‘Quantum’ Excess
Peyton Reed’s third Ant-Man sets up the MCU’s next phase. And that’s about all it does.
Ant-Man and the Wasp: Quantumania
Director: Peyton Reed • Writer: Jeff Loveness
Starring: Paul Rudd, Evangeline Lilly, Jonathan Majors, Michelle Pfeiffer, Michael Douglas, Kathryn Newton, David Dastmalchian, William Jackson Harper, Katy O’Brian, Bill Murray
USA • 2hrs 5mins
Opens Hong Kong February 15 • IIB
Grade: C-
Y’all have got to believe me when I tell you the brilliant Head of the Family is a real movie. It’s from 1996 and it’s about an ironfisted patriarch, Myron, who terrorises his family through mind control – and he’s just a head. Literally, a giant head on a tiny body who gets around in an electric wheelchair. You’ve never seen anything like it. Until now, because the only truly high point of Ant-Man and the Wasp: Quantumania is a giant floating head who’s also the main villain’s main henchman. Henchhead. Whateverthefuck, it’s hilarious.
If you’re up to date on your Marvel product and you took a minute to watch Loki back in 2021 you met Kang the Conqueror (Jonathan Majors, Lovecraft Country, the forthcoming beefy extravaganza Creed III) at the very end, the latest Marvel villain to join the roster. Kang is a despot trapped in the quantum realm who sees Scott Lang/Ant-Man (Paul Rudd) as his ticket out when Lang stumbles in. That hardly matters, though, as Quantumania spends most of its blessedly “short” two-hour runtime working so hard to perform as the kick-off to the MCU Phase Five, which will also include May’s Guardians of the Galaxy Vol. 3, The Marvels in July, Anthony Mackie’s Captain America, more Loki, Ironheart (from Wakanda Forever) and, Kevin Feige swears, a new Blade, it forgets to be a movie in itself. Everything that sets your teeth on edge/that you adore about these movies is here, rendering it effectively critic-proof. Haters gonna hate. Fans going to power it to, let’s say, US$800 million.
Zzzzzzz…
This is the MCU movie that leans hardest into science fiction elements despite the fact it’s a massive Star Wars riff (OG Star Wars is fantasy – fight me). But for arugment’s sake you got your Sandpeople, your Jawas, your Cantina, a lovely squared-off array of Stormtroopers, an Emperor hologram and a Death Star-y type thing. But Quantumania displays some of the MCU’s laziest storytelling to date and relying on multiverse shortcuts and saves, an element that’s already overstayed its welcome. Most baffling is how dour and sober everyone in the least dour and sober of the Avengers films is; the light snark of the first film is sorely missed. Ant-Man’s modest charm had as much to do with Michael Peña, David Dastmalchian (appearing here as the blobby Veb) and TI as thieving crew Luis, Kurt and Dave as it did with Rudd, who’s admittedly trying his damnedest to pull it all together.
Instead writer Jeff Loveness (whose most prominent credit is five years with late night talk show Jimmy Kimmel) and returning director Peyton Reed give us a wonky story about Scott saving his budding-scientist-cum-professional demonstrator Cassie (Kathryn Newton, Freaky, Blockers) and mother-in-law Janet van Dyne (Michelle Pfeiffer being utterly dull if you can wrap your mind around that) from the realm and from Kang. Naturally, they’re in there because Cassie messed with tech she didn’t understand, and Scott and his partner in love & rescue, Hope van Dyne/Wasp (anti-vaxxer and conspiracy lover Evangeline Lilly) don’t quite know what they’re up against because Janet didn’t take five minutes to have a bloody conversation about her 30 years in the realm with anyone. Will someone just please answer a question when asked?
Quantumania is Marvel stretching to almost breaking. The quips fall flat this time around, which Loveness may hope no one notices thanks to requisite manic action and dodgy CGI, probably ground out by the 25 or so VFX companies whose staff worked overtime to make Marvel’s release date. Never mind the looming Writers Guild of America strike; when are effects workers going to take labour action that will allow them to do their jobs properly and still get a night’s sleep? On top of the dourness, everyone looks bored and nothing gets added to the now-unwieldy mythology of the MCU. When Kang, during the final throwdown (the laser beams innovatively go straight out in front this time) sneers that he controls time, but Lang “talks to ants,” you kind of want to stand up and yell at the screen, “Exactly! Why are we being so serious?” You know trouble’s afoot when the post-credit stinger gets a bigger rise from the audience than anything else. This is a bland family adventure with very little joy. But heinously rote as it is, Quantumania can count the super-cool Katy O'Brian (Z Nation) as the rebel leader Jentorra (she gets rescued from the Death Star brig, go figure) and the quietly imposing Majors, who again proves why he’s a damn movie star, as among its bright spots – them and the aforementioned head of course. — DEK