Ant-Man & The Wasp: Quantumania
Directed by Peyton Reed
Starring Paul Rudd, Evangeline Lily, and Jonathan Majors
I feel like I'm in the minority when I say I enjoyed Phase Four of the Marvel Cinematic Universe (MCU). The narrative that the franchise peaked with Avengers: Endgame and that "The MCU is in shambles" has been running rampant for the better part of the year now, despite the fact there have been some great entries in theaters and on Disney Plus.
Judging by the critical and commercial response to Ant-Man & The Wasp: Quantumania, the film to kick off Phase Five of the MCU, it looks as though that narrative won't be fading away anytime soon. Is this film as bad as the general public is making it out to be? No. Is it the next great film of the MCU? No.
It's fine. It's just fine.
Scott Lang (Rudd) is enjoying his life as a famous Avenger. Life is perfect, except for the fact his daughter Cassie (Now played by Kathryn Newton) is following in his footsteps the wrong way i.e. being an activist and ending up on the wrong side of the law. She's also recently been working on a device to communicate with The Quantum Realm. The device works, and unfortunately sucks Cassie, Scott, and the entire "Ant-Family" into the Quantum Realm.
Separated from the others, Scott and Cassie work to find a way home, while Hope Van Dyne (Lily) and her parents Hank Pam (Micheal Douglas) and Janet Van Dyne (Michelle Pfeiffer) search for them. The group is unaware though that a sinister tyrant of the realm named Kang (Majors) has his own plans to escape, and he needs Ant-Man to do it.
The film definitely had a lot of promise but falls short of delivering on the game-changing story the marketing suggested. That's not a bad thing. Not every MCU film needs to shake up the status quo. But when you're kicking off a new phase, while also being the final film of a trilogy, and introducing the franchise's next big bad...you kind of expect more. Quantumania is a very safe, light-hearted film.
I would go as far as to say the focus is on family like in the previous Ant-Man films, but that's really not the case here. The main cast is separated very quickly in the film and the great character dynamics we loved in previous films are lost. The natural progression of Scott and Cassie's relationship as father and daughter was a nice direction to go in, though.
As I said the film introduces the MCU's next big bad (Or rather, introduces him if you didn't watch Loki, and even that's not totally true because multiverse, variants, etc.) and that is the film's greatest strength. Jonathan Majors brings such charm, menace, and gravitas to Kang. You really do get the sense that he is the next Avengers-level threat. Quantumania builds off what was established in Loki while also clueing in the uninitiated and making him a full-fledged character. Since we've got a few years before Kang Dynasty, I'm excited to see what the MCU does with Majors and this character. Hopefully we get more time with him. Or his variants.
Paul Rudd is still great as Scott Lang, but this time he gets some more dramatic material to work with. He has great chemistry with Majors and their scenes together really feel like classic "hero and villain" confrontations, if that makes any sense. Kathryn Newton slides nicely into the role of Cassie Lang. I miss Emma Furhman but Newton is talented enough that there's real promise for the future. Michelle Pfeiffer gets more to do as Janet Van Dyne, and really deserved more screen time considering the story they wanted to tell. Sadly, Evangeline Lily and Micheal Douglas are not given as much to do as they have in previous films, which is a shame.
Bill Murray and William Jackson Harper join the MCU as new characters. They're great but each isn't much more than a glorified cameo. Just a few minutes shorter than The Illuminati in Multiverse of Madness. Corey Stoll returns as Darren Cross, but instead of Yellowjacket is now M.O.D.O.K and look, the character is a giant floating head. Of course they're going to play it as a joke. But his character in this film just feels like a weird afterthought.
Last thing I want to mention is the visuals. Outside of one particular sequence, the Quantum Realm is very standard sci-fi. There's nothing incredibly distinct about it, but that's not detrimental to the film. However, the previous Ant-Man films definitely were more creative with their visuals, specifically how the Ant-Man and The Wasp's special skills made for unique fight scenes. You're not going to find a fight on a Thomas the Tank Engine train-set, or a giant Hello Kitty Pez dispenser being thrown at a biker gang.
Outside the context of the larger MCU, Quantumania is a harmless family adventure. Alas it's no grand conclusion to a trilogy like Civil War or Ragnarok. The best thing it does is clue us in to a greater threat that's coming, played masterfully by Jonathan Majors. The MCU is not in shambles as some would suggest, but the divisive response to this film is not going to quell the discourse.
Arguably, the MCU is going through a bit of growing pains as it finds its footing in a post-Endgame world (Interestingly both within its story and production. More on that later). Personally I've grown up with this franchise, I'm still on board, and interested to see where we go from here. Not every MCU film can or will be perfect, but no film is. As Scott Lang himself says in this film, "If there's one thing I've learned in life, it's that there's always room to grow."
