One thing I have
to do as a reviewer is avoid reading the opinions of others before I’ve had a
chance to view the work for myself, as such knowledge has the potential to
subconsciously influence my own feelings about the movie when I actually see
it. I can’t tell you how many times I’ve gone to a well-regarded movie and
hated it because I was expecting something more or watched a supposed dumpster
fire that I ended up greatly enjoying because my expectations were
pre-tempered. I did not do my due diligence and avoid reviews for Ant-Man
and the Wasp: Quantumania for two reasons: One, I’m a big Marvel fan
and was curious as to what others were saying, and two, I was not expecting to
review it anyway. But here we are, and here I am telling you that I have no idea
why this latest film in the juggernaut that is the Marvel Cinematic Universe
was so poorly received.
A good deal of this reaction is, of course,
due to the lowering of expectations that I unwisely subjected myself to
beforehand, but I am sure it is not the only cause of this disconnect
I feel between myself and the Rotten Tomatoes and IMDb scores, the other being
audience fatigue. The first two Ant-Man films are light fun
that owe a lot to the charisma and likeability of their casts, and Quantumania is
mostly more of the same, albeit with much higher stakes and a dramatic moment
or two. Paul Rudd is perfect because Paul Rudd is always perfect, and this
third Ant-Man movie gets a huge shot in the arm thanks to
Michelle Pfeiffer’s expanded role as well as the addition of Jonathan Majors as
the villainous Kang the Conqueror (Evangeline Lilly, despite being the Wasp
in Ant-Man and the Wasp, unfortunately doesn’t have much to do this
time around and is just kind of there).
This more-of-the-sameness is why quite a few
viewers were left dissatisfied, and it’s not a problem that is limited just to
Peyton Reed’s Ant-Man trilogy: Quantumania does,
in a lot of ways, feel like the latest clone in its very long parent series,
the MCU itself, which some argue is getting quite formulaic and stale at this
point. It doesn’t matter which superhero is the focus—the latest movie will
have quips, occasionally questionable CGI, quips, the introduction of a new
character for a future film or TV series, and even more quips. Quantumania is not an
exception to this formula. I get this opinion and in a lot of ways I agree
with it as well, but taken on its own in a vacuum Ant-Man and the Wasp:
Quantumania was exactly what I was looking for: Comic book fun with
that gosh-darned talented Paul Rudd. It doesn’t seek to reinvent the wheel and
could have been better in a lot of ways (why should I care about these boring
Quantum Realm characters and where is Michael Pena??) but overall I
think it belongs solidly in the middle of the pack when it comes to MCU films.
Whether that is good news or bad, as always that is up to you.
Ant-Man and the Wasp: Quantumania is
now available in theaters.
This article was first published in The Keizertimes
on March 3rd, 2023. Visit at www.keizertimes.com/
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