If you have not seen Ant Man and the Wasp Quantumania do not read this blog until you do. This is the official Ant Man and the Wasp Quantumania review, and there will be spoilers. No part of this blog will be spoiler free. We have a lot to discuss. I will not give anything away in this paragraph, but proceed at your own risk. THE SPOILERS ARE STARTING NOW!
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THE FUTURE OF MARVEL IN QUESTION?
What a miss by Marvel. This movie had potential to really get fans excited for the new blockbuster villain and they fumbled it away. Can we trust Kevin Feige anymore? I truly am not so sure. The once “Prince of Comic Book Cinema” (nobody has ever called him that I made it up) could do no wrong when it came to the MCU. Lately it feels Marvel is churning out garbage, filled with excessive corny comedy and absolutely pointless celebrity cameos that add nothing to the movie, which NONE OF THE FANS WANT I MIGHT ADD. This film was no different. To truly understand this disappointment, we need to start from the beginning.
THE BEGINNING OF THE QUANTUM REALM
This felt very Star Wars esc to me, and very unnecessary. What I mean by this, is in Star Wars when they go to a new planet/system we get a lot of looks at the people who live there and their language etc. etc. (Use the gif below as a reference for what I mean.)
Nobody cared about that. Everyone was there to see Kang fuck shit up, and the longer we took with the history of the tribes and their language, the less time we had for him. I don’t even remember their names, and I just saw it. They meant nothing to the movie, or the overall of the MCU. So why put it in?
BILL MURRAY’S CHARACTER
I am referring to him as Bill Murray’s character because genuinely, I could not tell you his character’s name. (When his ship landed, my girlfriend said “what if Will Ferrell comes out right now, I’d die laughing.” Honestly, she wasn’t that far off.) The entire time he was on screen was absolutely POINTLESS! All we got from him is that he used to bang the grandma. That was it, and that he switched sides to work for “The Conqueror.” The entire conversation they had was the biggest waste of time, and the only reason I’m giving it this much attention in the review, is because of how much it pissed me off.
HOPE/THE GRANDMA
This section will be quick, just a few pointers. Why did we need the love interest of the grandmother? (I like my women older as well, but even I didn’t care about that.) Did she also fuck Kang? (My brother said back when the trailer dropped that she did and after the movie I think I agree with him.) As for Hope, nothing was really bad with her. Some of her dialogue in the fight scenes was unnecessary, but mainly… I hated her haircut. I think she looks fire with the long hair. If it ain’t broke don’t fix it baby.
CASSIE LANG
This may be a hot take to some, but I did not like Cassie. Since when is she all of a sudden, a genius that can build a device that communicates with the quantum realm? I absolutely hated the scene with her and Scott talking about wanting citrus when they were both big. We’re in the middle of the giant fight scene and that dialogue takes away from it. Some of her other dialogue wasn’t that great either. In my opinion her best parts in the film were when Scott was teaching her to fight in the suit and she was applying it. I also would’ve preferred the amount of screen time she got, to simply be given to Kang.
MODOK
Now I will admit, I do not know much about Modok in the comics. So, if you didn’t like him being a call back to Derek I understand. However, I did like that call back though; I thought it worked incredibly well with this storyline. (If you don’t remember Derek, he’s the villain in the first Ant Man film.) What I absolutely hated was him losing and becoming “good.” The “Don’t be a dick” line with Cassie is exactly the forced dialogue I was referring to. He’s a villain, keep him a villain, let him die a villain if you are going to kill him off. OR don’t just introduce him for this one movie and actually keep him around for the foreseeable future, AS THE VILLAIN HE IS SUPPOSED TO BE.
I know some people didn’t like his suit and wanted his head always out (pause,) I didn’t mind either or, I thought the suit was cool. But besides him becoming “good” the other issue was we saw too much of him. We saw more of Modok than we did of Kang. Even if Marvel is trying to ease us into Kang, he’s the main villain in this movie! He deserves more screen time than one of his “assistants” or supporting villains. Just like Cassie, I would’ve preferred Kang get a majority of Modoks screen time as well.
KANG
I have a lot to say about Kang so buckle up. First and foremost, we should have saw more of him. He is by far the best part of this movie, and it felt like we saw him the least out of our main characters. For example, in the fight scene (which was decent) he just stays inside his ship and commands others to stop the attack. THIS IS KANG THE CONQUEROR. He conquers and destroys worlds. He built an empire in the quantum realm, why is he not getting in on the fight and beating everybody’s ass? He literally says in the movie that he killed a Thor variant, but he can’t handle Ant Man? Bullshit. When he finally does get to the fight, he’s beating everybody’s ass, like we anticipated, until he gets overrun by ants. Fucking ants are going to defeat Kang? Come on man.
The best part of the entire movie, is when Kang is torturing Scott and Cassie in their jail cells. We get a glimpse of how powerful he really is. A simple flick of the finger and its pretty much over for the both of them. That is fucking awesome. Why did we stop doing that for the rest of the movie? His suit looked awesome in my opinion. When he floats down on his blue saucers its super dope. The beams coming out of him as he is destroying his enemies is electric. Jonathan Majors is phenomenal as Kang, and we simply needed much more in this film to make it good.
KANG SHOULD HAVE WON
This may be another hot take, but I am ready to part ways with some of our heroes. Tug at our heart strings! Shock us into wanting more and more! Give us the unexpected. Kang should have won, and he should have killed Ant Man while doing so. Think of how much more exciting that would have been. And for those saying, “oh we’re getting more of him this was just a tease.” Tease us the right way then! This tease didn’t tickle my balls. It pissed me off. Have Kang win. Have him kill Scott, and escape the Quantum realm. Have him issue a warning and get everyone fucking shook! That would be so fucking badass! That’s how we get the “next Thanos” or even bigger. It would have made for a much better villain entrance, and film. Everybody would be raving about it rather than critiquing it, myself included.
THE END CELEBRATION
When everyone in the quantum realm is celebrating, it reminded me again of Star Wars. It was like when the Ewoks celebrated at the end of Return of the Jedi. All happy, partying, etc.
I didn’t like it, not one bit! Let me tell you why. You do not get Return of the Jedi, without Empire Strikes back. You do not get Endgame without Infinity War. You can’t have the win without the loss. (Even though the Avengers won in the first two movies, and the Jedi won in A New Hope.) The celebration shouldn’t have happened because we should’ve had Kang win! Plain and simple.
THE END CREDIT SCENES (2)
If you only stayed for the first end credit scene then I have some news for you… There were two. The first end credit scene was pretty cool. All the Kang’s are getting together to start the multiversal war that was discussed at the end of Loki. But… I couldn’t be really hyped. I don’t care about the other Kang’s; I want the Conqueror. Is he really dead? I don’t know, they’re saying he is but Marvel never shows death on screen, so we’ll see. Clearly, we are getting a lot more Kang, which is a GOOD thing. But I want the Conqueror.
The second end credit scene was exciting as well. Loki and Mobius seeing a Kang variant in what looks like the 1500’s or just some time in the past. Could this be the conqueror and where he was sent when he was shrunk with his ships hyperdrive? I guess we’ll have to find out. Either way Loki season 2 needs to hurry back.
OVERALL RATING: 7.0
Some of you may feel my rating is harsh, I feel its generous. This film was supposed to kick start Kang’s Phase 5, and Marvel whiffed on it. This film was a disappointment, if you deny that you are simply lying to yourself. It’s okay for a movie to be darker, without a ton of comedy. It’s okay for the villain to win. It’s okay even if you ease the villain in, to have them get a majority of the screen time. We all went there to see Kang, and they underdelivered. Hopefully things change throughout phase 5. Peep the Tik Tok’s below for the instant reaction.
