So I watched Ant-Man and the Wasp: Quantumania at Regal Cinemas yesterday, and needless to say, Marvel Studios is really starting to prove Martin Scorsese right!
Scorsese once pointed out that superhero films, particularly those by Marvel, were more like amusement park rides instead of proper cinematic experiences, and the third Ant-Man movie proved that.
Quantumania was an entertaining flick—with Paul Rudd, Evangeline Lilly, Michael Douglas and Michelle Pfeiffer once again commendable in their established roles, along with newcomers Kathryn Newton and Jonathan Majors (as the villainous Kang the Conqueror)—but it stopped right there as the film was somewhat deliberate in its attempt to be a typical CGI-ridden superhero movie...filled with banality and playing it safe with its plot.
While it's understandable that computer-generated imagery was needed to bring the Quantum Realm to life in Ant-Man 3 (just like in the two previous installments and 2019's Avengers: Endgame), the visual effects in this movie felt even more artificial than what you saw in last year's Doctor Strange in the Multiverse of Madness and Thor: Love and Thunder. I really wanted to like Quantumania, but I couldn't help but yawn and become bored in the first act of the film before Kang finally stepped onto the scene.
As for Kang, Majors' portrayal of the Marvel Cinematic Universe's (MCU) next Thanos-level antagonist was well-done. (Spoilers ahead) I just wished that Kang killed one of the major characters (he only vanquished a bunch of movie extras running away from him) and escaped through that portal in the climax. Of course, the mid-credits scene at the end shows that there will be more than enough Kangs to be a threat to the Avengers once these bad guys arrive on the scene in future MCU movies!
So yea— Ant-Man and the Wasp: Quantumania could've been better. I would say that I'm looking forward to Guardians of the Galaxy Vol. 3 this May, but I'm annoyed by what Guardians director James Gunn has done to the DC Extended Universe during his new tenure at Warner Bros. studios.
Henry Cavill is no longer Superman? The Batman Beyond live-action film was cancelled? We'll never see Dwayne Johnson's Black Adam show up in a Shazam! movie? How dare you, Gunn!
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