Ant-Man and the Wasp: Quantumania Review - It Gave Me Bed Bugs

There is a universe out there where Ant-Man and the Wasp, Quantumania, is a good movie. This ain't it. Director Peyton Reed is back for the third Ant-Man film. This time though, instead of directing around cities and different locations, it's all set within the quantum realm, aka a green screen. I'm old enough to remember when this trailer hit initially and I said, man, first reaction's not great. It looks like the whole thing's on a soundstage in front of a green screen and they're just splatting in VFX all over it. It doesn't feel authentic. It doesn't feel natural or realistic at all. At which point geniuses in the comments said, hey Adam, how do you expect the quantum realm to look real? You can't make things look real when they're not. You actually can! That's what cinema is. That's what Hollywood magic's all about. Bringing the fantasy into reality. Convincing people what they're looking at is real. They stopped trying to do that anymore over at Marvel HQ. Instead in my humblest of opinions, it feels like they're just making products now. Not so much cinematic films. In fact, while this nonsensical noisemaker was happening, I couldn't help but think back on Iron Man 1 when I saw that in theaters and how gritty and grounded and amazing it was. The effects, while not all the way practical, there was still plenty of CG, it felt real. It seemed plausible. But now here we are with Ant-Man and the Wasp, Quantumania, with Thor, Love and Thunder, with Doctor Strange 2, it doesn't even have an inkling of authenticity to it. There's a little indie film called The Martian with Matt Damon. You may have heard of it. I think it won a couple of awards. It was filmed on Mars. Except for, oh wait, no it wasn't because we can't actually put Matt Damon on Mars. You could have fooled a mass audience though who actually believed it was filmed there. Why? Because it looks so damn good. Because they used practical sets. Because they put some effort into things. And obviously it's a desert planet, right? It's a lot easier to fake it and make it. That does not excuse the garbage that was shat out on the screen with Ant-Man 3. Let's really get into it without any spoilers at all. This is the same exact plot as Spider-Man No Way Home, where our supposed good guy screws around with things, tinkers, and he ends up causing problems. Problems that could inevitably lead to the ends of universes. So the main villain, outside of Kang, is stupidity. On the behalf of the superhero, I'm really getting sick of this new trope Marvel has come up with where it's actually the heroes that are causing the dilemmas that they're facing. When we meet Scott Lang now, he's enjoying his celebrity status. He's an Avenger. He saved the universe. And people are appreciating that. He's getting free Dunkin Donuts. He's got book signings. But one individual is not particularly impressed. And that's his daughter Cassie, now played by Katherine Newton. This is the third or fourth actress, I lost count, taking on this role. The one from Endgame that we saw that was of age, she, I guess, didn't get a callback. They needed someone with a bit more of that IT factor. And they said Katherine's the one. The actress from Detective Pikachu. Here's the deal. I'm sure Katherine's a lovely actress and a lovely person all around. I do not like her as this character. She rubbed me the wrong way. She felt like she was smiling through every scene she was in. I had the same issue with her in Detective Pikachu, actually. You can play back the tape. I said, she felt like she was acting in an entirely different movie from everyone else. And that's exactly how it is here. Although it's almost flipped. It seems like Katherine, in this case, is the only one acting in the movie that she's supposed to, while everyone else is acting in something much darker, more dramatic, better. Because as it stands, Ant-Man and the Wasp Quantumania is basically a Power Rangers movie. It feels like a Disney film, through and through. And I don't mean that as a compliment. I mean, this movie feels like something that should have been on Disney+. I know a lot of people were excited to see Jonathan Majors as Kang the Conqueror. Why? He's probably cool in the comics. Here though, not impressed. Not really impressed at all. Actor does a fine job. It's just the material is really bad. The writing, the dialogue. The other Ant-Man movies are fine. They're perfectly serviceable films you can watch in and out. They got some good comedy. They're light. They're fluffy. Fine. That works for Ant-Man. But now we've put him in this big stakes, larger than life scenario. And we're expected, I guess, to be on board with the new style, the new approach. I'm not on board. And it's a little funny that some of the MCU guys said, this is the endgame of Phase 5 already. Right out of the gates. We're at endgame again. This doesn't have that level of excitement, of energy. It's giving the illusion of larger than life, but everything feels so small. Ant pun intended, I guess. It feels green screen studio soundstage. The whole way through. And there are some moments that are so brutal to watch. Just cringe embarrassing. Where I don't know if it was the B team coming in, filming some reshoots, but damn this looked terrible. The movie is a pepper over two hours long. That's a thing I just made up, a pepper over. Two hours and five minutes. You're not going to want to stay for the end credits. They're embarrassing. They're really bad. Especially the first one, where oof. This third film is really about the Pym family. It's about family. This is the fast and the furious of the MCU now. Really a big focus is about Hope. And about Cassie. And about Dad, aka Scott Lang, aka Cassie yells his name out three thousand times in this movie. Dad! And half the time there's no effort put into it. It's just, Dad! Dad! Dad? Dad. For me, this is easily the worst Ant-Man film and I don't have glowing praise of the others. As I stated, they're very watchable movies though. They're fun, fancy-free, get in, get out sort of situations. This one, at two hours long, it feels like a chore to sit through. It's lengthy at times. There's a ton of exposition. Half this movie is exposition. Every character I feel like has a moment or three where they're like, why don't you pull up a chair? We got some stuff to go over here. Remember the years I was at the Quantum Realm and we for some reason didn't talk at all about anything I was doing? I'm Michelle Pfeiffer right now. Yeah, I was holding onto some stuff. I got some baggage and we're going to learn about it on the spot here instead of all that time we had to share. It's all coming out now. By the way, Michelle Pfeiffer, she looks so good still. She still can get it. Evangeline Lilly, however, wow, that haircut's awful. What a terrible haircut. I just got one myself. I think I'm pretty good with it. I'm pretty happy with how it turned out. Anyway, let's keep going. Since Ant-Man was always kind of your paint-by-numbers MCU movie where it had a lot of lame jokes and light action, it doesn't fit the molding of this big-scale film. Scott Lane can't be as fun and as chipper and charming as he usually is, and I don't want to see serious, down-in-the-dumps Ant-Man constantly yelling at Cassie and wanting to save the world. That's not cool to me. That's not what Ant-Man is. Why is he going up against Kang the Conqueror, even? Isn't Kang supposed to be one of the strongest, most feared characters? Didn't get that here. Didn't get that. Here's the bottom line. I was not expecting much when I went to this film. I thought it was going to be kind of mediocre, it was going to let me down in some places, and guess what? It actually exceeded those expectations. It was way worse than I thought. Not horrible, it's watchable. There are a couple jokes that land, there are a couple fun characters that come and go, but the overall package is sorely lacking, and this is such a far cry from where we started with Iron Man. Of course, things have to get grander, they have to go a little zanier, a little sillier. That's okay. That's alright. But we have to find a way to still ground them a little. We still have to find a way to have audiences connect to what's going on, otherwise you are truly just watching another dumbass Fast and the Furious movie. It's a popcorn vehicle explosion extravaganza, and for a lot of people, that's plenty. They don't see a lot of movies, they don't get off, and they just want to be entertained and walk away. For me, I'm kind of at the point where I feel like the MCU started out smarter than that. Better than that. Felt like they cared more. But now I'm watching one or two people running in place while things blow up, and there's like flapping castles that are alive, shooting turrets and ----, and then bridges are breaking, but I know that they're really not, and I know that there's no threat at all, and the people are like, whoa, I'm falling, but I'm just standing still. It doesn't work. It just doesn't. Not for me. Not for this guy. But I'm but one person, and I would love to hear from you. Let me know in the comments if you saw Ant-Man, Quantumania, and what you thought about it. Were you excited? Were you impressed afterwards? Did you love those end credits? Those tantalizing end credits that did absolutely nothing for me? Or are you like me, and you thought, man, what a waste of time? What are we even doing anymore with the MCU? Please think about subscribing if you haven't. I would love to have you stick around. I post tons of movie reviews, rants, reactions, things related to the movie space. 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