ANT-MAN AND THE WASP: QUANTUMANIA – Review by Susan Granger
Just be thankful you didn’t squander your money at the box-office for Ant-Man and the Wasp: Quantumania, one of the most worthless entries in the Marvel Cinematic Universe.
Paul Rudd’s third Ant-Man escapade is basically a family vacation gone wrong. His ex-con alter-ego Scott Lang, who was once fired from Baskin Robbins, is living it up in San Francisco as a minor celebrity who now has a best-selling memoir Look Out for the Little Guy! about his Avengers adventure.
When Lang, a divorced dad, and his girl-friend Hope Van Dyne, known as the Wasp (Evangeline Lilly), are enjoying family time with his feisty teenage daughter Cassie Lang (Kathryn Newton) – a young radical who was arrested for civil disobedience – and Hope’s parents, Janet and Hank (Michelle Pfeiffer, Michael Douglas) – they are suddenly sucked down into a mutating Quantum Realm – located outside our space/time continuum.
Delving into MCU history, retired physicist Hank Pym was a former S.H.I.E.L.D. agent, while Janet Van Dyne was the original Wasp. She was previously confined in that subatomic sphere for 30 years, so she reunites with old acquaintances, including smarmy Lord Krylar (Bill Murray) with whom she apparently had some kind of a romantic relationship.
Janet also has a history with scowling, manipulative Kang the Conqueror (Jonathan Majors), whom she previously prevented from escaping from the Realm. But the real villain is Kang’s MODOK (Carey Stoll’s Darren Cross) – a.k.a.: Mechanized Organism Designed Only for Killing. It’s a huge malevolent Helmeted Head with Glowing Eyes of Doom and insect-like limbs.
The concept – devised by screenwriter Jeff Loveness and director Peyton Reed and loaded with far too many distracting, computer-generated characters – couldn’t be more confusing. It’s obvious that the filmmakers concentrated primarily on building the Quantum fantasy world using FX.
On the Granger Gauge of 1 to 10, “Ant-Man and the Wasp: Quantumania” is an atrocious 3, streaming on Prime Video, Apple TV and Vudu – and, yes, there are mid-and-post-credits scenes, teasing Avengers: The Kang Dynasty (2025).
