Ant-Man and the Wasp: Quantumania

Ant-Man and the Wasp: Quantumania is a new addition to the Marvel Cinematic Universe, which has a different aura than other Marvel films. The movie takes us on a journey to the Quantum Realm, a land that you fall into if you shrink so much that you find yourself slipping between subatomic particles. Ant-Man (Paul Rudd), the Wasp (Evangeline Lilly), and Hank Pym (Michael Douglas) accidentally get sucked into this world along with Janet Van Dyne (Michelle Pfeiffer), who reveals that a whole universe of beings exists in the Quantum Realm, including Kang (Jonathan Majors), a dangerous, all-powerful being who had been exiled to the Quantum Realm from his own world.

The movie starts with a relatively brief, breezy opening section set in the Marvel present, where Scott Lang has written a memoir about his eventful life as Ant-Man and his experiences saving the world in the wake of the Thanos Snap and the ensuing battles. However, the vast majority of the movie takes place in the Quantum Realm. There are rebel tribes, smugglers, intricate new aliens, queasy alliances, new spaceships, and cantinas that give the feeling of watching a Star Wars movie. However, the movie fails to bring the imagination and earnestness of George Lucas’s space operas or the irreverent prankster sensibility of Taika Waititi’s Thor Ragnarok.

The movie's main problem is that the characters' journeys through the Quantum Realm are presented in totally listless fashion. The performances fail to convey either the wonderment or terror that the characters should presumably be feeling, and everything seems to be disconnected. Even the talented actors fail to make you feel anything, which is odd since part of the story involves Ant-Man’s desperate attempts to save his daughter. The end result is numb alienation, which is probably not what one expects from a superhero flick. The action is tired, the universe unconvincing, and nobody onscreen looks like they want to be there.

Even Majors, a fine actor who can usually muster up intensity with seemingly little effort, doesn’t seem to know what to do with Kang. Most of his performance involves walking around and softly muttering his dialogue. You keep waiting for the menace or the grandiosity or the vengefulness to ratchet up, but aside from a few unconvincing, late-inning battle sequences, there really doesn’t seem to be much to Kang. Yes, he can make people levitate and shoot lasers out of his hands, but does that feel particularly special in the Marvel world?

Quantumania fails on a basic, meat-and-potatoes comic-book-movie level. It doesn’t even manage to clearly explain the magic doodad that our heroes have to recover this time. More importantly, it fails to make the audience feel anything, which is odd since part of the story involves Ant-Man’s desperate attempts to save his daughter. The action is tired, the universe unconvincing, and nobody onscreen looks like they want to be there. They don’t even look like they know where there is.

In conclusion, Ant-Man and the Wasp: Quantumania is an atrocious movie that lacks imagination and earnestness, and the performances fail to convey any emotions. The universe of the Quantum Realm is unconvincing, and the characters' journeys through it are presented in a listless fashion, disconnected from one another. Even the talented actors fail to make you feel anything, and Kang, the main villain of the movie, fails to make a lasting impression. The action is tired, and the story fails to make the audience care about the characters or their journey. All in all, it's a movie that is not worth watching.