Friday, February 24, 2023

Ant-Man and the Wasp: Quantumania

Ant-Man and the Wasp: Quantumania

A hot mess.  Let’s get into it.

What I liked:

  • It’s so good to see Michelle Pfeiffer again.  I love her.

  • Katy O’Brian was pretty badass as Jentorra.  (I had to look up the name, the movie does a poor job of divulging it.)


What I didn’t like:

  • Janet Van Dyne’s storyline.  The “I didn’t tell you to protect you” trope is such a tired one, especially when it’s so poorly executed.

  • That’s really the problem with this movie.  It’s a ton of generic plot devices: The rebel army fighting the evil ruler, the prison break of the key dissidents, the desperate plea for a final assault, the deus ex machina (ants, this time around), the final fight between hero and villain…It’s all yawn-tastic.

  • MODOK.  Should have been a hilarious character, but he turns out to be a grotesque, not-as-funny-as-they-think-he-is monstrosity.

  • The Scott/Cassie relationship, always a delight to watch in the first two movies, is reduced to little more than “you don’t understand me!” in the beginning and “I’ll do anything to save my daughter!” in the end.  So much wasted character-building potential here.

  • Same with the Scott/Hope relationship.  It’s practically ignored, as is Hope in general.  More missed opportunities.

  • Poor Michael Douglas, 80% of his time on screen is spent holding his hands up to pilot an alien ship.  I’m sure he loved that.  Still, his acerbic wit is probably the funniest part of the movie.

  • No Michael Pena!

  • Mega Star Wars vibes, and not in a good way.  More in a “everything is so blatantly green screened, there’s no sense of tactility to ground the film to anything.”

  • Bill Murray.  I’m so tired of his schtick.

  • What a waste of William Jackson Harper.  This whole film is such a waste of talent.

  • So many plot holes, I didn’t even try to keep track during the movie.  Some that come to mind after:

    • Shrinking in the quantum realm with no suit.  “Why aren’t we dead?”  “I don’t know.”  That’s some “Somehow Palpatine has returned”-level laziness right there.

    • So the multiversal engine is needed to open up the portal they use at the end to get home.  What did Cassie use to power the portal to retrieve Scott and Hope?

  • Hated No Holes guy.


Meh:

  • Jonathan Majors does a much better job here than he did in the Loki finale, though that really doesn’t mean much.  

  • Kathryn Newton is fine as Cassie, but I could take or leave her.


Regret watching: No

Would watch again: No

Would buy on DVD: No

Rating: Didn’t suck


How low does this rank overall?  Is it worse than Thor 2?  At least that’s got two moments I like (Natalie talking about the scanning machine, and the final kiss when Thor comes back.).  I don’t think this movie has even one moment I’ll ever want to watch again, or even think about.  Hrm.


  1. Avengers: Endgame

  2. Captain America: Civil War

  3. Captain America: Winter Soldier

  4. Spider-Man: No Way Home

  5. Ant Man/Wasp

  6. Avengers: Infinity War

  7. Shang-Chi

  8. Doctor Strange in the Multiverse of Madness

  9. Captain America: First Avenger

  10. Spider-Man: Homecoming

  11. Avengers

  12. Thor: Love and Thunder

  13. Avengers: Age of Ultron

  14. Black Panther

  15. Spider-Man: Far From Home

  16. Thor: Ragnarok

  17. Iron Man 2

  18. Captain Marvel

  19. Black Widow

  20. Ant-Man

  21. Iron Man 1

  22. Iron Man 3

  23. Black Panther: Wakanda Forever

  24. Doctor Strange

  25. Guardians 1

  26. Guardians 2

  27. Thor

  28. Eternals

  29. Thor 2

  30. Hulk

  31. Ant-Man/Wasp: Quantumania

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