I really would have liked to give the newest installment of Ant-Man a stellar review. However, I have to say that Ant-Man and The Wasp: Quantumania was a disappointment. I hadn’t expected much from the film to begin with, given the quality of Marvel’s most recent outputs (specifically Thor: Love and Thunder). It seems as though Marvel has become so comfortable in the cushion of its own fanbase that the quality of the story they are portraying has been thrown to the wayside in exchange for clichéd dialogue and visual effects.
But don’t get me wrong, I am most definitely still a part of that fanbase. Marvel’s brought so much joy to so many people around the world. And I’m not about to stop going to the theaters for Marvel just because of a few subpar films.
That, of course, brings us back to the subpar film at hand: Ant-Man and The Wasp: Quantumania. There might have been a page or two of dialogue throughout the movie that didn’t teeter on the edge of overused. There was no character development concerning Scott Lang or Hope Pym (Ant-Man and The Wasp respectively) and it seemed that Cassie Lang’s only real role in the film was to act as leverage for the villain, Kang the Conqueror. However, the most disappointing aspect of the film was that there was very little world building done in the way of exploring and explaining the Quantum realm. The film just felt very bloated, as if it were taking on more than it could chew in two hours of run time.
WARNING: spoilers ahead!
The only redeeming quality of Ant-Man and The Wasp: Quantumania I’d say, would be two minor characters that barely made an appearance. I never knew how much I needed Darren Cross as M.O.D.O.K. until he revealed himself to Scott Lang, fully confident in the proportions of his new body. M.O.D.O.K. might have only had fifteen minutes of screen time at the most, but he stole the show with his comedic, over the top twists in character. He arguably might have had the most character development out of anyone. The second character to liven up the film was some sort of gelatinous creature whose goop gave Scott Lang and his entourage the convenient ability to understand any language spoken to them by the hundreds of different creatures living in the Quantum realm. The creature was just so chaotically random that you couldn’t help but fall in love with it.
You can always tell the difference between a good film and a bad one in the way you experience it in the theater. Either you’re fully engrossed in the screen in front of you and the theater itself disappears…..Or you’re fully aware of the fellow audience members munching on popcorn and snacks and how badly you have to go to the bathroom.
It was the latter for me this time around.
