Quantumania is set to introduce us to this new reality and a brand new villain that is set to change the entire Universe (or we should rather say Multiverse) for good. Although the MCU had already presented us with one of Kang’s variants in the hit series Loki, as we learned back then, he is not the most fearsome and evil version of the character. Thus, Quantumania was supposed to give Kang the Conqueror his big and menacing entrance.
WARNING: SPOILERS AHEAD!
What Is Ant-Man and the Wasp: Quantumania About?
After the sad, yet successful, ending of Avengers: Endgame, Scott Lang is finally living a life of fame and renown, kind of forgetting that he’s actually a hero that should be doing some hero stuff. His daughter, a brand new Cassie, is there to remind him about his responsibility, and after a mistake on a project, she has with Hank Pym, the entire family gets sucked into the Quantum Realm.
There, our friends won’t only take us on a journey through the Quantum Realm (which was a bit disappointing, to be honest), but they will have to find a way to go back while facing who has been called an even worse menace than Thanos: Kang.
Is Ant-Man and the Wasp: Quantumania Good?
This is a very hard question to answer… well, not really, it’s not as bad as many anticipated, but it’s not the Marvel content we have been craving since Endgame. The truth is, they have been giving us so many projects, in both film and series formats, that they don’t seem to be caring much about building a cohesive group of stories that connect within the Universe as they did in previous phases.
We saw it with Thor: Love and Thunder, in which basically there was no connection whatsoever to the other projects going on around. Black Panther: Wakanda Forever was great, but then again, wouldn’t it make sense to have at least some of the remaining Avengers at the funeral of T’Challa, or even help out in the battle against the Tlalokanis? This is happening in basically all Marvel projects lately, they don’t care to give continuity to the great Universe they created, and now it seems illogical that none of these “so-called- friends” are even talking!
With Quantumania it’s a bit different. They do mention some past events and characters, but lucky for them, the story doesn’t really need these connections to work since, well, they’re all trapped in the Quantum Realm. However, that doesn’t mean we feel we’re seeing something relevant for the overall plot, other than Kang (who is basically, the one that holds the entire movie).
Who Is Kang the Conqueror?
In Loki, we got to meet He Who Remains, Kang, or Nathaniel Richards, a 31st-century scientist, who discovered the existence of the Multiverse, and thus, many other versions of himself. In Loki, that particular Kang variant managed to defeat all the variants in the Multiversal Wars and created the Sacred Timeline in which most of the MCU’s events happened. In Quantumania, we got to meet another variant of Kang, known as the Conqueror. He was defeated by his other variants and trapped in the Quantum Realm. There he took over and controlled the entire realm in an attempt to go back and take revenge against his variants.
Kang is a great character, and Jonathan Majors does a great job portraying him, giving us some hope for the upcoming events. However, in the film, the resolution of the heroes’ conflict is resolved quite easily. So, no matter how charming Paul Rudd is, how smart Hope van Dyne and her parents are, or even how great Kang is, at the end of the day, you feel this is a story we could’ve just skipped.
Loki pretty much introduced this whole conflict, and the story of this new variant could’ve been told briefly elsewhere. I mean, even the two post-credit scenes tell more about Kang’s future in the MCU than the film does.
Lame Things in Ant-Man and the Wasp: Quantumania
Let’s start with the title. It’s called Ant-Man and THE WASP, and here the Wasp and nothing are the same. Yeah, she does some cool tricks with her suit and helps us see more of the Van Dyne family dynamics, but she doesn’t really add much to be part of the main title.
Instead, we could say that the movie focuses more on Scott and Cassie’s relationship and the latter’s transformation from being a mere witness of action to an actual hero. Yet, I don’t know if it’s a script problem o a bad cast, but Cassie is giving us nothing! The girl who portrayed her in the first two installments was simply a genius, and this time, Cassie pretty much lost all the charisma that we all loved. Moreover, there isn’t really chemistry between Scott and Cassie, so that father-daughter bond isn’t really there, making the story a bit cringey.
Another thing that doesn’t really add up, is the introduction of the Quantum Realm. It was a whole world of possibilities, and it looks like the designer team (or whoever is responsible for its creation) simply took some ideas from Star Wars locations and added them to the green screen. This new world doesn’t seem new, innovative, or interesting, to be honest. There are some good jokes regarding the cultural shock between Scott and these people, but nothing else.
And last but not least, WHERE THE HELL IS LUIS?! I was waiting for him for the entire movie! So, he would’ve never been in the Quantum Realm, we get it, but there were other chances to have his funny and witty style. For example, the movie starts with Scott narrating what has been going on in his life after the Endgame events (which end up being him reading some bits of his autobiography), Luis could’ve given us one of his classic stories recounts!
I could be here forever, but let’s stop right now. All in all, it’s a quite funny movie, it has some great jokes, we get to see the great Paul Rudd again, and Kang is quite enjoyable. But seriously Marvel, you’ve better shape up, because this last phase (without some exceptions) hasn’t been good at all!
