AntMan and the Wasp: Quantumania is written by Jeff Loveness and directed by Peyton Reed. The MCU film stars Paul Rudd as Scott Lang/Ant-Man, Evangeline Lily as Hope van Dyne/Wasp, Jonathan Majors as Kang the Conqueror, Kathryn Newton as Cassie Lang, Michelle Pfeiffer as Janet van Dyne and Michael Douglas as Hank Pym. Produced by Kevin Feige and Stephen Broussard, the runtime of the Marvel film is 124 minutes.
Ant-Man and the Wasp: Quantumania Review Contains No Spoilers
After saving the world, Scott Lang writes a book where he narrates everything that happened in Avengers: Endgame. But there’s another threat waiting for him in the Quantum realm. After saving the world, Scott has to save his family, especially his grown-up daughter Cassie. What does Kang want? Will Ant-Man and Wasp succeed in defeating him?
Phase 4 of the Marvel Cinematic Universe (MCU) had ups and downs. Some movies worked, and some didn’t. They’re struggling to keep up with the promise of a multiverse. Ant-Man and the Wasp: Quantumania is a crucial movie to build up the multiversal war. Sadly, it turns out to be the weakest movie, considering it is Phase 5’s first one.
Janet met Kang and other people when she went into the Quantum realm. Kang, exiled down there, wants to get out and do something. It is not precisely established what his motives are. Kang wants something, and only Scott can get that because he’s good at stealing. If Scott doesn’t do what Lang wants, he will kill his daughter Cassie.
In Ant-Man 3, the writer wants us to care for Scott and Cassie’s father-daughter bond and feel bad for what they’re going through. But how do we get invested in characters who were never shown to have any emotional connection before? Had it been the kid Cassie, I would get worried. But here, everything is just on the surface. Whenever Cassie would say ‘dad’, it reminded me of Isha taking Shiva’s name repeatedly in Brahmastra. There is no chemistry, no emotional depth in those scenes.
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The movie has a lot of action and fights scenes that bore you. I felt sleepy watching a Marvel movie for the first time because it was one big messy platter. People are just entering the quantum realm and fighting each other. All the tease about Janet keeping the quantum realm secrets for it to be hardly anything is highly disappointing. We have to imagine in our minds what must have happened in detail.
AntMan and the Wasp Quantumania doesn’t do well even in the VFX department. I don’t want to give any spoilers, but the return of a particular prominent character from the previous movie is underwhelming and ridiculous. The look of this said character is laughable, like a kid’s bad drawing is turned into a live figure. The fight scenes have no visual appeal or anything spectacular.
The movie has some good one-liners by Paul Rudd as Scott Lang, and they land. Otherwise, the actor is sadly wasted, and so are the other actors. Kathryn Newton gives a bad performance as Cassie Lang. She has no expressions and a constant smiling face, even in a dreadful situation. The poor script gives no room for the father-daughter bond to grow. It isn’t very pleasant considering how it is thrown upon us that this is the story about family, about Scott and Cassie.
When Jonathan Majors appeared in the Loki series, I was impressed. He had such an intimidating aura. But that’s missing in AntMan and the Wasp: Quantumania. Jonathan struggles to have that menacing effect due to a badly written character and dialogues. He hams in several scenes, and the CGI on his look is terrible.
The movie has a mid-credits scene and an end-credits scene. The mid-credit scene is a tease of something major happening in time, but it’s so badly acted. The end credits scene is another big tease and my favourite part of (or out of) the movie.
AntMan and the Wasp: Quantumania Review: Final Thoughts
Overall, Ant-Man and the Wasp: Quatumania is a sloppily written and badly directed MCU movie. It makes Thor: Love and Thunder look better. The makers didn’t bother to explain so many doors they’ve opened about the quantum realm, Janet, Kang and his intentions. They try to take an easy way out to the “big problems”. The plot has so many ‘holes’, it feels like the makers want us to fill in the blanks of the inadequately written story.