Gillipedia Official Rating: Disappointed there isn’t a scene where Keanu Reeves appears and says, “I need ants. Lots of ants.”
Score: 6/10
I don’t have a particularly
controversial take on the new Ant-Man movie. It’s an entertaining, funny
Marvel movie that sets up future phases of films. There’s no introspective
themes to dive into, no shocking plot twists, but very arguably, it embraces
what has made Ant-Man successful in the past—embracing the sillier side of Marvel with the
bite-sized hero and star Paul Rudd. Perhaps what I can do for this review is
explain what worked and what wasn’t as successful, and even add a suggestion or two
on what I would’ve done differently.
Fans seemed to overall enjoy this
movie and laud Jonathan Majors as the main antagonist Kang the Conqueror, while
critics place this as a bottom-tier Marvel film. And there are definitely
Marvel movies worse than this one, so placing it right at the bottom is too
harsh in my books. Kang and his stoic presence provides a terrific contrast to
the other light-hearted elements of the film. One thing I really appreciate is
the believability of the story on its whole... Well, in terms of believing a movie about an ant-themed superhero that is. As more Avengers come into the
fold of larger universes, it becomes increasingly difficult to contain
superheroes to their solo films without valid questions of, “But why didn’t
-insert hero here- show up to help save the day?” And the Quantum Realm serves
as a great location to keep things to Ant-Man, Wasp, and their family. And I
can also see how Kang wasn’t a part of earlier films because he’s spent so much
time trapped in this realm, and to avoid spoilers, his reasons for trying to
escape. Which, very quick aside here, I’m not sure I’m completely sold yet on Kang
having the best motives, but we’ll see how his character plays out in the future.
I think one thing that frustrated me was
the opening scene. We see Michelle Pfeiffer early on when she was trapped in
the Quantum Realm, and the scene ends with her meeting Kang. Anyone who follows
the MCU at least a little will know exactly who he is. But we’re going to spend
the next 90 minutes with characters literally referencing “him” almost in the
same breath of He-Who-Shall-Not-Be-Named like it’s a big reveal that there’s a
villain in this realm. I don’t like the tease at the beginning if you’re going
to build it up so much for the first two-thirds of the film.
What is more successful is our quick
opening. The film does an excellent job of quickly getting its exposition out
of the way of where our characters are at in their lives because an
overwhelming amount of this movie is spent in the Quantum Realm. With that said
there isn’t Luis or some of the other Ant-Man characters that I would’ve
enjoyed seeing for this third film. Paul Rudd’s Scott Lang is coasting on his
contributions to the Avengers and trying to maintain a steady lifestyle for a
family unit that he has never truly been a part of himself. Evangeline Lilly’s
Hope works on science-y stuff, Lang’s daughter Cassie is taking up on her
father’s way by getting into trouble and working with Hope and the grandpa
Michael Douglas on technology to map out the Quantum Realm. Once Pfeiffer hears
about this, before she’s able to explain why their new technology is so dangerous,
it appears the device they created malfunctions, and the entire family gets
sucked into the Quantum Realm. Scott and Cassie get separated from the other
three, and this serves as our initial driving point of our characters wanting
to find each other to find a way out of this place. But not everything is at it
seems dun dun dunnnnnnnnnnn.
I think part of my fatigue of the
recent MCU is too much CGI in general. And this film has our characters almost
exclusively interacting with green screen backgrounds. The visuals look fine
overall, but there’s one generic soft glow that acts as the light source,
so there’s little exciting cinematography to find, no dynamic lighting that happens.
And yes, there is an overall varied color palette for this crazy realm, but it
doesn’t fool your brain at any point into thinking you’re looking at anything
real. And what doesn’t help is super derived character and costume designs. Star
Wars Episode 2 is what came to mind first, but it also seemed like we were
copying the likes of like John Carter and maybe even more recently Dune.
This extends into the score and sound design. A lot of characters shoot some
form of beams or lasers or quantum particles, I don’t know, at each other and
it literally felt like everyone was instructed to shoot their pew pews
at each other and call it a day. I’ll talk further about the action later, but
it’s all forgettable.
We meet a lot of new characters in this realm.
We meet a rebellious group I believe called the Freedom Fighters, led by the
very one-dimensional Jentorra. But two of the side characters from here include
a hilarious red oozing blob that gave off B.O.B. vibes from Monsters Vs.
Aliens and the mind-reading, deadpan Quaz. It’s Scott and Cassie that find
this group and accidentally get them exposed to Kang’s troops. On the other
side, in a sequence that held very little weight to the overall story arc,
Pfeiffer interacts with Bill Murray’s Krylar, and we learn more about Pfeiffer’s
backstory. As Pfeiffer is always about to explain exactly what happened and why
it’s imperative they get out as soon as they can, they always get interrupted
by something. Later on when they finally get to the bottom of what happened
during the 30 years Pfeiffer was initially trapped, the characters of course
ask her why she never mentioned Kang to them. And she says, “I didn’t tell you
because I was trying to protect you. I’m sorry.” I swear the next movie to use
this stupid trope is getting an automatic 1/10 from me because it’s the lamest
logic to create artificial tension and mystery in a story.
I think one symptom of the constant
green screens is a lack of sophisticated action choreography. The action scenes
aren’t chopped to death like other movies, but there just isn’t anything
particularly interesting that happens. We also have no idea who can do what, or
how much danger they are ever in at one moment. Anytime we have action it feels
more like a beat that we have to get through to move on. It’s to create
a sense of pace for our characters to get from point A to B. And this is my
biggest suggestion. The film is just over 2 hours, and I’d like them to make it
10 minutes longer (and I still think you could cut out most of the Murray
scene). I want a few seconds where they setup giant weapons or like a big boom
or something. Let me feel the sense that when a character shoots their pew pew,
it’s going to be a big pew pew. Even take Clash of the Titans and
Wrath of the Titans. What those films did with overwhelming success was having
the audience understand the insane scale of the Titans in those films. The film
would pad the length just a few extra seconds just to show a Kraken emerge out
of a giant lake, letting the water fall seemingly endlessly back down to the
ground. There’s no comparison here. I want to understand the true might of
Kang, and you could’ve had him like charge up before unleashing his blue beams
and killing some folks—something along those lines. He may get made fun of for
it, but Zack Snyder knows how to emphasize action primarily by slowing down
footage. You could even take Hong Kong martial arts films as an example of when
they zoom up close on a character when a punch or kick lands on its target.
There’s a moment that Scott shares
with his daughter later in the film that is sweet enough for father-daughter
bonding, but there’s so little done to set it up. It’s like the film wanted to
aim for some theme and threw a bunch of stuff right near the end. Literally,
Cassie tells another character, “Just don’t be a dick.” So there’s your big
movie theme, folks. Also, the villain MODOK makes an appearance, and my
understanding is that the giant face thing is like how it appears in the comics,
and this is where they really should’ve taken creative liberty in translating
something into a modern film. Because MODOK looks absolutely wonky. And Paul
Rudd and others do make jokes about his appearance, but just because you can be
self-referential doesn’t disregard the fact that it should’ve been different in
the first place. Anyways, back to setup and Paul Rudd, you remember how he worked
at Baskin Robbins for the first film and it was hilarious? Hope you’re ready
for three more jokes about that scattered throughout this film. Is it funny?
Sure. Is it also lazy? Also yes.
Paul Rudd and some of the Freedom
Fighters help make sure Ant-Man and the Wasp: Quantumania is one of the
funnier MCU films and embraces the silliness of previous Ant-Man movies.
Kang provides a great foil for both this film as well as promised appearances
later on. A predictable story, boring action, and derivative costumes and
visuals prevents this from bringing us out of a slight Marvel slump of films
that make you go, “Yeah, I mean I liked it, but it wasn’t great or anything.”
Oh, and since Valentine’s Day wasn’t too long ago, make sure you find yourself
someone that talks to you the way Michael Douglas talks about his ants.
