Jonah Naplan   February 16, 2023

I’m trying to write my review somewhat quickly, because the more and more I think about “Ant-Man and the Wasp: Quantumania,” the less and less I like it. By the time this review is done, my grade might have even dropped down to a 1.5 or, maybe, less than that. Just want to solidify my initial thoughts while I still can.

“Ant-Man and the Wasp: Quantumania” is one of the messiest and most frustrating movies I think I’ve ever seen. Most critics who claim Marvel movies aren’t real cinema will find this film to be a gargantuan “I told you so!” moment, and to their credit, yes, “Quantumania” is the worst example in recent memory of what the best parts of the MCU can offer. Most particularly because the greatest and most iconic entries in the Marvel Cinematic Universe are either perfect as MCU films, or perfect as outliers from everything else. This third “Ant-Man” film is exclusively intent on being a part of the greater picture, and fails so abruptly at doing such a thing, that we feel icky inside while watching the movie and leaving the theater. There’s much hype surrounding this film among fans, but alas, this really is nothing to be excited about.

Paul Rudd here returns as Scott Lang, a world-saving-hero-turned-everyday-Joe who has recently written a memoir about his experiences, cleverly titled “Watch Out for the Little Guy!” The film begins with an opening montage of Lang strolling through the streets of San Francisco, picking up coffee, promoting his book to an audience of Ant-Man mask emblazoned young children, and his relationship with his partner, who also happens to be the Wasp, Hope van Dyne (Evangeline Lilly). Cassie (a recast Kathryn Newton), Lang’s daughter, keeps getting into trouble with the police, while Scott attempts to reconnect with her. Hope’s parents, Hank Pym (Michael Douglas) and Janet van Dyne (Michelle Pfeiffer) have become a part of a greater family, alongside these other three, but are just kind of there.

Cassie has created some kind of a mechanism (I’m lost on what exactly it is) that sends a signal down to the Quantum Realm, and once she tampers with its function when showcasing her coveted creation, she, and all of the characters I mentioned before, get violently thrust into the Quantum Realm, shrinking smaller and smaller, until they end up in a world that’s evocative of a mixture between Pandora and Avalonia from “Strange World.” The five get separated into two groups—Scott and Cassie, and Hope, Hank, and Janet—as they crash land, and much of the movie is an implausible regime as they try and find one another.

There’s just one of multiple big things standing in their way of reuniting and escaping the Quantum Realm together: Kang (Jonathan Majors)—an inhuman, almost godlike overlord who rules over the Quantum Realm and leaves all of his subjects in fear. He has some sort of a hidden past with Janet, but long ago struggles have trapped him inside for many years, and once a new MacGuffin manifests itself nearby, he’s desperate to get out. Kang is the strongest aspect of “Ant-Man and the Wasp: Quantumania,” but even so, his character is very poorly written, and can never hold up a story so fit to crumble. And regardless of the enlivening fact of the matter that Majors is quite good in the role, Kang just comes off as another Thanos, or Namor, or Ultron, or Gorr the God Butcher, or even Scarlett Witch. Here, Marvel leans 110% into the “misunderstood villain” trope, providing us with a character who feels powerfully somber in his best moments, but painfully unthreatening in a final battle that relies more on CGI than any other MCU property I can remember.

I think that much of the reason why Kang only sometimes takes flight in “Ant-Man and the Wasp: Quantumania” is because tonally, this movie couldn’t be messier. The first act is abhorrent. It’s an extreme chore to get through, and has some of the strangest and most dizzying editing choices that it could possibly have gone with. I also don’t find this kind of whataboutism in Marvel humor all that funny anymore. The jokes in the first 45 minutes of “Ant-Man and the Wasp: Quantumania” ultimately feel tired, overplayed, and weak, and even the fans in my theater didn’t seem all that interested in whatever quips Rudd and friends had to spit out.

Paul Rudd is fine in the movie, but his character can never seem to escape the clumsy tone that the character of Scott Lang always seems to bring, if unintentional. I like Paul Rudd as an actor very much, but in “Ant-Man” he always feels like the kind of performer who wandered onto set by accident, ended up making it into the movie by chance, and is now just kind of going with it. He’s not much empowered in “Quantumania,” nor is the Wasp. Both the Wasp, and Hank Pym too, feel tacked on at the last minute just for continuity and contractual purposes. The real spotlight here is on Janet, who actually has tons of material to work with. Her mysterious past with Kang is front and center, but is bogged down by illegitimate pacing issues throughout the rest of the film that leave too many dramatic moments as boring, and exciting scenes as almost dumbfounding. All of the scenes in the Quantum Realm are undeniably odd, but each time something weird happens, we find our characters saying out loud, “That was strange,” or “What was that?”

It’s evident of a script by Jeff Loveness that is not at all fit to tell a story that wants to be this expansive, and showcase big ideas that aren’t as thorough as they think they are. Random one-dimensional characters are thrown here and there to no avail, most notably Bill Murray who only appears in one scene, and then walks away with his paycheck. I found all of it to be disquieting. It’s not convenient, it’s not clever, it’s just unnecessary.

The cinematography was done by Bill Pope, the cinematographer of the Matrix films and some Sam Raimi and Edgar Wright movies too, but the film doesn’t actually look that visually pleasing. I found a lot of the green screen to be obvious, and the color matching to be ugly. But I guess that’s just nitpicking here. The biggest problems with “Ant-Man and the Wasp: Quantumania” are the kinds of things that need time all the way back in the story board room to be fixed. It’s a “nothing movie,” yet one that’s still stuffed with really anything but nothing. And with an utterly repulsive reveal of an old character in the middle of the movie, “Ant-Man and the Wasp: Quantumania” is all just…ew.

With so much on its mind, the movie thinks it’s saying more than it actually is, when in reality its impact is merely ant-sized.

Now playing in theaters.