As the Marvel Cinematic Universe continues to move on into it’s next distinct phase, the big anticipation seems to be not so must what the next movie or show will be about or if it will be any good but more of will this finally be the one where everyone says enough is enough? The whole term of Marvel fatigue is something that has roughly started around 2015 after the lukewarm reviews of Age of Ultron rolled around and continues greatly after Endgame wrapped up things for the main Avengers cast who carried the entire Infinity Saga on their shoulders. Despite some cracks in the armor beforehand, it was ultimately the negative reviews of Eternals shown that these movies can no longer be viewed as critic proof. Proof that continued to be in form after the mixed reviews of Multiverse of Madness and Love and Thunder along with the overall rotten ones that Ant-Man and the Wasp: Quantumania is currently receiving. Regardless of what your overall opinions on these movies and on post-Endgame as a whole is, it would be easy to claim that the Marvel Cinematic Universe is now in the current situation that Spongebob Squarepants has been in since the first movie or Pixar has been in since Toy Story 3. In that, perhaps Marvel had finally reached it’s peak and met it’s own match, where the lesser ones are no longer allowed to get a free pass and even the good ones just aren’t good enough anymore. If Quantumania is really gonna be viewed as the main MCU movie that broke the camel’s back for critics (it’s currently tied for Eternals as the worst rated movie on Rotten Tomatoes) and for audiences (it’s only the second movie to be given a B grade on Cinemascore), I certainly wish it went to a more interesting or even worse movie than this.
Despite what you might have heard, Ant-Man and the Wasp: Quantumania isn’t the worst Marvel movie ever made but it might just be the first one since maybe Thor: The Dark World that just feels like a waste of time. Even if the movie’s overall goal is to give everyone a clear direction as to where this next phase of the Marvel Cinematic Universe is going, it still has that feeling of inconsequentiality because of how little that will likely matter in the long run and how it barely progresses the characters and their stories here. It still hits the same beats you would expect or even want from a Marvel movie at this point but whether or not that will be enough is entirely up to you.
Premise: Taking place sometime after the events of Avengers: Endgame, Scott Lang (Paul Rudd) has become a successful memoirist and has been living happily with his girlfriend, Hope van Dyne (Evangeline Lilly). His daughter Cassie (Kathryn Newton), who is now a teenager and totally not played by Abby Ryder Fortson or Emma Fuhrmann, has become as scientifically minded as the Pyms and have gotten herself into trouble with the law after attending political rallies as an activist. While visiting Hank Pym (Michael Douglas) and his long-lost wife Janet van Dyne (Michelle Pfeiffer), Cassie reveals that she has been working on a device that can act as a tracker within the Quantum Realm. Upon learning about this and her experience within the Realm itself, Janet demands Cassie to shut it down but it’s too late. As a result, the device releases a portal that Scott, Cassie, Hope, Hank, and Janet all get sucked into and find themselves pulled straight into the Quantum Realm.
Once they reach the Quantum Realm, the group gets separate as Scott accompanies his daughter on one side of the realm while the Pym family find themselves together on another side. As they adventure through this weird world, they find there are other folks who live down there such as a rebel force who is fighting a war against armies led by M.O.D.O.K. (I won’t reveal the actor’s name in case no one is aware yet!) and a deadly mercenary known as Kang the Conqueror (Jonathan Majors). The group then must find a way to defeat these armies led by familiar and new foes, save the group of freedom fighters that live down there, and escape from the Quantum Realm before something even worse can possibly happen.
One thing that is clear right off the bat with Quantumania is how different it is in terms of tone, humor, scale, and style when compare to the first two Ant-Man movies. There’s no longer the small scale plots involving heists or personal family matters, no Michael Pena and his buddies, and it certainly can’t be described as a so-called, “palate cleanser”. Director Peyton Reed had gone on record claiming that he wanted to make his own “Avengers” movie with Quantumania and it clearly shows. We see more action, a somewhat darker tone, more expansion of the MCU lore and universe building, a more threatening baddie, and obvious setup to whatever the future holds. Yet it still doesn’t feel like it belongs for what you expect from an Ant-Man movie.
Say what you will about the previous Ant-Man movies, but they at least worked on their own level of being self-contained individual stories with a beginning, middle, and end with only an occasional cameo or Easter egg that gave you a hint of things to come. The same thing can’t be save for Quantumania as there are many subplots and threads that don’t get a clear resolution because it’s clearly being saved for upcoming movies. Who Kang is, what his motives are, and what his backstory consists of is mostly kept to the backside as that’s mostly kept vague in favor of possibly building his character up until whatever this new Avengers group will show up to fight him!
Granted, saying an MCU movie spends the majority of it’s runtime setting up other things is nothing new. This is an interconnective universe after all where all of it’s movie and shows connect with one another and there always tend to be a universe building set piece or two to give a hint at what’s to come next. The problem here is that there doesn’t seem to be much reason for this film’s existence outside of being set ups for other things to come and there isn’t a story worth telling here like some of the better Marvel things that make this stand out as it’s own thing. That’s why you hardly hear anyone complain about the universe world building in Captain America: The Winter Soldier than they would in Iron Man 2. I’ve always defended the MCU movies and shows as mostly acting as their own thing outside of the Avengers movies but I unfortunately cannot say the same thing here. Save for Iron Man 2 and possibly Avengers: Age of Ultron, I don’t think there has been the perfect example of the cinematic universe world building going too far in the MCU than with Quantumania.
The movie kicks off to a rather clunky start. We spend the first ten minutes rushing through where Scott as been up to all of this time while forcing out way through the Quantum Realm with awkward exposition and contrived actions made by the characters. Then we start exploring the Quantum Realm quite a bit with allows Reed’s to show off the weird, out-there visuals that is clearly inspire about his previous work from a certain sci-fi franchise (Many folks tend to forget he directed episodes from The Mandalorian!) along with other which for better or worse will welcome comparisons to that of the cheesy, sci-fi flicks from the 2000s such as Spy Kids and Shark Boy and Lava Girl. There’s some fun visuals here but the splitting up the main cast and have them deal with their own problems really makes it hard to get invested right off the bat.
When the movie starts to pick up a bit of momentum is whenever the villains come up on screen with M.O.D.O.K. and Kang. Despite having vague/dumb motives, they are entertaining whenever they come up on screen. M.O.D.O.K. brings his own style of camp that feels ripped out of a cheesy superhero movie that I couldn’t help but enjoy. Kang, on the other hand, with the help of Jonathan Majors, brings his own style of broodiness that definitely helps shows that Ant-Man is clearly out of his league when facing off against him. As much as I wanted more out of them and they certainly have quite underwhelming resolutions, the two just has their own energetic screen presence that I couldn’t help but have fun with them.
Performance wise, they are fine but there’s only a handful that’s able to shine well here. Paul Rudd is able to keep that charm and likability as Scott Lang/Ant-Man that he always tend to provide with whatever role he plays. (And that’s even including one scene where we see Scott show more anger and emotion than we’ve ever had). Jonathan Majors, again, is a main standout here as Kang the Conqueror, somehow able to make this mysterious and confusing character feel like a major threat in every scene he is in. While he’s not as much of a scene stealer as he was Loki and am not convinced that he will rival Thanos, Majors gives it all and is only the start of what I imagine will be a long journey for him as an established actor. Michelle Pfeffer gets more time to shine here as Janet van Dyne, certainly better utilized than she was in the last movie, and is able to make the character motives throughout the story seem believable even when the script fails at that. I won’t spoil the actor for M.O.D.O.K. in case no one is aware who the actor playing him is or the character but I approve of that performance as well.
The rest of the cast, however, is a mixed bag. Kathryn Newton is a talented young actress but I’m not sure recasting her as Cassie was needed, especially when Emma Fuhrmann felt more convincing as Scott’s daughter in just that one scene in Endgame than the entirety of the movie. She’s not particularly bad here but there’s nothing from the script that helps make the performance stands out, especially when a good chunk of the movie is her screaming “Dad!” and has one moment of a poorly written monologue meant to rally the troops. Evangeline Lilly has barely any screen presence as Wasp, clearly obviously being due to the actress’s off-screen controversy involving being anti-vaccine. Bill Murray is no better as he just has one expositional screen, which again was likely due to the recent controversy with him as well. Michael Douglas is fine but underutilized this time out as it seems like the movie can’t decide how important he should actually be on this journey. Everyone else is serviceable but none of them stand out in any meaningful way.
Production wise, they are just as much of a mixed bag as it has been. Certain visuals stand out well while other fall flat and are clearly green screened. There are moments where M.O.D.O.K. looks as beautiful as he does ugly than there are others where he looks as ugly as he does beautiful. There are sequences involving Ant-Man, Wasp, and Cassie that look cool but others where it looks about as cheap as it can get. I don’t know if it’s due to constantly rushed productions or what but I seriously hope Marvel is either able to hire more VFX artists in the future or they just push back certain movies altogether if that can make these movies look better because now, it’s just ridiculous.
Despite what seems like a mostly negative impression that I’ve written out, I didn’t hate Quantumania. It’s just that what’s good about it is basically everything you have come to except with Marvel movies at this point that it’s hardly worth repeating. When the action works, it works. When the visuals work, they work. When the character moments hit, they hit very well. When the individual dark and light scenes are good, they are very good in their own rights. Unfortunately, none of it is able to stick out as well as before and comes across as a bunch of puzzle pieces that don’t quite fit together.
As time goes on, it’s getting harder and harder to review these movies. Not because I don’t what to think about each one but more of it’s tough to write material that can’t be written out for basically ever new Marvel release. It’s clear that Marvel is well aware of it’s own style and formula and aren’t looking to make new fans overnight anymore. You are either still on board or you are not and there’s really not that much in between.
For those that are still fans of the MCU and perhaps wanted a more larger-scaled, somewhat darker Ant-Man adventure, you might just have a good time with this. To those that jumped off the Marvel train long ago, I highly doubt this will be the one that will make you want to hop back on.
If there’s anything positives to go by with the overall reception to this movie is that perhaps this can be seen as a wake-up call for Kevin Feige and the folks at Marvel. If the recent interviews with him are any occasions along with a handful of shows and movies that have been pushed back, there seems to be a restruction of Marvel Studios in the works. They seem to be aware they have a problem and because of that, changes are coming. Will those changes mean anything? Time will tell. Until then, I can still have fun with these imperfect, experimental projects while waiting for that great ones that will be thrown in between that will remind me why this universe has been a success. Perhaps we might just get that in the next coming months with James Gunn’s finally ride with Marvel and the Guardians himself. Until then, I will stick around and find out, even if no one else will.
Adam's Blog 