Homem-Formiga e a Vespa: Quantumania

No wonder all those "creative" people in so called creative businesses and crafts are afraid of AI - no doubt, in the not too distant future, AI will do the work - cheaper and better than humans can do. At least if Ant-Man and the Wasp: Quantumania and such movies (and books, comics, whatever, quantity beats quality these days - in all fields) are the best human mind can come up with. The first Ant-Man movie was a nice one, the second one was okay, but if you take away all the (finally by computer generated) visuals and effects, there is maybe enough story left in this third chapter to employ two or maybe three and a half brain cells of the viewer. The rest of the neural network goes quickly into stand by and sleep mode. I like the production and a few scenes, this is the only reason why this one does not crash totally. But in the end, this is at best mediocre and sometimes even really bad.

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.

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.

Well it's happened. The MCU has run out of gas. The last few MCU films have been lackluster at best. Not counting the sort of stand alone Spider-Man No Way Home. Ant-Man and the Wasp: Quantumania is supposed to start the Phase 5 of this thing and if it goes on like this it's going to get worse!!! This film is of course competently made, looks good and is not horrible but is completely uninspired and like pretty much everything out of the MCE factory since Endgame it's totally forgettable. The reason that the MCU was so successful is that the films had characters we cared about. Stakes were there, of course they were lightoments but there were heroes to root for and some pretty good villains. We cared about what was on the screen. I didn't care at all about what I saw in Quantumania. Not that every film from Iron Man to Endgame was great but they were mostly at least better than average. The two previous Ant-Man films were among the weakest but were still more memorable than this one. The acting in Quantumania is fine but but again no one to really care about. Even Paul Rudd who is usually very engaging seemed just flat and disinterested here. He seems to be phoning it in. The only notable performance is Jonathan Majors as Kang the Conqueror but he alone can't save the film from being a complete snooze fest. I was actually bored fir much if the film.

Just below average in an MCU that is just churning out film after film with diminishing results. I think Kevin Feige and company should go back and see what made these films good when they first started. They are getting so formulaic and forgettable.

Below average.....

Grade: C-

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.