When the trailer dropped for Ant-Man and the Wasp: Quantumania, it looked epic. The colours popped, Jonathan Majors delivered the chills and it promised a family drama set in the Quantum realm, which we haven't seen for more than 10 minutes in any of the previous Marvel movies.
But instead of delivering on the spectacle it promised, it delivers poor CGI (Modok being the biggest highlight) and cringe level family drama that Hallmark would not touch with a stick.
But my biggest gripe with the film is that Marvel wants us to believe that Kang, who is basically the Thanos of the Multiverse Saga, could be beaten by Ant-Man.
A C-lister Avenger is supposed to take on the big bad of the Multiverse - a big bad who's so bad he needs the Avengers to regroup to stop him. I don't know how the big guns at Marvel did not see this as problematic.
The other big issue is that the Quantum realm was never established to have humanoids. Not in the previous Ant-Man movies nor the Avenger movies.
Now all of a sudden we have B-grade Star Wars characters, a poorly executed rebellion with 10 people versus an entire army but somehow the 10 folks are able to beat superior weapons and superior numbers because it's convenient for story, despite the fact that it doesn't necessarily make story sense.
Elements from previous Ant-Man movies that made the films tick are either not present or feel dated. The element of the heist feels over used and Cassie's mom and the Ant-Man squad are sorely missed because they would have added gravitas and humour to the film.
Jonathan Majors is really good and honestly deserved a better script and better director for all the gravitas he brings. He does not deserve the ending nor the leaps of logic that the script just keeps skipping over - hopefully the next feature is handled by a director with more nuance and Marvel works on its script.
I'm just hoping that Phase 5 will get better from here and that this is its lowest point. From here the only movement can be up in quality and story and if that's not the case Quantumania will be remembered as the beginning of the end for Marvel.
Rating
**1/2
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*Not worth it ** You are on your own *** It Tries ****Almost Perfect *****Instant Classic