Ant-Man and The Wasp: Quantumania review: The least bland bland Marvel movie in a while
This is a movie that gives us all of six minutes to ease back into Scott Lang’s world and get up to speed on the last few years of his life
Ant Man And The Wasp: Quantumania wastes no time. This is a movie that gives us all of six minutes to ease back into Scott Lang’s world and get up to speed on the last few years of his life before throwing him into the Quantum Realm to kick off the MCU’s latest adventure.
With him on his latest interdimensional adventure are daughter Cassie, Hank Pym, Janet Van Dyne, Hope.
Team Ant-Man spends the entirety of the proceedings in said Quantum Realm which they find out is being ruled by evil dictator Kang The Conqueror. And Janet Van Dyne has something of a history with Kang.
Turns out she’s been keeping a lot of secrets about her activities in the 30 years she spent in the Quantum Realm before getting rescued in 2018’s Ant-Man And The Wasp.
But as to the aforementioned rushed six minutes - what’s Scott been up to since Avengers: Endgame you ask? He’s been riding the fame of being an Avenger, living off of free coffees, regularly getting asked for selfies and being mistaken for Spiderman.
He even wrote a book about his Avenger-ing.
In short, Scott traded in the superhero life for the small-time celebrity life, much to the disappointment of his daughter Cassie.
His girlfriend and superhero partner Hope, on the other hand, has taken over her dad’s company and has been using the Pym Particle to save the world with science.
Quantumania packs in a whole lot of plot in its two hours - the world-building of introducing us to the Quantum Realm (shots! shots! shots!); an ensemble adventure for team Ant-Man; an introduction to the villain that will define the next phase of the MCU and even a Star-Wars-style resistance-dictatorship story.
And Quantamania is the least bland bland MCU film in a while.
Despite being a superhero nerd, I had to rely on Google to remind myself what the recent ones even were. There have been 8 movies since the triumph of Avengers: Endgame.
Amidst the tiresome blur of disappointment, a handful have either been promising (Shang Chi, Wakanda Forever) or too “epic” to discount (Spiderman: No Way Home).
While it’s hardly a film anyone will look back on fondly years from now Quantumania at least gets its basics of good vs evil stakes right, largely down to Jonathan Major’s movie-salvaging Kang (more on him later).
