'Ant-Man and the Wasp: Quantumania' Review: MCU's First Fifth Phase Flick Starts With a Quantum Flop
Ant-Man and the Wasp: Quantumania
PG13: For violence/action and language
Runtime: 2 Hours and 4 Minutes
Production Companies: Marvel Studios
Distributor: Walt Disney Studios Motion Pictures
Director: Peyton Reed
Writer: Jeff Loveness
Cast: Paul Rudd, Evangeline Lilly, Jonathan Majors, Kathryn Newton, David Dastmalchian, Katy O'Brian, William Jackson Harper, Bill Murray, Michelle Pfeiffer, Corey Stoll, Michael Douglas
Release Date: February 17, 2023
In Theaters Only
After fighting alongside the Avengers against Thanos in Endgame, Scott Lang (Paul Rudd) is back and capitalizing on his heroism as a best-selling author, living comfortably as a sell-out who doesn’t have to do hero stuff anymore. Lang is still steady with his love and superhero partner Hope van Dyne/Wasp (Evangeline Lilly). The only instability in his life is his complicated relationship with his daughter Cassie (Kathryn Newton). Cassie resents Scott for leaving the hero's life behind for self-serving fame. During a family dinner, Cassie and Hank (Michael Douglas) reveal that they’ve been working on a scientific machine that sends a signal down to the quantum realm, where they rescue Hank’s wife, Janet (Michelle Pfeiffer). While showing off the invention, they all get sucked into the Quantum Realm. With Cassie and Scott separated from Hank, Janet, and Hope, the two parties must converge to return home while avoiding Kang the Conqueror.
Jonathan Majors. Okay, that’s it. Good night everybody!
Seriously, Jonathan Majors has become a heavy-hitting newcomer who can turn water into wine with each performance. It feels like just yesterday I was at a P&I screening of The Last Black Man in San Francisco going, “WHO IS THIS GUY?!” Now he’s become so powerful he’s carrying Marvel movies. Through Kang the Conqueror, Majors delivers an incredibly menacing performance that breathes some desperately-needed life into the hollow CG void he’s stranded on. Kang brings genuine intimidation with a confident bravado and a calm demeanor.
Despite being an Ant-Man and the Wasp movie, Janet van Dyne is the entire emotional anchor and the only character with a somewhat enticing story. Janet hadn’t had any agency, so it was only fitting for her to be the central point of this installment. They weave her trauma with Kang’s rise to power; hey, it works. Man, if only this weren’t another tediously hollow MCU movie.
Well, we're at the fifth phase of the Marvel Cinematic Universe. Hold your applause. During the oversupply of phase four’s 18 film and television titles, they introduced crucial materials for this new phase, including the multiverse and the next universal threat, Kang the Conqueror (Jonathan Majors). For some reason, Kevin Feige entrusted Ant-Man and the Wasp to set the course for the next wave of neverending projects. Shifting the tiny superheroes—whose flicks were the palate cleanser to the four-course Avengers meal—into an appetizer role is a risky gamble. It’s a risky gamble that, if Feige wagered on, would’ve left him bankrupt.
Outside of Ryan Coogler and James Gunn (or Chloe Zhao, because I insist that Eternals was a damn good movie), Marvel movies have gone from being fun events to exhausting chores that leave me questioning my existence. I never felt that emptiness more than I did with Ant-Man and the Wasp: Quantumania. We are over 30 movies deep, and that Marvel formula is running on E right now.
Director Peyton Reed’s Ant-Man flicks may not have been the best in the MCU, but they had clear identities and prospered from being light heist flicks/summer blockbusters. When you strip the Ant-Man movies of their liveliness and delightful supporting characters (Michael Pena, my saint, I will pour one out for you) and attach a serious tone, it ends up looking like a slaughtered lamb.
Quantumania is the longest episode of Rick and Morty you’ve ever seen, with little wiggle room for imagination. I’m not just saying that because writer Jeff Loveness wrote some of the show’s best work. Most of the comedy operates on human characters joking about a poorly rendered CG creature’s appearance, especially Darren Cross’s (Corey Stoll) transformation into M.O.D.O.K. . When the film’s not wearing a Rick and Morty coat of paint, Loveness’ screenplay is drenched in the same mediocrity as the many other MCU phase four movies. It goes through the cycle of characters spouting exposition and setting up the big bad (Kang) for future projects.
No disrespect to the VFX artists who (hopefully) were decently compensated for their work, but the Quantum Realm’s setting is so uninspired. Whereas Gunn’s Guardians films offered a unique flair to make its cosmic setting pop, the Quantum Realm feels too much like Star Wars. The glaringly poor green screen quality resembles a mid-budget Robert Rodriguez family film from the early 2000s. However, Rodriguez knew his audience wasn’t asking for much given his $30-50 mil budget. Peyton Reed had double—if not triple—the budget, and for a 2023 film, this is embarrassing.
In a movie called Ant-Man and the Wasp, the Wasp herself is completely tossed to the side. Instead, Newton’s Cassie is forced into a weak father-daughter arc. Outside of having an annoyingly high moral compass, Cassie lacks personality. Most of her dialogue involves shouting “Dad!” or pestering him to help a tiny universe from Kang’s conquest when the main objective is simply getting back home in one piece. Unfortunately, Newton’s acting is weak in this film, even though she’s done well in other projects.
At this point, if the MCU’s going to repeat the algorithm of lazy humor, tedious exposition, and uninspired CG fight sequences, why bother? That’s what I like about these Marvel films, man. I get older, and they stay the same.
Please tell Kevin Feige that letting Rick and Morty writers pen MCU movies isn’t as inventive as he thinks it is. At the end of the day, you’re getting an extended episode of the sci-fi sitcom but with a Marvel coat of paint. Ant-Man and the Wasp: Quantumania is the latest example.
