After a pretty bad hangover from the spoils of success with the Infinity Saga, the Marvel Cinematic Universe has now hit its burnout phase a.k.a Phase 5. Lacking a clear direction in Phase 4, Ant-Man and the Wasp: Quantumania enters a new phase hoping to correct the course for new stories to tell by introducing the next big bad, Kang the Conquerer (Jonathan Majors). Ant-Man/Scott Lang (Paul Rudd) is a very strange character to have kick off this major storyline. What’s a little more alarming is that second installment, Ant-Man and the Wasp (2018) was a huge drop off in quality from the initial 2015 film and not having much to do with The Wasp/Hope Van Dyne (Evangeline Lily). Unfortunately following suit, Ant-Man and the Wasp: Quantumania forgets to realize how important its titular characters are and reduce them to practical nothingness. If the film achieves anything, it’s introducing Kang.
Having moved on from saving the world by helping defeat Thanos, Scott spends his time being as leisurely as possible while also promoting his new memoir. While enjoying the simple things in life, his struggle to connect with his daughter (that he lost five years of due to being trapped in the Quantum realm) continues and his purpose continues to be a mystery. Somehow, his daughter, Cassie (Kathryn Newton), who manages to protest and learn the science of quantum physics builds a signal receiver to the Quantum realm with her grandfather, Hank Pym (Michael Douglas). However, her grandmother, Janet Van Dyne’s (Michelle Pfieffer) time in the Quantum realm immediately sets off her alarms piquing her families concern over her experience. Working only as an excuse to get this family into the Quantum realm, we’re off and running with one of the many useless things that occur in this hodgepodge of poorly ripped off lifelong inspirations for director Peyton Reed.
There’s no doubt that once we get back into the Quantum realm, pretty much everything we see is something we’ve already seen in Star Wars. Whether it be snippets from a cantina or a double crossing smuggler, or practically copying the same beats as Star Wars: The Rise of Skywalker (2019), Quantumania has no originality nor any real chance at being successful. Taking nods from greats such as Star Wars: A New Hope (1977) and Star Wars: The Empire Strikes Back (1980) is one thing, but deciding to ripoff a terrible film, Star Wars: The Rise of Skywalker (2019), is a head scratching decision. What’s even more confounding is the decision to not only copy the same beats, but port over the same nonexistent character arcs. The idea of Scott having any sort of arc of getting back in the fight is thwarted by not having a selfless reason to do so, and as for everyone else? Nada.
Kang unfortunately carries the MCU tradition of bad villains that don’t have any sort of relatable motivations, but luckily Majors is cast to bring a fearful presence on screen with a strong performance. His presence in the Quantum realm raises questions about Janet’s time there but none of those questions after meeting Lord Krylar (Bill Murray) are ever brought up again or even answered with significant meaning. The exposition, mostly stemming from Janet trying to explain her relation to Kang, is ever present but also lazily spelled out or just down right confusing. Any and all issues beginning with the characters or script overflow into every aspect of the film to a point that’s stupefying. For a character and series that bases most of its action and comedy by the scale of the characters is irrelevant in this completely CG rendered world that eliminates any sense of scale since all of these characters are actually so small that they couldn’t be seen by the naked eye.
The CG rendered world opens up the creativity, which is capitalized on with houses that are also sentient beings, but under the MCU’s ridiculously time-crunched schedule there’s no way for any of these images to render to a finished quality. Two of the most obvious examples come from the villains- yes, there are a surprising two- one being a henchman. M.O.D.O.K. (Corey Stoll) is a notoriously difficult character to render because of how absurd his design is but the image of a ginormous head with a comically warped face is made even more nightmarish with an unfinished rendered face and an embarrassing lack of dimension to the face. The second moment comes at the expense of the poor visual effects artist who probably had an hour to make a shot of Kang disappearing. It looks like a poor Photoshop that’s akin to some of the visual effects in Twin Peaks: The Return (2017) that are purposely bad, but aren’t in Quantumania. Once again, Marvel’s visual effects are being bested by a film made for at least a quarter of the budget, Everything Everywhere All at Once (2022), which ironically did most of its visual effects through Photoshop.
Ant-Man and the Wasp: Quantumania once again is continuing the Phase 4 tradition of not just being disappointing but even being an outright embarrassment to the franchise’s name. Forgetting one of the titular characters outright and undermining the your protagonist is one thing if you’re putting all your focus into the villain that’s going to be the staple of your franchise moving forward, but when you don’t even do that, why not hire an experienced professional to rework the script? What’s also baffling is that Ant-Man veteran director, Peyton Reed, completely forgets how to competently direct action sequences or maintain a consistent tone for the film. Only making matters worse is Adam Gerstel and Laura Jenning’s incomprehensible editing. Simply put, Ant-Man and the Wasp: Quantumania is by far the most embarrassing output Marvel’s had since its first two phases and is definitely not worth anyone’s money for overpriced tickets. I usually recommend films, but there’s absolutely no way in hell I’m recommending this to anyone.
Exploring the Seventh Art 