Kaitlyn Murphy
Since making his MCU debut eight years ago in Ant-Man, Scott Lang (Paul Rudd) has gone from being an ex-con Baskin Robbins employee to receiving a semi-official Avengers title after saving the world from Thanos. It’s an upgrade he makes sure to flaunt every chance he gets.
Ant-Man and the Wasp: Quantumania is Lang’s fifth appearance in the MCU, and also marks the beginning of Marvel’s Phase 5, which will continue through September 2024.
The film officially opened in theaters on Friday, Feb. 17, but prior to that received an array of harsh critical reviews. It is currently one of two MCU movies to be certified rotten on Rotten Tomatoes (the other being 2021’s Eternals), with an abysmal 48% that has been slowly declining since its release.
After watching Quantumania, it’s clear to see where the disappointment stems from.
First of all, the film takes place almost entirely in the quantum realm. As shown in the trailer, Cassie Lang (Katherine Newton) creates a device that allows her to send a signal down to the microscopic world, but things go horribly wrong when it sucks her, Scott, Hank Pym (Michael Douglas), Janet van Dyne (Michelle Pfeiffer) and Hope van Dyne (Evangeline Lilly) down into the realm.
The effects used to create the bizarre quantum environment were nowhere close to visually appealing, making it hard to stay engaged with the events unfolding.
Some scenes included ugly lens flares, while others were practically too dark to see. The constant back and forth was enough to give the viewer visual whiplash.
It might have been easier to forgive the poor visuals if the writing and storyline of Quantumania was compelling, but unfortunately that was not the case.
The script was riddled with clichés, including a tribe of people whose home was destroyed by “The Conqueror” plotting their revenge against him, and Cassie encouraging them all to “stand up and fight!”
The so-called “quantum people” that the Langs and van Dyns cross paths with on their journey are funny enough, especially a blob-like character Veb (David Dastmalchian) that asks Scott about how many holes he has, but don’t contribute much else to the film.
It’s not that Ant-Man films are supposed to take themselves seriously–the first two included countless humorous bits (mostly courtesy of Scott’s ex-con best friends who weren’t mentioned once in Quantumania). But most of the comic relief in “Quantumania” elicited more of a palm-to-the-face reaction than a genuine laugh.
A moment that slightly got the audience going was the arrival of the classic Marvel comic book villain, M.O.D.O.K, who’s appearance was just so utterly whacky and distorted that it was hard to believe this was the effects work of Marvel, one of the biggest studios in the world. None of the characters in the film truly acknowledged him as a threat though, anyway.
The true big bad of Quantumania was of course, Kang the Conqueror. Or at least one of his variants. Jonathan Majors brought a similar energy to the character that he used with Loki, and proved just how manipulative, charming, and two-faced Kang can be.
A lot of time is wasted on scenes between Kang and Janet van Dyne, where she restated how Kang destroys worlds, entire timelines, etc. Most viewers already knew Kang’s history and power, and it could’ve been shown more throughout the movie instead of explicitly told through dialogue.
Pfieffer and Majors undoubtedly carried the film performance-wise, with Rudd’s being average, Lilly and Douglas receiving extremely limited screen time, and Newton over-acting in almost every scene.
By the end of Quantumania, it seemed that the stakes were not nearly as high as one would think they’d be with Kang involved. The conclusion was predictable and nothing Marvel hasn’t done before.
The only thing Quantumania really left viewers wanting more of was Kang, and thankfully his return has already been confirmed for the next Avengers film.
Overall, Ant-Man and the Wasp: Quantumania was an extremely weak installment in the MCU that makes it seem like the company is losing its way quality and content-wise.
Rating: 2/5
