Ant-Man and the Wasp: Quantumania: A modest leap in the right direction
Ant-Man and the Wasp: Quantumania is just fine. The 31st installment in the Marvel Cinematic Universe (MCU) was released on Feb. 17 to some less-than-stellar reviews from critics. The Rotten Tomatoes score for the third installment in the Ant-Man series currently sits at an unimpressive 48%, the second lowest of any MCU movie to date, despite a down year for the franchise in 2022. While many of the topics for negative discussion about the movie are justified, the film as a whole succeeds in doing two key things and should be praised for doing so.
For one, this film leads the entirety of the Marvel franchise into its next phase with the first big-screen appearance of Kang the Conqueror. Kang, portrayed impeccably by Jonathan Majors, is who Marvel hopes will become the next great villain within the universe after Thanos’ demise. The character debuted originally in the Disney+ series, Loki, in what was a sort of teaser for this larger introduction in Ant-Man.
Secondly, the film provides an even greater service to fans in that it takes the MCU completely out of the rut in which it has been stuck in since the masterpiece that is Spider-Man: No Way Home, which came out in late 2021. Since then and prior to Ant-Man, three movies have been released within the greater universe: Doctor Strange in the Multiverse of Madness, Thor: Love and Thunder, and Black Panther: Wakanda Forever.
The first of the Marvel movies released in 2022 was completely over-the-top, with director Sam Raimi bringing unnecessary horror elements into what came off as a lowly continuation of the successful WandaVision series. The fourth installment of the Thor franchise came next and played too far into comedy that made its predecessor a top MCU film. With that being said, Ant-Man and the Wasp: Quantumania can’t possibly be the second worst of the franchise if two of the last three installments have been worse (let’s not even get into Thor: The Dark World and The Incredible Hulk). The release of the second Black Panther movie started to right the ship at Marvel, paving the way for Ant-Man to continue on an upward trend for the franchise.
Quantumania is by no means a perfect movie, but for every negative aspect someone throws out, the movie answers with a positive. For example, the film continues down the MCU’s already established hole of playing way too far into alternate realities; however, by doing so the writers opened up many new possibilities, both character and story-wise, that would not have been possible without the bright, fun CGI-filled setting that Marvel is known for.
Another gripe critics and fans have had with the film is that it lost some of its charm from the previous films by being set almost entirely in the quantum realm. By doing this, the writers cut out some of the hero’s funny sidekicks, specifically Michael Peña’s Luis. This was made up for, though, with the rest of the starring cast returning and the introduction of a charming new band of characters including Veb, a blobby alien obsessed with holes, and a surprise appearance by Bill Murray which was… interesting.
All of this is to say that while the film possesses some glaring missteps, it still provides a much-needed escape from what has been a rare down-point in the 15-year lifespan of the MCU. It seems as though many fans agree, as the audience score on Rotten Tomatoes is much higher than the critics’, at 83%. No one but the higher-ups at Marvel know where the MCU will go from here, but Ant-Man and the Wasp: Quantumania is a step on the right track for many fans.