Ant-Man and The Wasp Quantumania review

There’s a sizable tonal shift in Ant-Man and The Wasp: Quantumania, the third film starring Paul Rudd and Evangelina Lily.

This has been a franchise where a toy train set was a key set piece in the climactic battle and shrunken down cars was all the rage in the sequel.

For the third installment, director Peyton Reed completes his trilogy with a much darker film that often clashes with the established playful tone of the franchise.

Quantumania finds the Marvel Cinematic Universe at a weird crossroads.

The reaction to the Phase 4 slate of films and television was mixed. There were highs — Spider-Man: No Way Home, Loki, Black Panther: Wakanda Forever and some lows — Eternals, She-Hulk and Thor: Love and Thunder.

Quantumania kicks off Phase 5 with two major goals — restore some of the shaken faith in the MCU brand and establish Jonathan Majors’ big bad Kang as a Thanos-level threat.

On the latter front, Quantumania is an unqualified success. Majors already made an impression with his MCU debut as He Who Remains in Loki.

For Quantumania, Majors gives Kang a far less mysterious edge. He’s a calculated villain who’s not afraid to go full throttle intensity to convey he’s the mess around, find out character of the MCU’s Multiverse Saga. The main takeaway from Quantumania is clearly that Majors is well-positioned to see his star go supernova following this MCU run.

Properly spotlighting Kang does come at the expense of the carefree nature of the previous two Ant-Man films, however.

In a lot of ways, it almost feels like Quantumania was the film Thor: Love and Thunder should have been. Thor, one of the three surviving OG Avengers, is grieving his fallen comrades and tasked with stopping the next omega level threat to Earth.

This would have freed up Quantumania up to be a carefree, common man superhero comedy like its predecessors.

Sure, there’s pockets of frivolity, but Quantumania is much more of a fate of the universe style adventure than Giant-Man using cars for scooters along the streets of San Francisco.

Scott Lang (Rudd) is enjoying his semi-superhero retirement content to do book signings and readings of his exploits with the Avengers in saving the world.

While Scott is fine enjoying his well-deserved rest, his girlfriend Hope (Lilly) is busy running her company and mapping out tech for a more sustainable future.

Scott’s daughter, Cassie (Kathryn Newton), wants to make just as big an impact. She’s been suiting up as a superhero using the size-changing tech of Scott’s mentor, Hank Pym (Michael Douglas). Cassie’s been exploring the quantum realm, which was news to Hank’s wife, Janet (Michelle Pfeiffer), the only one of this family unit who spent decades in the realm.

Jan’s warning that something ominous awaits on the other side of the quantum realm comes too late and the group gets sucked in.

Screenwriter Jeff Loveness (Rick and Morty) lays out the first half curiously. Scott and Cassie are separated from Hope, Hank and Jan. Both groups encounter colorful characters that serve mainly to bloat the cast. Pfeiffer and Douglas could stand for more screen time but working them in as well as the new cast members pushes Lily to more of a sidekick role than she’s been in the previous two films.

Scott and Cassie align with a resistance group (fronted by William Jackson Harper and Katy M. O’Brian) that fights against The Conqueror. While separating the gang and introducing new characters comes off awkward, the slow rollout of Kang is skillfully done. Reed holds his arrival back until the film’s second act.

Eventually Kang confronts Ant-Man, Wasp, etc. leading to some creatively/staged CGI-heavy battles. Reed stages these moments in a perspective assaulting manner to fully justify seeing the film in IMAX 3D. It’s still a thrill watching Scott shift from ant-size to skyscraper tall in seconds though the constant retracting of the helmet gets distracting.

Rudd, now one of the longest tenured MCU performers, retains his every man charm. Even as situations get progressively more out of control around him, Scott remains an endearing and likable lead. He plays off well with Netwon, who’s character is allowed to make mistakes and learn as opposed to debuting as a fully realized hero in her debut.

As usual there’s two post credit scenes. The first directly ties to Quantumania while the second requires viewers to have done their respective Disney+ homework.

Does Quantumania restore some of the MCU’s luster? It’s a solid film that happens to have Ant-Man and The Wasp in it as opposed to being a good Ant-Man and The Wasp film, but it does provide a course correct of sorts while providing needed focus to the saga’s ultimate threat.

Rating: 7 out of 10

Photo Credit: Disney

Check out Ant-Man and The Wasp Quantumania on Blu-Ray at Amazon.

As an Amazon Associate, I earn from qualifying purchases.

Rating: 7 out of 10

Leave a Reply Cancel reply