With MCU Phase 4 being mostly disappointing or mediocre, a lot was riding on Ant-Man and the Wasp: Quantumania. Not only was it the Phase 5 opener but it also supposed to be the foundation on which the entire Multiverse Saga will be built. However, as you know by now, the film has failed to impress critics and audiences alike. Usually the third solo outings of MCU characters have been great, be it Captain America, Iron Man, Thor, or Spider-Man but this one has broken that trend. For me personally, it was not a bad film, but at the same time it certainly wasn’t a good one. Now if you read further, you’ll encounter some MAJOR SPOILERS as we’ll try to decode what went wrong with Ant-Man and the Wasp: Quantumania.
Ant-Man and the Wasp: Quantumania – A CGI Mayhem With No Soul
HOC Rating – ★★1/2
So, if you like Ant-Man 3 and are wondering why it has such poor reviews and is being bashed by everyone, you are at the right place. First of all, you aren’t the only one to like the film as it has an audience score of 83% on Rotten Tomatoes at the time of writing. Now as to why didn’t other people like it, the answer is simple, Ant-Man was a very forgetful and generic superhero film and failed to stand out in any way. It is exactly the kind of Marvel flick that legends like Quentin Tarantino and Martin Scorsese have a problem with. If you keep the classic Marvel hype you felt while watching it away, you’ll realize that the film had no soul, no character development of any kind, and absolutely no message or meaning.
Ant-Man and the Wasp: Quantumania just puts on an overdose of CGI from the very beginning right till the mid credit scene. And while Avatar 2 did it successfully, Ant-Man 3 fails at even that due to poor VFX and oversaturated color palette. First of all, the film is almost entirely shot in front of a green screen and hence, almost everything you see from the very first scene is completely digitalized. Why is it bad? Cause it doesn’t feel real and fails to immerse the viewers! The reason why Avatar 2 succeeded is because of the use of practical effects and years of VFX works and editing. On the other hand, Ant-Man 3 seems like a cheap CGI extravaganza which was made to grab all your money, all within a few months.
So, critics and cinephiles are massively disappointed by the VFX of this movie and if you take that aside, it has nothing else to offer. Granted the first half did some massive world-building and hyped up Kang the Conqueror beyond expectations. Unfortunately, Kang turned out to be a worse villain than Ronan the Accuser from Guardians of the Galaxy. Ignoring Jonathan Majors’ mediocre and one dimensional portrayal of Kang, he literally got beat up by Ant-Man and his family. So what was all that hype and foreshadowing about how overpowered he was for? From what I understand, he was banished by the Council of Kangs because even they were afraid of this variant. But he did nothing terrifying or even a little bit impactful throughout the film, and was reduced to just “all talk and no action.”
Coming to the Ant-Family consisting of Scott, Hank, Hope, Janette, and Cassie, none of them receive growth of any kind, except Cassie learning to “jump and tap”. The story of this film as an individual entity can be summarized as “stop Kang from escaping Quantum Realm” and the simple solution was never entering it in the first place. Why didn’t Janette tell them about Kang if she knew everyone was curious about QR and might try to enter/contact it? Only logical reason is that “cause then this movie wouldn’t have been made.” As for the larger MCU world building, the film did a superb job there with numerous references, Kang Dynasty buildup, and that Loki post credit scene!
But the massive world building came at the cost of basically everything else in the film from technical aspects and direction, to performances and writing. Absolutely, none of the performances stood out and the one that had even a little impact was Corey Stoll as MODOK. Although, MODOK has horrible VFX and design work whenever he took of that mask, Corey Stoll did his best with the character. Another okaish aspect of the film was the parental relationship between Scott and Cassie which was really sweet and compassionate. Finally, both the post-credit scenes were some of the best ones in MCU since a long time and personally, got me really excited for Loki Season 2.
Final Verdict – Even after the one too many flaws in this missable and lackluster film, it somehow manages to keep you mildly entertained for 2 hours. But it ultimately ends up being a brainless and soulless superhero flick which makes up for a fun pastime, if you can also ignore the mediocrity of VFX.
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