I just got out of seeing Ant-Man and the Wasp: Quantumania, and I thought it was an excellent film. The critics have it at 48 percent. I’m really tired, so you’re probably not seeing this until tomorrow, but I wanted to give you my fresh out the theater thoughts while they’re still fresh.
This is the non-spoiler review. I know I don’t normally do that, but I want to give it a shot. There’s a spoiler review coming too, probably on Sunday.
The Numbers Going In
As of this recording, Rotten Tomatoes has it at 48 percent with critics and an 85 percent audience score, on over a thousand verified ratings. I think the 85 is probably more accurate.
The critic consensus reads: “Ant-Man and the Wasp: Quantumania mostly lacks the spark of fun that elevated earlier adventures, but Jonathan Majors’ Kang is a thrilling villain poised to alter the course of the MCU.”
So let me ask one question before we get too deep into this. It lacks the spark of fun that elevated earlier adventures, but you’re excited for what Jonathan Majors is going to do altering the course of the MCU. Come on, man. Really?
IMDb has it at 6.6 out of a possible 10, from 135 critics and 228 users. Not quite as big a sampling as Rotten Tomatoes, but still pretty valid, I’d say. Then you have Metacritic, which is important for a lot of reasons, and Metacritic has it at a Metascore of 48 based on 58 critic reviews, with a user score of 5.1 out of 10. Rotten Tomatoes was the only one that gave me a really good look at why, and sort of explained some things.
And if you spend any time on social media, stay away from everybody who just wants to toe party lines. If somebody doesn’t have brain enough to sit here and give you an honest opinion, and they’re telling you “it’s whatever, it’s mediocre” because everybody else is saying it, you don’t need that. Ignore those people. Period.
It Didn’t Blow My Socks Off, and It’s Still an Excellent Film
I’ve now reviewed both the first Ant-Man and Ant-Man and the Wasp, so this makes three.
This movie did not blow my socks off, but not for the reasons you think. As a movie on its own, it’s very impressive. John Campea said recently that it feels like the MCU has definitely lost its magic. It’s 15 years old. I don’t know anybody who’d be impressed by anything that’s lasted that long.
Functionally, I thought this was an excellent film. I thought it jumped right in. I thought it did a wonderful job, with the limited time it had, laying out an entire universe of stuff for us. The Quantum Realm and everything going on down there. It laid out so much, brilliantly.
You’ve seen the setup in the trailer. Cassie wants to find some way to help see what’s going on down in the Quantum Realm, so she creates sort of a Hubble telescope, if you will, that sends a signal down there. The signal gets reversed and sucks them in. Everybody’s there, suits are a go, and everybody’s doing what they’ve got to do.
I cannot wait for the spoiler review to really talk heavy about what you saw in those trailers. I see what this film is doing, and I like the way they set some things up.
I am disappointed in one thing, which is that it ends like a Marvel movie. I will not translate that for you. Watch the spoiler review and you’ll understand what I mean. That is not a bad thing, by the way. Nothing I’m saying here is meant to be derisive unless I literally say “this is a criticism.”
Jonathan Majors Chews the Room
Jonathan Majors is amazing, by the way. The guy chewed the scenery in every scene he’s in.
He’s playing a variant of Kang, as in he’s playing one of the Kangs. That’s not news and that’s not a spoiler. But the version he’s playing is almost unhinged, because every sentence he says feels like he’s giving it all of his energy. Even the subdued ones. It looks like his jaw is ready to just tighten up. Oh my gosh, the guy is amazing.
I love the dynamic between Cassie and Scott. I think that’s fun. We get a huge lot of insight into Janet’s life in the Quantum Realm, and that’s really enlightening and very engaging. Evangeline Lilly wasn’t given much to do in this. The things she did I liked, but overall, not a whole lot.
Tons of cameos, all the ones you know about and have heard about. Bill Murray and some others are all there, and everybody’s doing an excellent job.
The Volume
One of the criticisms I’d heard beforehand, from somebody who saw it at an actual press screening, was that this felt like it was filmed on the Volume. So I went in wondering if that’s true.
There’s a whole bunch of scenes where you can tell they’re on the Volume. And there are others where it feels like they did an amazing job marrying everything together. The wider out they pull, the bigger in scope and scale everything feels, and it works really well.
I Buy Every Issue
I feel like I’m an apologist for Marvel all of a sudden. But as we move forward, it’s going to take more to impress us, just like comic books.
Welcome, general audience, to the world comic book fans have known forever. Are you the guy who’s only here for the events, or are you the guy who’s here to buy every issue?
I buy every issue. I watched all these things. I watched the good, the bad and the ugly. Trust me. I watched the Joss Whedon Justice League, okay? And yeah, it’s rough.
But I watched this and I enjoyed this, especially on the heels of having watched the first two for my retro reviews. I enjoyed it for what it was: the most recent issue of my Marvel Studios comic book.
And Ant-Man versus Kang is pretty intense. If somebody’s questioning the fact that it can even happen, all I’m going to say is that speaks to a lack of understanding of how the Quantum Realm works and what that means. Those of us who are into comics understand what it means. We understand the power, the energy, the things that exist down there, and the myriad of different types of people.
The story is engaging. The story is riveting.
There you go. Now you know.
The Verdict
Ant-Man and the Wasp: Quantumania is an 8 out of 10 on the Know-It-All Index. A solid eight. Strong eight.
I gave Ant-Man a nine and this movie an eight, and that doesn’t mean anything. I gave Ant-Man and the Wasp a seven and a half. So the fact that they were able to bounce back from seven and a half to a full eight is amazing to me.
I don’t think it’s superhero fatigue. I think it might be Marvel fatigue, and I don’t mean we’re tired of Marvel. I mean you’re not going to get the big giant reactions you want anymore. This is our new normal. You’re going to need to escalate and raise the bar to a whole new level if you want that level of amazing, oh my gosh, from us.
That doesn’t mean the movie was bad. I enjoyed the heck out of it. I’m down, man. I’d love to see how it does, and I can’t wait for the guys online who do the charts to tell us how the box office went, just to get a better feel for what’s coming.
Did you get a chance to see it yet? Tell me what you thought in the comments on the video above, and please don’t spoil it down there. We’re trying to keep this one spoiler free, so read those comments at your own peril.
