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The merits of supposed Marvel fatigue can be debated, but Kevin Feige doesn’t think so. Marvel movies post Avengers Endgame (though technically, No Way From Home ended Phase 3) have done well at the box office. The latest Ant-Man is set to do well this weekend at the box office with not much else out in its way, but for some, Marvel fatigue does exist, like me. After Endgame in 2019, I had a hard time focusing on caring much about the movies or television shows. I was beginning to wear down despite my admiration for the newer Spider-Man movies, which I feel do a lot of things right that the previous two iterations didn’t. Still, with the introduction of streaming shows on Disney+ playing an integral part, a few of them I haven’t seen, and I was beginning to lose track of the timeline. So forgive me if I’m a little hazy. I think Quantumania is straightforward enough that even someone more of a novice like me can take a shot at it.
Quantumania is the third Ant-Man film but the first to kick off Marvel’s Phase 5 after the emotionally charged (though not as good) Black Panther: Wakanda Forever ended Phase 4. We pick up with Scott Lang after he survives the Battle of Earth as he’s now become a successful author living happily with his girlfriend, Hope. His daughter Cassie is an activist who gets arrested hence Lang having to bail her out. On their way back, they visit Hope’s parents, Hank Pym and Janet van Dyne, and Cassie reveals they’ve been planning to make contact with the Quantum Realm. Cassie accidentally opens a portal to the Quantum Realm, and Hope, Scott, Janet, Hank, and Cassie get sucked in. The Quantum Realm is full of peopleoids and all kinds of creatures. It’s run by the new big evil villain of the Marvel Cinematic Universe, Kang, played quite magnetically by Jonathan Majors. There’s a backstory revealed between Kang and Janet, revealing that she’s partially responsible for Kang’s rise. They have to navigate the Quantum Realm and stop Kang (trapped in the Realm) from getting a power core from Janet that will allow him to escape the Realm and do more bad shit.
Ok, so that’s the basic setup. I won’t go much further with any spoilers. The film itself is relatively breezy at 2 hours. Still, it’s somewhat different from the first two Ant-Man movies, which were relatively lightweight and didn’t have any colossal bearing on the cinematic universe, to be thrust as the main launching film of Phase 5. There’s a significant build-up to Kang, including a funny (if somewhat familiar) cameo from Bill Murray (revealed in the trailers not spoiling a thing) as an inhabitant of the Realm who works for Kang. Murray pops on and does almost a variation on his character from Kingpin, shamelessly flirting with Pfeiffer’s Janet. For the most part, Quantumania is carried by the cast’s talents over the writing and visual effects. It helps to have top-level actors like Michael Douglas, Michelle Pfeiffer, Jonathan Majors, Paul Rudd, Bill Murray, and Kathryn Newton. Pfeiffer and Majors, in particular, get a chance to shine. They do their best with largely unimaginative, expository dialogue from Jeff Loveness.
Part of the fun of the first two Ant-Man movies played with the size perspective and boasted some decently clever visual scenes. The majority of Quantumania takes place in the Quantum Realm, visually sort of a mix of Star Wars meets Dune meets leftovers from previous MCU movies. It’s strange because there’s some effort put into the scope of the Realm, but we never feel in awe as an audience. It’s green screen overload, a common problem in MCU movies. There’s nothing visually distinctive about it. Weird shit is happening all over the place, but nothing feels strange or original. Director Peyton Reed is perhaps a little over his element compared to the smaller-scale nature of the first two Ant-Man films. Compare this to the world James Cameron creates in Avatar 2, which puts the artificial-looking MCU movies to shame.
It’s not all bad, and the film gets a significant boost from Majors, who brings almost Shakespearean attention to the role of Kang, who almost feels like he’s in another movie. He is threatening quietly though part of the problem with Marvel movies is there are no stakes in these movies. Everything is a build-up to something more. Quantumania is no exception which is why ultimately, you come away feeling a little shortchanged. It’s also the most self-serious of the Ant-Man films because of the added significance of the introduction of Kang. Scott Lang and especially Hope feel like they’re getting sidelined. Though entertaining, the biggest problem with Quantumania is that it feels like a prologue with no unique identity. It’s a little tiresome and increasingly convoluted with the multi-verse. At least Ant-Man isn’t a three-hour slog, but Quantumania is the longest of the three Ant-Man movies, proving to be a little bit of a slog. The only somewhat inventive aspect is what happens to a character that is reintroduced in a bizarrely weird way as MODOK. I won’t spoil it. Still, it’s not enough.
