Ant-Man and the Wasp: Quantumania

Ant-Man's 3rd solo outting. Doubling down on the sci-fi elements of the MCU. Overall the humor was like the rest of the previous movies. The cast was all stellar. Doesn't really dive that deep into Kang's story, but what we did get was sufficient. Johnathan Majors portrayal was excellent, just wish he had more substance to work with. The visual effects were definitely spotty. Blue screen overload, wish they took more time blending in the effects with with actors. This leads into Modok, as a concept. I didn't mind his backstop changing, just wish they went more practical with his design. Overall Quantumania was a pretty fun movie, but for setting the tone of "PHASE 5", Marvel will definitely need to step up their storytelling, and start getting more into detail with these characters, and concepts.

I enjoyed watching Quantumania. It's a mostly solid and fairly entertaining movie. But relative to MCU standards, it's a bit underwhelming and feels like more of a throwaway movie than something memorable I will keep coming back to.

My biggest issue is that I wasn't fully engaged for at least the first half of the movie. I was enjoying it but I wasn't locked in. The story was unfocussed. When the villain becomes prevalent, the movie jumps a level. But it doesn't completely make up for the much weaker first half.

The other thing that surprised me was not being mesmerized by the visuals. It's very creative and I didn't notice poor CGI like some others. But it didn't wow me like it frequently does. Maybe we're just getting spoiled with the visuals in movies like Doctor Strange 2 and more recently Avatar 2.

There is still a lot of good here. It's pretty funny but doesn't overdo it. This is the second movie in a row where the MCU seems to have dialed back on the "insert joke here" strategy. It's probably a result of the negative reaction from the cartoonish Thor 4. Also, I love the villain. I won't say who in case you're smart (and crazy) like me and don't watch trailers. But he's so damn awesome.

As someone who loves almost everything in the MCU, Quantumania is near the bottom of my MCU rankings. And it's making me a little nervous that it comes only two movies after Thor 4 which is below it (5 stars). But I still have faith and am not joining the MCU doom and gloom crowd. Phase 4 has three of my favorite entries in the entire MCU (Shang-Chi, Loki S01, No Way Home) and I only disliked two (Eternals, Thor 4). They just need to be more consistent while also not playing it so safe.

(3 viewings, opening Thursday IMAX 2/16/2023, IMAX 2/28/2023, 10/5/2023)

I like Paul Rudd. I think he's naturally charming and really funny. I really wanted for this Ant-Man to do well, as the other 2 were just okay, and didn't do well in the box office either. Unfortunately this isn't the hit movie that changes things for Ant-Man or Marvel. It has some good moments, and cool visuals. However if you look a little deeper, a lot of things stand out. Like the fact that they were harvesting quantum energy from the quantum realm in the post credits of the last movie, yet Janet didn't seem concerned, even though she is very worried about the quantum realm, which they show in the trailer, so it's not something you'd only gather from watching the movie. Her backstory was kept quiet because they hadn't thought of it yet. Usually they keep things open for other Marvel movies, but this story felt very tacked on for the sake of this movie. Hope had some moments, but very little dialogue. Also, I thought I dozed off, as this movie seemed to jump from a long first act, to the third act. Jonathan Majors (Kang) does all the heavy lifting in this movie. His story, and his motivations seem the most developed. I wouldn't call this a bad movie, but they didn't knock it out of the park, by any means. It seems like Marvel has been in this post-Endgame slump that they haven't been able to break out of.

Visually quite stunning with delightful and creative designs, shapes, and forms while the storyline is less than original without much in the way of intellectual or emotional, ethical depth of other recent Marvel movies. Apparently this movie was focused on being acceptable to a broad audience range, including young people, Quantumania loses some of its sharp refreshing focus. The created living entities of the quantum universe are more anthropomorphic (human-based) perhaps to be more relatable to children does not reflect the diversity or original forms of life or new-life that would really make this film stellar. As even as special as the set designs and special effects make for a gorgeous setting, there is still room for more crisp, detailed and immersive design work. Some backgrounds end up being mere basic animation projections that do not come up to the level expected of contemporary Marvel productions. Yes, this movie provides an amazing backdrop or canvas and yet the substance and plot of the movie does not rise to the same level. What one ends up with is a movie with a lot of flash but less than satisfactory bite.

Marvel really has fallen and it can't get up. This is the third legacy character that they've absolutely wasted. In fact, for Doctor Strange, Thor and Ant-Man they not only wasted great established characters but superb casts. Add that they made Kang, the main villain out to be a chump and it appears Marvel has no plan moving forward. Not Kiang the conqueror but Kang the chump.

This movie adds to the malaise of poorly written disappointments that is permeated the MCU since Endgame. With one of the worst third acts of any movie in recent history. MODOK use and "dick" turn could be the dumbest thing I've ever seen and that's not even a spoiler. He also ended the movie as if they ran out of budget. What an absolute waste.