Ant-Man and the Wasp: Quantumania (2023)
After a brutal combination of the Infinity Saga ending and the COVID-19 pandemic, the Marvel Cinematic Universe has finally found their path forward with the road to 2026's Avengers: Secret Wars being announced and finally paced out. The start to this next grand conclusion begins with Phase 5 of the MCU which kicks off with Peyton Reed's Ant-Man and the Wasp: Quantumania. Seeing Scott Lang (Paul Rudd) and the rest of the Ant-Man franchise characters get sucked deep into the Quantum Realm where they meet a mysterious man known as Kang the Conqueror (Jonathan Majors), Ant-Man and the Wasp: Quantumania starts Phase 5 off with a flop as a dull story and questionable execution causes the film to be a wildly worthless miss.
It wouldn't be a review of a modern Marvel project without first getting into the technical faults of the feature. While the MCU originally incorporated a near-genius usage of visual effects that allowed superhero battles to play out across the real world, the push towards large scale visuals and nearly entirely CGI worlds has led the studio down a disastrous path, especially when the company then decides to abuse its visual effect artists and push unrealistic deadlines. Few big budget films have looked as bad as Ant-Man and the Wasp: Quantumania. While some isolated character designs or larger set pieces look acceptable, the film features some of the most embarrassing layering of real humans over virtual sets ever seen. From the lighting to the shot composition, there is no realm of believability here with the film almost becoming unwatchable at points as a result. This is a real shame as the Ant-Man films have perhaps historically had the smartest usage of CGI with the shrinking and expanding gimmick that goes alongside the character, yet the film even decides to drop this idea with the unique concept of the character being reduced to nothing more than a generic power for dull combat.
The plot is not much better. In the history of franchises, it is hard to think of many films to feature such drastic and lazily incorporated retconning as this film that decides to rewrite 30-years of history given to Janet van Dyne (Michelle Pfeiffer) when she was stuck in the quantum realm. Not only does this show a shocking oversight in the planning of the next stage of the MCU, but it also features such large jumps in logic that it is impossible not to feel confused and bored with the inability to follow what not just the franchise, but what the film, even in isolation, itself is presenting. Make no mistake that for the larger MCU, 99% of Ant-Man and the Wasp: Quantumania is meaningless. Ant-Man and the Wasp: Quantumania's only justification for existence is to introduce the next big bad for the franchise, but even this honor actually belongs to the Disney+ series Loki with the film accomplishing very little that wasn't already done there.
While this is an issue that could have been overlooked had the isolated plot of the film been engaging, the truth is that this is one of the dullest MCU films to date with almost no suspense or depth found as the writing has fallen into the most basic form of storytelling. The film finds an unnatural pace of unfunny jokes, pauses for laughs, mysterious lines of dialogue that hint at Kang in a repeating sequence. The editing by Adam Gerstel and Laura Jennings is horrific as the film moves through its shockingly long 124-minute runtime at a snail's pace. Outside of a handful of side characters and a particularly memorable outing as M.O.D.O.K. by Corey Stoll, the film finds nothing of either interest nor entertainment and ends up feeling like a true disaster.
While Ant-Man and the Wasp: Quantumania in a vacuum of its own runtime is one of MCU's worst efforts, there is a small light found within the film in the form of Kang. While visually the bad effects give no help, Jonathan Majors easily steals the show as a calculated and complex villain that is chilling quiet as he unleashes wicked acts of violence with a mysterious deeper goal and responsibility that only Kang himself seems to understand. With every project, Majors proves to be one of the most talented actors currently working and immediately he defines himself as one of the best MCU villains. One can only pray that the overall projects he finds himself in get better than this as a single great performance isn't enough to save an entire saga of features.
While the MCU has struggled in recent years and put out a handful of disappointments, very few reach the levels of embarrassment and failure of Ant-Man and the Wasp: Quantumania. Bordering on becoming tortuous at points, Ant-Man and the Wasp: Quantumania speaks to ever larger issue plaguing the modern MCU with no signs of the studio having any interest in fixing the problems that have been constant for years. While the pandemic and lack of direction made an excuse for some films, Marvel is quickly running dry on justifications and there is no reason for work they produce to be this bad
It wouldn't be a review of a modern Marvel project without first getting into the technical faults of the feature. While the MCU originally incorporated a near-genius usage of visual effects that allowed superhero battles to play out across the real world, the push towards large scale visuals and nearly entirely CGI worlds has led the studio down a disastrous path, especially when the company then decides to abuse its visual effect artists and push unrealistic deadlines. Few big budget films have looked as bad as Ant-Man and the Wasp: Quantumania. While some isolated character designs or larger set pieces look acceptable, the film features some of the most embarrassing layering of real humans over virtual sets ever seen. From the lighting to the shot composition, there is no realm of believability here with the film almost becoming unwatchable at points as a result. This is a real shame as the Ant-Man films have perhaps historically had the smartest usage of CGI with the shrinking and expanding gimmick that goes alongside the character, yet the film even decides to drop this idea with the unique concept of the character being reduced to nothing more than a generic power for dull combat.
The plot is not much better. In the history of franchises, it is hard to think of many films to feature such drastic and lazily incorporated retconning as this film that decides to rewrite 30-years of history given to Janet van Dyne (Michelle Pfeiffer) when she was stuck in the quantum realm. Not only does this show a shocking oversight in the planning of the next stage of the MCU, but it also features such large jumps in logic that it is impossible not to feel confused and bored with the inability to follow what not just the franchise, but what the film, even in isolation, itself is presenting. Make no mistake that for the larger MCU, 99% of Ant-Man and the Wasp: Quantumania is meaningless. Ant-Man and the Wasp: Quantumania's only justification for existence is to introduce the next big bad for the franchise, but even this honor actually belongs to the Disney+ series Loki with the film accomplishing very little that wasn't already done there.
While this is an issue that could have been overlooked had the isolated plot of the film been engaging, the truth is that this is one of the dullest MCU films to date with almost no suspense or depth found as the writing has fallen into the most basic form of storytelling. The film finds an unnatural pace of unfunny jokes, pauses for laughs, mysterious lines of dialogue that hint at Kang in a repeating sequence. The editing by Adam Gerstel and Laura Jennings is horrific as the film moves through its shockingly long 124-minute runtime at a snail's pace. Outside of a handful of side characters and a particularly memorable outing as M.O.D.O.K. by Corey Stoll, the film finds nothing of either interest nor entertainment and ends up feeling like a true disaster.
While Ant-Man and the Wasp: Quantumania in a vacuum of its own runtime is one of MCU's worst efforts, there is a small light found within the film in the form of Kang. While visually the bad effects give no help, Jonathan Majors easily steals the show as a calculated and complex villain that is chilling quiet as he unleashes wicked acts of violence with a mysterious deeper goal and responsibility that only Kang himself seems to understand. With every project, Majors proves to be one of the most talented actors currently working and immediately he defines himself as one of the best MCU villains. One can only pray that the overall projects he finds himself in get better than this as a single great performance isn't enough to save an entire saga of features.
While the MCU has struggled in recent years and put out a handful of disappointments, very few reach the levels of embarrassment and failure of Ant-Man and the Wasp: Quantumania. Bordering on becoming tortuous at points, Ant-Man and the Wasp: Quantumania speaks to ever larger issue plaguing the modern MCU with no signs of the studio having any interest in fixing the problems that have been constant for years. While the pandemic and lack of direction made an excuse for some films, Marvel is quickly running dry on justifications and there is no reason for work they produce to be this bad