Ant-Man and the Wasp: Quantumania
I find the discourse surrounding this movie interesting, as honestly, I think it speaks volumes on the state of the MCU. Had this movie came out earlier I don't think it would be receiving near as much criticism as it is currently, I think the criticism it is receiving is more so a by-product of people's continued critiques of the MCU and superhero fatigue. This film is ok. It is no worse than other mid-level entries we've gotten in the MCU, it has some really strong moments and also it has shortcomings, but by no means is this the worse film Marvel have made.
Like practically every single Marvel film at this point, the casting is impeccable. It is a wonder that they find actors that are as good as they are and are able to often enhance bad writing. At the top of that list in Johnathan Majors, who seems to be the only aspect of the film people are able to agree on. He is unbelievable as Kang. His foreboding nature and the way he's able to completely command every scene he's in is unnerving. However, I disagree with the idea that this film set him up as the next big bad well. He lacked any explanation of motivation, which so far has been the key to making a compelling villain in the MCU. Sadly, the film is more concerned with telling you how scary he is than showing you. He works as well as he does because of Majors.
Oddly joining him in standout actors is Michelle Pfeiffer. Janet Van Dyne is the most interesting character here, and barring a few tropey plot points, her story, and performance, are the best parts of the film. Whenever her and Majors share the screen, the film becomes the serious important story that you expect going into this. In contrast, Paul Rudd is just fantastic in delivering the comedic beats. Much like the other Ant-Man films, this film is first and foremost a comedy, and a really good one at that. A strange distinction to make is that the Ant-Man humour that's been established over the previous instalments works here, it's the more Marvel-esque humour that doesn't always hit.
Honestly that's where the problem lies with this film. It's marketed completely wrong. "Witness the beginning of a new dynasty" The film doesn't really live up to that line. It is another Ant-Man film, those expecting a pillar of the MCU that is required viewing will likely be disappointed as that's not what this film is. It's actually quite surprising how secular this film is, the set-up for future films that people seem to be praising mostly happens in the post-credits, or solely just the inclusion of Kang. As a Ant-Man comedy though this film is fun. It's the best word to describe this film, fun.
It's not without its issues. Wasp, despite being a named character in the title of this film, is nowhere to be seen throughout the runtime, and even when she's on screen, has practically nothing to do. So, when the film does give her something to do it actually feels jarring as she's been gone from most of the film. The writing is pretty cookie-cutter, again nothing notably worse than other mid-level Marvel entries, and since the pacing is so fast it doesn't really give the chance for any character to grow or change. Moreso any character with a motivation basically just has it spelled out to the audience. Particularly Cassie, her motivation to help people and the reason she's annoyed with her dad feels so out of place when her dad is simply expressing wanting to spend time with her. And yet this is weirdly a dynamic that could be fixed with just a single emotional scene where Cassie expresses her struggles of surviving the Blip and that being the motivation for her to help.
It's hard to say I didn't have a fun time with this film though. I thought the Quantum Realm was really zany and weird, I loved the character designs and the realisation of the world. It was goofy and not what the film was set up to be, but it was really creative. The new characters were all wasted and not set up well but had some great moments of comedy. The visuals were actually impressive considering practically all of this film is CGI. This might be because I saw it in IMAX 3D but there were less glaring bad effects than in other Marvel films. Perhaps the biggest surprise though was MODOK, there's no other way that character would've worked, and I liked using him for comedy. His ending was hilarious. Not the right start to Phase 5 but hard to hate part of the story being ants being pro-socialism