What’s up, my know-it-alls. This is the spoiler review for Ant-Man and the Wasp: Quantumania, so hopefully you watched my non-spoiler review first, because that’s where I gave my rating. It’s an eight. Flat-out eight.
So this one is the good old-fashioned thing you’re used to seeing from Mr. Know-It-All, a recap and review. If you haven’t seen the movie, what are you doing here, dude? Go watch the movie. Seriously.
Scott Lang Wants to Know He’s Not a Fraud
The movie starts exactly the way the trailers make it sound like it starts. Scott’s walking around going, hey man, this is my life, it’s what I do now. And he’s looking for validation in the world for who he is, making sure he’s not a fraud of any kind. I don’t think he’s a fraud. But everybody he walks up to, everybody he meets, he’s checking. Then there’s that really cute scene where the one guy at a Starbucks, or some pseudo Starbucks, says “thanks a lot, Spider-Man,” and you go, really, dude? Seriously?
They waste no time after that opening. And I’m letting you know up front, you don’t have any of the other guys in this one. Michael Peña and all those guys aren’t there. What you get is the family, the Pym family along with the Langs, and it’s a nice moment.
Then Scott gets called to go pick up Cassie from jail, and apparently this has become a somewhat regular thing. She’s definitely taking that course where she’s learning how to be the worst parts of the things her dad didn’t want her to be. There’s nothing wrong with that. She’s a fun character. Come to find out she shrank a police car, and when she gets to Scott she’s like, here, by the way, and it’s a little San Francisco police car.
Come to find out she’s been hanging out with everybody else, and they’ve been working on something for a long time. You really get the sense Scott is that disconnected from what’s going on. To the point that he’s like, well, you know, I saved the world with the Avengers, and they’re all like, really? We hadn’t heard. You should write a book. Because he has a book, and there’s a whole book reading in the thing. By the way, the corniest, cheesiest parts of his book are the things that come back around later and rally everybody. Gotta fight for the little guy. It’s all these fun, clever lines and puns, and it’s good.
Janet Says Shut It Off
What Cassie’s built can scan the Quantum Realm, so they can explore it a little more safely from up here. Nobody mentioned it to Janet, and Janet has been very hush-hush about her time down there. She’s shocked, if not stunned. You’re sending a signal down to the Quantum Realm? Shut it off. And they do, until they don’t. A signal comes back, and they get sucked in, and they’re falling through the Quantum Realm.
Point of order. There was a giant ant farm, and apparently the ants have been building their own technology. Hank taught them how to do that back when they were helping with the lab, and they’ve just kept developing it. They build stuff on their own. He communicates with them. So everything gets sucked in, including this giant ant thing. Remember, as you go into the Quantum Realm you get smaller. Scott’s getting smaller, the ant farm isn’t shrinking, and he’s sliding along it until it finally shatters and you see all the ants get lost in the quantum wherever. Hold on to those ants.
Everybody lands in two different groups, Scott and Cassie in one, Janet, Hank and Hope in the other. That’s clearly the easiest writer’s contrivance you can do to get everybody where they need to be. And by the way, Michael Douglas is just along for the ride. Michael Douglas isn’t in this movie any more than Evangeline Lilly is, but he’s having the time of his life in this thing. At least I think so. I enjoyed the heck out of him.
Scott and Cassie are doing an abysmal job of it. They run into the resistance, they get captured, everybody’s making noise, everyone’s speaking alien languages, and Cassie’s like, drink the slime, and he’s like, what? It looks literally like a scene out of Indiana Jones and the Temple of Doom. You half expect Mola Ram to come out and be like, “Kali Ma!” That’s how crazy it looks, the way they have him surrounded. Finally they pour it in his mouth, and it’s designed so he can hear. Now he understands everybody and everybody understands everybody else. The whole thing is wonderful.
The Traveler, and What Janet Left Behind
Meanwhile Janet has to be like, okay, everybody shut up, let me do the talking. She knows people here. She knows how to do their talk. She’s headed to a specific kind of place, looking for a specific person. Bill Murray.
And she tells the story. She was in the Quantum Realm for a number of years by herself, and then he showed up. He called himself a traveler. He never called himself a conqueror. Apparently he’d been banished there, and we don’t know that yet. She helps him rebuild the thing he needs, this tiny little engine that lets his time chair go anywhere in space and time he wants. And he tells her flat out, look, I’ll take you home, you’re good.
But when she goes to touch the engine, she connects briefly to his mind, and she gets to truly see the Conqueror. She’s floored, devastated, horrified. So Janet’s the one who did it. She takes the engine part, she only has a couple of the little darts that make you big or small, and she slams them against it. That makes it huge. He can’t use it. Then she escaped, and after she left he was hunting her down.
Back at the bar you get to meet Bill Murray, and this whole scene is very reminiscent of the End of Line club scene from Tron: Legacy. By that I mean the proprietor of End of Line is supposed to be someone who can help the hero, and it turns out that over years and years they’ve gotten beat up so badly by the villain that they’re like, you know what, I’m just gonna work for him, it’s fine, whatever. They’ve given up. That’s what happens here. Bill Murray has given up. He works for him. And come to find out Bill Murray’s character was Janet van Dyne’s lover while she was down here, because she has needs, and it’s so funny watching everyone else go, oh my God, I don’t know what’s going on, it’s terrible.
Everybody looks at Janet accusatorily. You got out and you left us with him. You created this problem and you abandoned us. That’s why she didn’t tell anybody anything. She literally left everyone behind.
And admit it, at least one of you reading this has had to abandon an apartment, didn’t clean it up the way you were supposed to, and didn’t get the security deposit back. Trust me, I know the scenario. We’ve all been there. We gotta go. Bail. Eject, eject, eject. That’s really what happened.
So the resistance finds out Cassie and Scott came with Janet, and if you’re with her, he’s looking for you too. He being Kang. They never say the name yet.
Big Is Relative Down Here
You’d think that because they’re in the Quantum Realm they’re already small, but while they’re there they can do what they normally do. Scott can turn big. The difference is big is relative. Out in, quote unquote, the real world, 60 feet is big. He gets as big as three, four hundred feet in this thing. Massive. Several times.
As they’re running from the enemies you find out Cassie has a suit. She hadn’t told him yet. She shrinks. She’s an Ant-Man. Ant-Girl, we’re gonna call her. She doesn’t have wings, she’s not like Janet, she’s not like Hope, but she’s definitely like her dad. She tries to do the jump and shrink and punch thing, but she keeps punching while she’s tiny, and Scott’s like, yeah, no, that’s not how it works.
The place gets attacked, everybody fights back, and Janet, Hank and Hope end up on Bill Murray’s ship. There are these jelly things that come up, and Hank has to put his arms in them, and that’s how they fly the ship. It’s very intuitive, so you kind of take it all on faith. Everyone’s like, how come he knows how to fly an alien ship? Come on, dude. The guy’s brilliant. Whatever, man, let’s move on with life. I’m here for the adventure. I’ve read more than one book that didn’t explain all the details to me, and I just enjoyed hearing the story. Same thing here. I’m here for the story, and they did a great job. They outlined a lot for you.
Kang Just Wants His Engine Back
I thought, like many of you probably did when you watched the trailer, oh, Scott’s gonna end up having to betray everybody, and that’s what Kang wants. No. He just wants his little time power thing back. He tells Scott flat out, dude, you want your daughter alive? No problem. I’ll even take you guys home. Let’s go.
So Scott goes to where the thing is. The problem is it’s been there so long it’s starting to radiate temporal energy, and the minute he shows up, another him shows up. That’s the scene you saw with multiple Scotts everywhere. It’s a place where probability breaks down, so every possible version of him just pops out. I could do this, I could do that, option A, option B, and now there’s two guys. There’s one Baskin-Robbins Scott, which I find hilarious. He’s got the pink outfit on, the blue hat, the whole nine yards.
Several of them keep going, oh, I’m gonna grow big, and they die immediately. Then he figures it out. Just like ants, they all want the same thing. So they do what the ants did in the first one. They clump together and make room for him to climb, and you see this teetering tower heading up toward the giant thing. He loads up his little shrinking darts, and Hope flies in, and there’s a hundred of her, a whole swarm of Hopes, which is great. Between her and Scott shooting the shrinking darts at this giant thing, they eventually get it down to normal size.
And that’s where Kang shows up. And boy, is he brutal.
Darren Is M.O.D.O.K., and He’s Kind of Adorable
Oh, by the way, Darren Cross is back. Darren is M.O.D.O.K., and it’s Darren from the first Ant-Man movie. Yeah, dude. Oh my gosh, Darren’s funny. He’s kind of adorable, actually.
They did a passably decent job representing M.O.D.O.K. Do I think he would have been better with the voice of Patton Oswalt? Absolutely. But at the end of the day I was super excited to see him, and I get what they did with him. This is Cassie’s nightmare come to life. Her and him have this really great moment, and at the end she’s ultimately like, dude, stop being a dick. And he’s literally like, I don’t know how to be anything else. He feels so bad and he’s so sad, and you can’t help but feel bad for him.
We Had a Deal
As it all gets bigger, you find out Kang’s not just leaving. He doesn’t want this engine just to power his chair. For the years he’s been there he built an empire in the Quantum Realm, and he wants to take it with him. That’s the part in the trailer where those giant rings are coming out over his tower, over his palace. That’s what the little teeny ball looks like, scaled up, because the whole thing has to travel through time.
Greatest moment in Scott Lang’s life. He becomes this giant 200, 300 foot tall version and he’s like, we had a deal. He’s a kaiju Ant-Man just kicking in the walls of the city. And dude, Kang’s terrified. Quick, stop him, don’t let him get the thing.
If I have a complaint, it’s this. It’s hard to tell where the power scale is. One minute Kang’s pulling people over and doing things with just hands and gestures, and the next minute you have Scott fighting his force shields because he’s big. I don’t necessarily know what being giant has to do with being able to defeat a force field. But I’m okay not understanding that. I don’t need to understand that.
You Think Your Dog Is Loyal
During the big fight, when Kang got the time engine, Hank was shot down. The little ship he was flying with his hands got shot down. Guess who showed up to rescue him. The ants.
That’s the signal. Several times in this movie both Scott and Hank notice something coming through their little ant earpiece, and this is what it was. The ants flat out explain it to him. They spent a thousand years in the Quantum Realm. They built a kingdom of their own, a true technological marvel of an empire, and the whole purpose of it was to find Hank Pym.
You think your dog is loyal, bro? A million ants grew through thousands of years and developed technology so they could save the guy. That’s awesome. It’s so great.
And they show up to help. Scott’s getting beat up. Kang has finally come down and he’s unleashing holy hell on everybody, just vaporizing people left and right, and everyone’s like, oh no, this rebellion is about to be shut down. That’s when the ants show up, and they are relentless. And as they part, here comes Hank Pym, just walking. He’s got a duster on. He’s like, hey, what’s going on? The original Ant-Man has arrived. It’s brilliant. I love it.
Both of Us Just Have to Lose
The fight is climactic, of course, and I don’t find it a contrivance how they did what they did. This particular Kang is gone. He’s defeated.
I love the moment when Scott’s like, “I don’t have to win. We just both have to lose.” And I was like, that’s what I’m talking about, man. Unless you have children, or unless you are that person for somebody, you never will understand it. When it comes to protecting the people you love, the bad guys have to lose, and that’s all that matters. I tell you what, it’s good stuff. It’s a moment, man.
Then you get this wonderful montage at the end that mirrors the one at the front. But in this one Scott keeps getting crazy paranoid. Oh my God, what’s going on, he said people are coming. And then finally he’s like, what am I talking about? What do I care? The guy’s crazy, he can’t be trusted, whatever, man. And you realize maybe he’s overthinking things. Maybe.
Two Scenes I’m Not Going to Spoil
The word incursions was dropped, which is wonderful.
There are two post-credit scenes. The first one is specific to what’s happening in the movie itself. The second one, if you know anything about the spoilers and some of the folks I follow online and on Twitter and some of the podcasts I’ve been on, we knew there were leaks to this effect. It leads into the Loki TV show, or might lead out of it. Depends on where it takes place.
But I’m not going to tell you too much about either one, and that’s on purpose. I want you guys to go see the movie and check it out for yourself.
And see it big. The visuals are so epic. Mrs. Know-It-All and I saw this movie in RealD 3D, and they’ve improved that technology a lot. I was blown away. Normally, where the images hit the tops or the sides of the screen, it’s distracting. This didn’t do that. I wasn’t distracted in the least. Everything was clear, everything was in focus, and it wasn’t too dark or shady, which happens because 3D glasses have a little tint to them.
The Verdict
Ant-Man and the Wasp: Quantumania is an eight from me, a flat-out eight, and I stick by it from the non-spoiler review.
All in all this was an excellent MCU movie. It’s not gonna blow your socks off, because you’ve seen it all. We saw Thanos, we saw an army of his aliens several times, we saw Ultron. So at the end of the day this is just another massive thing they have to deal with.
It’s not about being impressed or not impressed. Watch the movies. If you’re enjoying a movie, I’m not worried about whether it’s a sci-fi movie, a fantasy movie or whatever movie. Everybody wants to talk about superhero fatigue. I don’t think that’s what it is. If it’s anything, it’s movie fatigue, and I don’t think we have that. I enjoyed this movie, and I think other people enjoyed this movie. The difference is we live in a world where 25 years has established that these are the kinds of things we’re getting. I don’t have a problem with that. I’m down, man.
There you go. Now you know, and if knowing is half the battle, you’re halfway to being a know-it-all yourself.
I’d absolutely love to know your thoughts. Heck, give me your ratings. If you’ve seen it, tell me what you thought, and let’s converse in the comments on the video above.
