TMS Movie Review: Ant-man & the Wasp- Quantumania
(Marvel Studios / Walt Disney Pictures)
It took a decade, but that supposed ‘superhero fatigue’ people have been predicting since the MCU took over blockbusters has finally, legitimately broken through. At 48% on Rotten Tomatoes and 49% on Metacritic, Peyton Reed’s Ant-man & the Wasp: Quantumania is the currently the second lowest rated Marvel movie since Chloe Zhao’s Eternals (2021). When Eternals came out, fans tried to reason that it underperformed because it was a new movie with only brand new characters. But with Quantumania, we already know who Ant-man/Scott Lang and The Wasp/Hope van Dyne are. They’ve been regulars alongside the Avengers since 2015. Scott seems to be the most active lead of the MCU crew since the Russo Bros’ Avengers: Endgame (2019), yet his new installment feels super phoned-in. Even Taika Waititi’s Thor: Love & Thunder (2022) managed to make back its budget and be over 50% on review sites despite the disappointing narrative. What happened this time?
Nothing happened this time. Literally, barely anything happens in Quantumania. Scott (Paul Rudd), Hope (Evangeline Lilly), Scott’s teen daughter Cassie (Kathryn Newton), and Hope’s parents Hank Pym (Michael Douglas) and Janet van Dyne (Michelle Pfeiffer) are accidentally and conveniently sucked into the Quantum Realm, which is an alternate world where Janet was trapped in previous Ant-man movies. This time, Scott and Cassie are separated from the Pym-van Dyne family, and both sets of relatives have to fend off alien menaces such as Kang the Conqueror (Jonathan Majors), Lord Krylar (Bill Murray) and Jentorra (Katy O’Brian) while finding each other to return home.
(Marvel Studios / Walt Disney Pictures)
Corey Stoll returns from Reed’s Ant-man (2015) and William Jackson Harper appears as a non-threatening, human looking ET. Basically, Quantumania is getting mediocre feedback because of way too much transparent green screen and poor CG effects, and virtually no genuine conflict with way too easy resolutions. The stakes are not high and the action does not make up for it. Janet was stuck in the QR for three decades, yet is just now mentioning there’s a supernatural civilization there too? Stoll’s Darren Cross goes from one of the more forgettable MCU villains in Ant-man to now a very lame floating head as comic relief. The jokes are even more juvenile and dumb, even by comic book standards thanks to scriptwriter Jeff Loveness of Cartoon Network’s “Rick & Morty” (2019-2022). The opening of Quantumania actually starts out somewhat interesting with Newton’s Cassie trying to argue the superhero community is helping more than the human police union. But then the film instantly abandons the subject for the usual action/adventure schlock. And for a movie about Ant-man, he appears to be normal sized or Giant-man for most of the runtime, as do The Wasp and Cassie. At least Murray seemed to be having fun during his five-minute cameo.
With the recent news of Walt Disney Pictures re-considering the priorities of their Marvel and Star Wars properties, this is probably for the best. Beating a dead horse rarely goes well for popular series and these two have been underperforming for a while now. It’s funny a couple days ago I revisited Jon Favreau’s Iron Man (2008), which is still my favorite of Marvel Studios all these years. I think in the long run, Iron Man and Richard Donner’s Superman (1978) are probably going to be the only superhero movies I need.