Ant Man and the Wasp: Quantumania

BY WIllIAM LAMPE Staff Reporter

WARNING: Spoilers for “Ant Man and The Wasp: Quantumania”

The latest marvel movie “Ant Man and The Wasp: Quantumania” was an interesting movie that continued the Marvel trend of exploring unknown areas in space and time.

“Ant Man and The Wasp: Quantumania”, released February 17, 2023 is the third movie in the “Ant Man” series.The phase four Marvel Movie, a direct continuation of “Ant Man and The Wasp”, follows Scott Lang, also known as “Ant Man”, his daughter Cassie, and his girlfriend, Hope Van Dyne, who is also known as “The Wasp.” Hope’s parents, Janet and Hank Van Dyne, are the original Ant Man and Wasp but are retired. Thirty years prior, Janet shrunk to subatomic size to disable a nuclear bomb and got stuck in the Quantum realm in order to save the U.S. In the second movie she is rescued. Now, In this movie, the whole family accidentally gets stuck in the Quantum Realm again and have to defeat the character “Kang the Conqueror”, played by Jonathan Majors, to get out.

The plot was neither overly complicated nor simple. There were a few twists, but you could still follow along. Revealing the GPS system for the quantum realm was somewhat confusing as a plotpoint. How did Cassie make it? Why did she make it? These are all questions that are swept under the rug by the rest of the story. The primary point of intrigue, however, was Janet’s mysterious past in the quantum realm, an aspect of the plot that kept me wanting more. Slowly peeling back the numerous layers to Janet’s backstory helped to scratch that itch for mystery in a cinematic universe so focused on action.

The acting was adequate, but there wasn’t anything special about it. In a scene where Kang talks about his past, Majors does a great job of acting like he is a conqueror, as if he has control and is dominant through his stern, unwavering voice. Another good acting scene is when Scott persuasively negotiates with the locals of the Quantum Realm when he tries to explain to them why he is there.

Right after Scott’s persuasive performance, he demonstrates his hand in humor. When the movie brings back Derek now known as Modak; there are a lot of funny scenes. They take small snipes at each other and Scott makes fun of him being a giant head. He and Scott are good comic duo.

The balance of action with slower-paced, character-driven reflection or comic relief struck a nice balance while watching. While there was enough action to satisfy the part of myself that wished for a cinematic spectacle, the presence of a mostly clear, steadily paced plot line helped to give the action meaning, with both parts working together to create an exciting yet meaningful viewing experience.

Now the rushed parts

Kang’s past is rushed, they don’t explain as much as they should, all we know is that he is a conqueror with powers, but we don’t know where he is from. They also say he was exiled but they never really explain how, which I felt was annoying but I understand why they don’t say by who, because it makes you want to find out and at the end, during the after scene, you kind of know but not fully, they leave you on a cliffhanger.

The part that was the most rushed and that annoyed me the most was when the ants just showed up. Like at the end when they need a big force to help them fight and fix the ship they just show up and they’re giant, not small. All you know is that Hank heard them on his ear piece a few times and that’s it. No idea how they found them, how they hadn’t died and it was just really rushed and under-explained.

The verdict

All in all though, it was an interesting movie with a good and interesting plot with good acting. Compared to the other Marvel movies it follows the standard, if you’ve watched other marvel movies it follows the same trend, like the amount of fighting scenes, comedy in between characters and eventually in the end the good guys winning at the end with a cost. This movie is like your average marvel movie.

The thing that dragged it down was how easy it was for Ant Man and co to win, there wasn’t much of a cost which kind of made it lame, they won super easily.