertaining enough romp through the Quantum Realm to kick off Phase 5 of the MCU, but it struggled with tonal balance, an overcrowded story, and its scope.
Things seemed to be looking up for Scott Lang. He was reunited with his daughter, the Infinity Saga is in the rearview, he’s enjoying his new-found celebrity, and even has a book deal! Normal life looks good, or so it would appear. However, his daughter and would-be father-in-law decide to create a beacon down to the Quantum Realm (just for shits and giggles) despite very stern warnings from the only person in the family who actually survived it for 30 years, and then the whole family gets sucked into some kind of Quantum vacuum and away we go!
I could give a “Spoiler Free” review but that doesn’t allow me to actually talk about what I think is important. It would be pretty short and sweet. Something along the lines of, ‘It’s entertaining enough if you take it on the surface level. It’s very visual effects heavy that will either work for you or be too much, Jonathan Majors is great when he has the opportunity and Paul Rudd is Paul Rudd, but the cast is way too big and the movie doesn’t take itself seriously, so why should I?’ If you want to know more, keep reading.
***SPOILERS AHEAD***
I should probably preface what you are about to read by saying that I didn’t hate this movie. It was a perfectly enjoyable spectacle for a Sunday afternoon that showcased its production design and star power, but it fell short of its potential and that’s what I want to get at.
There were a number of reasons the characters could have returned to the Quantum Realm. Maybe something followed Scott when he made it out and the heroes need to send it back, maybe Janet left an important item down there that she needs to retrieve, or maybe Hank’s just trying to cross his Ts and dot his Is on the science behind Scott’s return. I could buy any of those but the catalyst we get instead is angsty teen rebellion. Really?!?…okay.
We get reintroduced to an 18-year-old Cassie (now played by Kathryn Newton) who has taken up social activism and is arrested as part of a protest over homeless rights. Naturally, Scott is not happy to be picking his daughter up at the police station and suggests that she find a different way to help that doesn’t land her in jail. How dare he… apparently. We next learn that Cassie actually looks down on her father for saving the world just the one time and also for being trapped in the Quantum Realm for five years. Then the whole family piles on, belittling him for resting on his laurels and enjoying the fruits of his labor over dinner.
Hey, do you guys know Ant-Man? Oh…you know…one of the most likable characters in the MCU thanks in large part to Paul Rudd’s charm and the reason all of you are here in a third movie, to begin with? Well, sorry, apparently he sucks now. By the way, literally saving the world just doesn’t cut it anymore either because he isn’t dealing with social issues. Awesome! Taking a look at what motivates a hero to be a hero could have been an interesting topic but what we got instead was so blatantly transparent.
Look, it’s one thing to have something of a rift in Scott and Cassie’s father-daughter relationship. She’s an adult now, with her own worldview, and he hasn’t been around because of…you know…that Thanos guy, the whole blip thing, and being trapped in Quantum space. That chasm between them makes sense so I can understand why Jeff Loveness would include that in the story. However, even with a solid foundation for some meaningful conversation about his role as her dad and the formative years they missed together, it never gets any deeper than those shallow remarks in the beginning and barely even comes up again. Instead, it’s just placated ‘I’m sorries’, ‘I love yous’, and hugs. That sucks because the father-daughter relationship should be paramount to the film, but there’s barely any room to even explore it. It’s also tough to have any chemistry when this is the third actress to step into the role. So, just don’t start something you can’t finish.
The basic plot idea is fine but it’s far too big for one film, causing a “too many cooks in the kitchen” situation, and the tone of Loveness’ script is all over the place as a result. I feel like we have been stuck in the same place with all of these films basically trying to imitate Guardians of the Galaxy when even its own sequel wasn’t quite there. That creates situations where the dialogue just exists to work toward a punchline rather than working toward moving the story forward. A great example of that is how Loveness and director Peyton Reed handled the introduction of the new characters.
I was excited to see M.O.D.O.K. on screen but, my goodness, what a joke he turned out to be. When he first appears, the Quantum characters are terrified of him and they should be. The tone is serious but then it almost immediately devolved into a punchline that got beat to death very quickly. So, fairly early on, we are being conditioned to not take this seriously. That’s fine if it’s supposed to be a zany comedy, but presents a lot of problems when kicking off Phase 5. There is supposed to be some gravity when introducing a multiversal threat who is being “officially” called more powerful than Thanos but we’re getting a tight five on big heads and baby legs. And to think that there was supposedly more of that at one point…yikes.
My primary reason for seeing this film was Jonathan Majors and he carries it to its highest peaks, but he also gets bogged down in the muck that goes along with the wannabe Incredibles family dynamic thing this film is trying and failing to pull off. Kang can see and/or has been to all of the futures throughout the multiverse and has the tech to back it up. That knowledge alone makes him scary and Majors wears that supreme confidence like a fine, fitted suit. However, much like the case with Gorr the God Butcher in Thor: Love and Thunder, we are once again told how big and bad Kang is, but we aren’t shown it. In fact, we are mostly shown the opposite. We see a Kang who was defeated and exiled by his counterparts, who can’t repair his own ship despite it being his technology, and who gets outsmarted and trapped in the Quantum Realm by Janet before the events of the film. All of his most evil and frightening exploits, the reasons we should be afraid of him, take place in Janet’s exposition while the characters travel from point A to point B. He is not a sympathetic villain either and rumor has it that some of that backstory was removed.
So, despite showing us the scale of the subatomic empire he’s built, and all the beings within it that fear him, all we have ever seen him really do is lose. Kang is supposed to be a threat on a massive multiversal scale, and I am hoping Majors gets the space to explore the depths of the character in other projects. Ultimately, the version we get was already beaten by Janet so there’s no reason presented to us to suggest that she wouldn’t beat him again, especially with her family of Ant-People by her side this time.
While I’m at it, I really enjoyed Michelle Pfeiffer getting a meatier role this time. Janet Van Dyne is a massive piece of Avengers history and she had mostly been relegated to the background up until this point. I would even argue that structurally, she’s arguably the lead in this movie and I’m totally fine with that. It was long overdue. Part of the problem was that her on-screen daughter, Evangeline Lilly, took up the mantle of Wasp before we got any of that from Janet.
And speaking of Evangeline Lilly, I have no idea what is going on with her in this movie. Sure she zaps people with her stingers but I can’t remember a single piece of dialogue from her (they exist but it was nothing memorable). It isn’t Lilly’s fault that there just isn’t room for her and even her one significant moment in the film would have been far more impactful had it come from one of the other characters, but seemed like it was shoehorned in just as a reason to have her around at all. The chemistry with Rudd just isn’t there to even make the moment work and the two are not really on screen together much in this one either.
The design of the Quantum Realm itself is cool and surprisingly mushroom dominant in spots, and I often felt like I was missing some sort of substance companion. There’s a lot to explore like rocket-propelled penis-shaped flying houses and seeing the variety of characters/creatures inside that world is one of the best parts of the film. However, it did come across as very Star Warsy in that way…for better or worse. There are also a bunch of new characters that we don’t have nearly enough time to establish relationships with and that’s a detriment when push comes to shove. There was also another (I’m guessing) unintended side effect of setting this film primarily in the Quantum Realm.
One of the things that makes Ant-man…well…Ant-man is his ability to shrink and grow but that’s an ability that requires scale. All of that is gone when things go subatomic. Sure, you still get him and the family of Ant-Persons resizing themselves, but I felt like it missed the point. How do you quantify scale on the Quantum level? For example, there’s a line of dialogue that says, “I feel like I’m hugging Godzilla” but both characters in the scene are equal in size so it’s the same as when they would hug any other time. That little joke snuck in there gives me some insight into what the script felt was valuable because it doesn’t understand its own logic and stuff lingers.
I think my hopes for this film were artificially inflated by Majors’ involvement and he is certainly one of, if not, the best parts of the movie. There is a good foundation here for something much better but, similar to my stance on Wakanda Forever, the idea was just too big for one film. There are interesting ideas that get brought to the table, but the movie is too cramped to explore any of those beneath the surface. So, what we are left with is fun but mostly superficial.
Recommendation: If you want to keep up with Phase 5, this seems like a must and Marvel completionists will have plenty to enjoy. But if you are dealing with superhero fatigue, then it’s totally okay to skip this one.
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