So, I finally watched “Ant Man and The Wasp: Quantumania”, and damn, that trailer song choice! It’s been stuck in my head for two months. But let’s get to the point, folks. The movie is essentially a new “Journey to the Center of the Earth” movie that takes place in the Marvel Cinematic Universe.
Yes, it’s all about the Quantum realm, and it’s not barren or nothingness as Scott Lang joked about. There’s a whole civilization down there, and Michelle Pfeiffer’s character was running and gunning for 30 years. Well, to be precise, a few hours in the quantum realm were five years to us. So, was she down there for 30 years or just 30 hours to her? I don’t know, but let’s just assume it was a long time, okay?
Scott’s daughter made a device in her garage to communicate with the Quantum realm, and soon, they all got sucked down into the quantum realm, where they met Kang, who is undoubtedly going to be a problem. They have to get out of there unscathed, or things could get a little messy.
Now, let’s talk about what I liked about the movie. It’s very simple, really. It’s the thing we all wanted to be awesome and figured would be awesome because anyone who bets against Jonathan Majors is not playing the odds. Jonathan Majors as Kang was absolutely epic! I don’t mind saying it; he made the movie.
The film has some fun in there, but it’s the basic MCU talking points you have after seeing an MCU film. But Jonathan Majors showed up to work, and he showed up! He’s a standout MCU villain, not only for this film, but also for the MCU going forward. We saw a glimpse of a variant of him at the end of “Loki“, but we haven’t actually seen him.
One thing I liked about Jonathan Majors in this movie as Kang is that he didn’t fall into the MCU trap that a lot of other characters in this movie did. The MCU movies, in general, fall into the clippiness trap, where every moment has to be a funny moment, and everyone needs to have a snarky, clippy response. But not Kang; he’s just engaging as hell. He’s threatening, and you know he will follow through on his threats. He’s a badass villain by any metric.
Also, some of the CGI was actually really good. The movie borrowed from “Journey to the Center of the Earth” and “Tron: Legacy”. I thought the world visually, aesthetically speaking, was fun. But some of the fighting was choppy and shaky cam at times. Shaky cam is the trend we never want to come back, but like all trends, it’s coming back, and I’m seeing more of it again. Ugh.
The three acts of this film feel like three different movies. The first act was the most interesting, where we get to this world, and it’s more interesting than I thought it would be. And that’s because it didn’t feel like an MCU movie in terms of the MCU vernacular. But then, the second act is when we get a lot more Kang. The third act is batshit crazy, and I’m flipping a coin as to which movie had more going on for the last act: this or the last act of “Aquaman.”
But then, things start to drop because of that second act. The ant family gets this McGuffin in which they can all understand everyone, which means we can understand
All in all, Ant-Man and The Wasp: Quantumania is another entry in the MCU that delivers the expected formulaic experience. If you’ve seen one MCU film, you’ve seen them all, and this one is no exception. However, it does have some standout moments, most notably Jonathan Majors as Kang. He’s a force to be reckoned with and truly makes the film worth watching.
One thing that really annoyed me, though, was the clippiness of the dialogue. It seems like every character has to have a snarky one-liner, and it really takes away from the seriousness of the situation. It’s like the MCU is trying to be a parody of itself, and it’s just not working.
Another issue I had was the shaky cam during the action scenes. I thought we were done with this trend, but apparently not. It was distracting and made it difficult to follow what was happening on screen.
The three acts of the film also felt disjointed at times, like they were from different movies. The first act was the most interesting, but it started to drop off as the film went on. The second act was all about Kang, and the third act was just batshit crazy.
All in all, Ant-Man and The Wasp: Quantumania is an okay film, but it’s not going to blow your mind. If you’re a fan of the MCU, you’ll enjoy it, but if you’re not, there’s nothing here that’s going to change your mind. It’s just more of the same.
