My Review of "Ant-Man and the Wasp: Quantumania"

Ant-Man and the Wasp: Quantumania has finally come out. This is a hotly anticipated movie and probably the first Marvel movie that feels like it's part of the post-COVID. You kind of have to know the background stories of what's been going on to understand what's going on in this movie as well. In a lot of ways this movie felt like an TV episode in a long running series. Of course the production is way higher and the runtime way longer.

The movie starts out in the past. We go back to the time when Janet, Hope (aka Wasp)'s mother. We're going back to the time when she was in the Quantum Realm. There she had to fight alien species but was saved by a mysterious man. Those that have been watching Loki know who exactly it is.

In some ways this movie doesn't know where the audience is. It tries to keep a secret that's out in the open. They have had TV shows that re-iterate who the people are. We're also at the same time expected to know who the characters are since this is the third iteration in the Ant-Man franchise. This doesn't include the appearances that he's made in other movie franchises. This movie doesn't know if we know and also expects us to know certain things. It's confusing to the makers of this movie and in turn it confuses us as the audience what they're trying to do.

The first quarter of the movie is pure frustration as Janet continually does the overdone cliché of not telling her family what had happened while she was in the Quantum Realm. Despite the urgency of what's going on she continually holds on to her secret for dear life even though she knows her family has the ability to help rectify the situation. It's not like these guys have no powers. They're all brilliant and use their tech very efficiently.

Eventually the story gets revealed that she had befriended Kang the conqueror in this quantum realm. This came to an end when she discovered who he really was. Apparently the fear of this character has shocked the dickens out of her that she wants to keep it all a secret.

Through a series of unfortunate incidences the family get sucked into the Quantum Realm to of course face this evil tyrant. A lot of this expedition is a weird discussion of being woke. They're telling us as the audience that we should always do something to help others when we see something is wrong. Well that's what got you into the whole ordeal didn't it? This message doesn't quite get conveyed the way I think they anticipated it to.

One of my biggest gripes about this movie is the inconsistency of the rules of the movie. The heroes and villains don't really have defined abilities. Us as the audience have to just go with whatever they say even though some of these abilities and situations change on the whim to fit the story.

It is however a fantasy movie so I guess I'll give it to them that you shouldn't think too hard about it but even world building in Lord of the Rings and The Walking Dead have more consistency than this. Everything is kept vague so you have to kind of just go with it. So this makes it fall into the popcorn movie category.

When we consider it as a popcorn movie then you can have a little more fun with the movie. The special effects are fun. There are some fun scenes and some nice touching scenes as well. Nothing that is consistent to keep it memorable to me though.

Overall, I still had fun with this movie. Though at times it felt like it had the epic feel of the Avengers: Endgame with not a lot of established characters. So it's kind of like comparing a party with room full of celebrities to a party with one or two. There's still some fun to be had but it isn't the same. Even though they used the same formulas. I have to give this movie a 6 out of 10. If you've been keeping up with Marvel movies then watch it but I doubt you'll rewatch it again.