Marvel’s 15-year-long success has hinged, to a significant degree, on its expert casting. From Robert Downey Jr. as cocky tycoon Tony Stark, to Chris Evans as aw-shucks heartthrob Captain America, to the late Chadwick Boseman as regal and wise Black Panther, the studio has thrived precisely by finding the ideal people to play its popular larger-than-life parts.
Certainly, that’s true of the Ant-Man movies, which would be even more humorless and second-rate if not for the innate charm of Paul Rudd as Scott Lang, a thief-turned-hero who’s the beneficiary of a techno-fangled suit created by Hank Pym (Michael Douglas) that allows him to magically make himself bigger and smaller.
Ant-Man is a peripheral Avenger at best, and his two big-screen outings—both directed by Peyton Reed—have been functional almost-funny placeholders in the Marvel schedule, intended to temporarily satiate devotees in-between more spectacular A-level events. Still, Rudd can’t help but be amusing, and his good-natured likability has gone some way toward justifying the character’s persistent prominence in the Marvel Cinematic Universe (MCU), even if he’s fared better in Avengers blockbusters than in his own stand-alone tales.
Rudd’s shrinky-dink do-gooder once again takes center stage in Ant-Man and the Wasp: Quantumania (which hits theaters Feb. 17), and just as readers will likely get lost in its gobbledygook subtitle, so too does Rudd get swallowed up by the consuming CGI insanity of his latest comic book extravaganza.
A chore of diminishing returns, it’s an adventure that plays out almost wholly on green screens, here used by desktop artists to realize the Quantum Realm, a subatomic world that resembles a cross between Star Wars and Avatar, except with far more garish and muddy blues, oranges, and yellows. It’s a murky mess of an artificial setting that no doubt made filming during COVID easier, not that the pandemic is any excuse for the chintzy aesthetics and leaden writing of this forgettable franchise entry.
Scott is living the celebrity good life at the start of Ant-Man and the Wasp: Quantumania, but things are rocky with his teenage daughter Cassie (Kathryn Newton), an arrogant wannabe-activist who bristles at her dad’s desire to coast on his former glory rather than affect positive change. In her free time, Cassie is also a scientific genius who’s constructed a telescope that’ll map the Quantum Realm, which greatly impresses Scott, his partner/girlfriend Hope van Dyne, aka Wasp (Evangeline Lilly), and Hope’s dad Hank.
However, Hope’s mom Janet (Michelle Pfeiffer), who spent 30 years trapped in the Quantum Realm, finds this invention of great concern. Her fears quickly prove well-founded when, before she can voice her objection, everyone is sucked into the micro-land, where it turns out a multiverse-traversing villain named Kang (Jonathan Majors) has been exiled.
If Janet had simply warned her loved ones about tyrannical Kang from the get-go, the entire ensuing saga could have been easily avoided, but Ant-Man and the Wasp: Quantumania repeatedly has Janet withhold vital information as an unbelievable means of forwarding the plot. Worse, Jeff Loveness’ script operates only via clichéd declarations of love and togetherness, and word-salad exposition dumps about Kang’s origins and purpose.
From his semi-comprehensible diatribes, one gleans that he’s a powerful visionary who learned how to traverse time (which is a “prison”). After seeing that the various multiverse versions of himself were actually breaking time (whatever that means), Kang waged war against his doppelgangers, the goal being to destroy every universe that opposed him. Or something like that. He also suffered great losses, although fans will apparently have to wait to hear about them in future films.
In the Quantum Realm, Scott and Cassie team up with local alien rebels who look like gelatinous amphibian rejects from George Lucas’ sketchbook, and Hank, Janet and Hope have a sit-down with Janet’s former flame Lord Krylar (Bill Murray, in a thankless appearance). Shortly thereafter, they encounter M.O.D.O.K. (Corey Stoll), a giant-headed weirdo-weapon that was once Scott’s nemesis Darren Cross, and then square off against Kang, who—as explained by a lengthy, lethargic flashback—is really mad about Janet thwarting his prior attempt to escape this teeny-tiny domain.
Between Cassie inspiring revolt (alongside an indigenous female warrior) and Hank cheering on socialism (inspired by his super-smart ant buddies), the film strives to champion revolutionary progressivism, which—given its nature as mass-market Disney/Marvel corporate product—is arguably the only hilarious thing about Ant-Man and the Wasp: Quantumania.
Well, that and the filmmakers’ dogged efforts to relegate Lilly to the sidelines; Hope is an afterthought throughout this odyssey, calling into question why she receives title billing in the first place, and negating the emotional impact of her lovey-dovey moments with Scott. Meanwhile, as befitting the action’s general listlessness, comedian Gregg Turkington and I Think You Should Leave scene-stealer Ruben Rabasa are wasted in pointless cameos.
Majors cuts a striking figure as Kang, his imperious rage laced with underlying hurt. Yet at least in this incarnation, he’s only a semi-realized madman. That’s likely due to the fact that, as Marvel’s new reality-threatening Big Bad, Kang is being kept partially in the shadows in order to facilitate grander reveals down the road. Nonetheless, it exacerbates the sense that Ant-Man and the Wasp: Quantumania is a lot of weightless, lifeless set-up.
If there’s any justice in the multiverse, the follow-ups that arrive in its wake won’t require the participation of Douglas and Pfeiffer, who are reduced (pun intended) to embodying two-dimensional cornball nobodies in a story that cut-and-pastes with embarrassing and depressing abandon.
Rarely giving Rudd a chance to crack a joke, so busy is it forcing him to sprint around glowing platforms and floating rock formations, Ant-Man and the Wasp: Quantumania eventually runs out of ideas altogether, resorting to a climactic fistfight to settle its conflict.
While any respite from energy-beam showdowns is a minor victory when it comes to modern superhero affairs, the sheer lack of imagination on display remains enervating, right up to a finale that makes a joke out of the proceedings’ inconclusiveness. The MCU may think itself so invincible that it can safely continue churning out subpar ventures such as this (and Shang-Chi, and The Eternals), but few more duds and it’ll learn the lesson that Kang himself inevitably will: time isn’t forever on its side.
Keep obsessing! Sign up for the Daily Beast’s Obsessed newsletter and follow us on Facebook, Twitter, Instagram and TikTok.
