asI will say it: even though they are a very important part of our ecosystem by bringing oxygen to plant roots and helping in the decomposition of organic waste, I am not a fan of ants. They still rank above cockroaches for me, even though those don’t bite me when I am trying to do yardwork or build mounds in my yard that I have to get rid of. However, that does not stop me from enjoying the first two “Ant-Man” films, and now a third is upon is in “Ant-Man and The Wasp: Quantumania”.
Peyton Reed returns to the director’s chair for the third time in the thirty-first film in the Marvel Cinematic Universe with Paul Rudd, Evangeline Lilly, Michelle Pfeiffer, and Michael Douglas all back. Joining the cast this go around are Kathryn Newton as Cassie (replacing Emma Fuhrmann) and Johnathan Majors as Kang the Conqueror. It’s now past “The Blip,” and the Lang/Pym/Van Dyne family is trying to live normal lives. One night at dinner, it is revealed that Hank (Douglas) and Cassie have been working on a device that will give a “map” to the Quantum Realm, but the problem there is that the Quantum Realm “calls back,” and brings all of them back with it. The past comes to haunt Janet (Pfeiffer), including her back story with Kang himself, and as secrets are revealed, a whole new set of circumstances come to light that will affect everything we know going forward.
As I like to do when I review films, I talk about “the big three”. The first is the cast, and the returning characters like Rudd do a good job and do not disappoint as does Newton as playing the older version of Cassie. Even though I have not really followed the career of Majors, the choice to let him bring Kang the Conqueror to the big screen was the right one with a presence that fills up the screen in the way the character needs to.
Number two is the visual aspect of Ant-Man and The Wasp: Quantumania. I was also very impressed here, especially in comparison to the number of films that have come before it in the MCU. From the color palate used in the Quantum Realm to the mix of CGI and practical effects and stunts, everything looked really on-point. Given that we saw this in the IMAX format, it made all of the colors and visual pop that much more.
Number three (and the big one here) is the script itself. This film is a little over two hours long but did not feel it, especially without a bunch of extra action scenes that can simply be seen as filler (which I appreciated). The plot itself did get a bit predictable, especially in the second half with what I am terming as the “MCU Plot Manual 101” in its own way of resolving the events of their films. If there is a silver lining, I think this film is actually a good start for Phase Five and look forward to seeing where things go with Major. With all of this, I will recommend Ant-Man and The Wasp: Quantumania as a special showing in the theaters like 3-D or Imax, but as the cheapest time option.