Ant Man and the Wasp: Quantumania

By: Jamie Steinberg

To be fair, it has been quite some time since I watched Ant Man and the Wasp so I did not know what to expect going into Ant Man and the Wasp: Quantumania. Unfortunately, this MCU movie was a bit of a dud. At least it still had the same sentiment, humor and sensational super heroism that is the Marvel trademark.

We pick up with Scott Lang (Paul Rudd) a/k/a Ant Man having written his memoir about what went into saving the world from Thanos. We then shift to the Quantum Realm, (where most of the film takes place) a microworld that you must navigate when you shrink so often that you wind up slipping between subatomic particles. We learn that while Janet Van Dyne (Michelle Pfeiffer) was stuck there she wasn’t alone…There were actually waring alien tribes that were there as well. Thankfully, she made a friend in a mysterious traveler named Kang (a badass Jonathan Majors), who led her to believe he had been exiled there from his home world.

At this point you may be asking yourself, “What does this have to do with Ant Man or the Wasp (Evangeline Lilly)?” Well, it takes about fifteen minutes into the movie to find out that thanks to their Scott’s daughter Cassie (Kathryn Newton) the duo get sucked into the Quantum Realm along with Janet and her husband Hank Pym (Michael Douglas). It feels more like a dream sequence though as everything happens so quickly. But things ramp up as we learn that Janet wasn’t joking when she said that there were people in the Quantum Real with her. It sure seems like director Peyton Reed had his hands full creating them all!

The movie itself though is quite dull and the performances fail to truly capture the wonderment or terror that each should be feeling in their current circumstances. There is a joke here and there and some get in a huff, but something feels off. Majors is a standout with his intensity (as expected); however, it still feels a bit reserved – like he’s holding back. Regardless, it’s up to Ant Man and The Wasp to prevent him from leaving the Quantum Realm or the universe as we know it will be destroyed.

Sadly, Ant Man and the Wasp: Quantumania doesn’t deliver on the comic-book level extravagance that Marvel fans have come to love from recent productions. There is a lackluster pizzazz to the movie that keeps viewers from investing in this latest action adventure where Lang must rescue his daughter and, again, save the world. Instead, moviegoers will wish they could shrink down so they could sneak out of the movie undetected.