Ant-Man

Ant-Man is a somewhat ironic choice for a very, very big job: Kicking off the next phase of Marvel movies. "Ant-Man and the Wasp: Quantumania" works on one ...

But it is, at best, a small step, and like much of Marvel’s recent output, only makes “Endgame” loom that much larger in the rearview mirror. If Kang is destined to become the central antagonist as the next batch of movies again build toward an Avengers-sized showdown, Majors is the one thing to emerge from “Quantumania” on which anyone could hang their hat. It’s a point overtly made by Kang himself, who sneers at Ant-Man, “You’re out of your league.” Yet with its plunge into inner space, “Ant-Man” comes up short in almost every other way that matters. What ensues is an especially psychedelic trip, with precious little grounding in anything that resembles recognizable reality. Ant-Man is a somewhat ironic choice for a very, very big job: Kicking off the next phase of Marvel movies.

No hero, it seems, is invulnerable to the franchise's bleakest obsession yet: gobs and gobs of CGI.

But by and large, the story is in service of the larger Marvel engine, an increasingly creaky machine that nevertheless keeps grinding away, dropping superstar performers into CGI glop because the show simply must go on. [Norse gods](https://www.theatlantic.com/culture/archive/2022/07/thor-love-and-thunder-movie-review/661491/), [alien warriors](https://www.theatlantic.com/entertainment/archive/2017/05/guardians-of-the-galaxy-vol-2-is-marvels-first-comic-book-movie-in-years/526191/), [flying wizards](https://www.theatlantic.com/culture/archive/2022/05/doctor-strange-multiverse-madness-sam-raimi-marvel-review/629744/), and the like. The script, by Jeff Loveness, a Rick and Morty writer, often has the antic energy of that show, using the “parallel world” conceit to depict whimsical species, including a goo creature who longs to grow orifices and a frustrated telepath (played by William Jackson Harper) who would appreciate it if everyone would please stop thinking about so many disgusting things. the Wasp (Evangeline Lilly), raising his daughter, Cassie (Kathryn Newton), and palling around with Hope’s heroic parents, Hank Pym (Michael Douglas) and Janet van Dyne (Michelle Pfeiffer). Kang’s introduction in this film is so portentous that the franchise is obviously rolling him out as their next big cross-series villain. He’s been exiled to the Quantum Realm, a subatomic dominion of swirling purple clouds and strange gooey creatures.

The latest film about the minuscule superhero sets up Marvel's next big villain but other than that, it has nothing to offer beyond drab-looking action, ...

Marvel has created the vibrant, majestic worlds of [Thor](https://www.bbc.com/culture/article/20220705-thor-love-and-thunder-review-a-romcom-with-epic-battles)'s Asgard and [Black Panther](https://www.bbc.com/culture/article/20221115-wakanda-forever-and-the-black-panther-effect-on-hollywood)'s Wakanda. But the action is stiff and the characters and one-note plot are crushed beneath the overload of CGI and dull special effects. William Jackson Harper is wry as a sympathetic telepath, who unfortunately disappears for much of the film. The forces of good and evil go back and forth – Kang employs hordes of soldiers with glowing blue helmets, like an army with blue lightbulbs for faces. [une](https://www.bbc.com/culture/article/20210903-four-stars-for-dune). She knows the Quantum Realm, is infamous there, and is being hunted by someone so terrifying that his name isn't even mentioned for half the film. Creating Quantumania to get there was a waste. Scott and his family need to stop Kang as well as save themselves, but there is no question about the villain's survival because he has his own film, Avengers: The Kang Dynasty, scheduled for 2025. Scott and his daughter, Cassie (Kathryn Newton), have become part of Hope's family, which includes her genius parents, Hank Pym, (Michael Douglas) and Janet van Dyne (Michelle Pfeiffer), who at the end of Ant-Man and The Wasp was rescued after 30 years in the Quantum Realm, the subatomic place where the rules of time and space don't apply. Cassie, who was eight in the last Ant-Man film five years ago (when she was played by Abby Ryder Fortson), is now 18, so she is obviously ageing in movie-sequel years, which like the Quantum Realm itself treats time as something optional. The heart of Ant-Man (2015) and Ant-Man and the Wasp (2018) was Paul Rudd as everyman Scott Lang, who puts on his special suit and shrinks into the minuscule Ant-Man – or as I like to think of him, The Littlest Avenger. There you have Ant-Man and the Wasp: Quantumania, the latest and possibly lamest instalment in the usually reliable Marvel Cinematic Universe.

Renee Zellweger dancing in a large apartment with city skyline in the bathroom and moon illuminated. Renée Zellweger stars in the director Peyton Reed's stylish ...

This high-toned style is further displayed in the trim and sharp-outlined fashions pressed and starched to the stiffness of armor, the hair sprayed and baked and pomaded to a helmet-like solidity. This glossily artificial stylization of personality most clearly embodies the substance of the movie’s style and brings to life Reed’s big idea—the power and the fragility of social masks, the painful effort of sustaining them, and the ordeal of their collapse. At the center of this dazzling dynamism of industrial design, the movie’s central quartet, of Barbara and Vikki and Catcher and Peter, stand out as exemplars of style and flair. Meanwhile, Vikki and the hyper-neurotic publisher of Know, Peter MacMannus (David Hyde Pierce, channelling Tony Randall, who also has a cameo—one of his last screen roles), fall for each other, but the insecure Peter, something of a forty-year-old virgin, turns to his best employee and best friend, Catcher, for advice on surefire seduction, with antic results. Reed presents this clattery, amped-up game of ruses and deceptions in the form of highly decorative and giddily stylized hyper-unrealism. When she publicly calls out the serial user Catcher, he decides to investigate Barbara, in the hope of proving her a hypocrite who would all too readily fall in love with a man—and he’s going to be that man. Harburg, from 1937) on “The Ed Sullivan Show”—which turns the book into a best-seller and makes Barbara a celebrity. Renée Zellweger plays an author named Barbara Novak, whose book—also titled “Down with Love”—offers a multi-step program for liberating women from the lopsided demands of romantic relationships with men. [Down With Love](https://www.newyorker.com/video/watch/down-with-love),” from 2003. Reed was already a young veteran of television and music videos when he made his first feature, “Bring It On,” released in 2000, an instant classic of high-school cheerleading. Instead, Vikki scores an even greater coup—getting Judy Garland to sing “Down with Love” (a real song, by Harold Arlen and E. As distinctive as that big-budget, studio-tailored franchise film is, it hardly holds a candle in inspiration or thematic depth to several of the movies that he made earlier in his career.

Disney's third standalone “Ant-Man” movie is expected to collect $95 million to $100 million in North America over the traditional weekend and $110 through ...

3,” “The Marvels,” “Captain America: New World Order,” “Thunderbolts” and “Blade.” Yet, the movie only kind of fulfills that responsibility, according to Fear isn’t the only critic who left “Ant-Man and the Wasp: Quantumania” with mixed feelings; the film holds a 60% average on Rotten Tomatoes. “You hang on his every word; he makes vengeance and genocide sound like the most hypnotically casual of propositions.” Based on domestic box office estimates, the newest “Ant-Man” is buzzing below recent Marvel titles such as “Doctor Strange in the Multiverse of Madness” ($185 million), “Thor: Love and Thunder” ($144 million) and “Black Panther: Wakanda Forever” ($181 million). Encouragingly, it’s getting a huge jump on its predecessors, 2015’s “Ant-Man” ($57 million) and 2018’s sequel “Ant-Man and the Wasp” ($76 million domestically and $161 million globally). China, where “Quantumania” is projected to bring in $35 million to $55 million, will be key in the final weekend tally.

Plagued by "turgid seriousness" and featuring an "onslaught of truly bad dialogue", the sole praise is reserved for Jonathan Majors' new big bad Kang.

[Devotion](https://www.stuff.co.nz/entertainment/stuff-to-watch/300791575/devotion-restrained-respectful-tone-lifts-netflixs-new-korean-war-movie), [Lovecraft Country](https://www.stuff.co.nz/entertainment/tv-radio/300080985/lovecraft-country-jordan-peele-series-is-no-show-for-the-faint-of-heart)) new “big bad” Kang. Oh, and you’ll be left mewling for mercy after an onslaught of Truly Bad Dialogue”, while [indieWire’s Kate Erbland ](https://www.indiewire.com/2023/02/ant-man-and-the-wasp-quantumania-review-1234807640/)wondered if “maybe the pictures should get small again; it might be the only way to save an MCU that seems dangerously close to getting too big to do anything but fail”. [Writing for The Washington Post](https://www.washingtonpost.com/movies/2023/02/14/ant-man-and-the-wasp-quantumania-movie-review/), Ann Hornaday lamented that the MCU’s “sprightly pacing and lighthearted humour have succumbed to the turgid seriousness that plagues so much of the comic book canon”. Jones](https://www.theguardian.com/film/2023/feb/14/ant-man-and-the-wasp-quantumania-review-paul-rudd-kang-the-conqueror?CMP=twt_a-culture_b-gdnculture) believed Majors “brings the same emotionally intense it-boy energy of Adam Driver in The Force Awakens”, while [USA Today’s Brian Truitt ](https://www.usatoday.com/story/entertainment/movies/2023/02/14/ant-man-quantumania-review-marvel/11222578002/)thought he was a “deliciously disconcerting presence” and [The Hollywood Reporter’s Frank Scheck](https://www.hollywoodreporter.com/movies/movie-reviews/ant-man-and-the-wasp-quantumania-review-paul-rudd-evangeline-lilly-jonathan-majors-1235319646/) was not only enamoured by his appropriately imposing physical presence, but a display of such “arrestingly quiet stillness and ambivalence that you’re on edge every moment he’s onscreen”. A figure based on 121 assessments so far, that number could yet rise or fall although it would need a significant bump of positivity to displace the current third-bottom title – 2022’s Taika Waititi-directed [ Thor: Love and Thunder](https://www.rottentomatoes.com/m/thor_love_and_thunder), which has 64% [ AV Club’s Matt Huff](https://www.avclub.com/a-review-of-ant-man-and-the-wasp-quantumania-1850111199) suggested that “if you can surrender yourself to its bonkers A Bugs Life-meets-Return of the Jedi antics, the two hours will fly by”, while [The Independent’s Clarisse Loughrey](https://www.independent.co.uk/arts-entertainment/films/reviews/ant-man-quantumania-review-b2282134.html) thought it “nicely hits the mark: It’s goofy, but goofy to just the right degree”. It was a sentiment shared by [The Globe and Mail’s Barry Hertz](https://www.theglobeandmail.com/arts/film/reviews/article-ugly-and-interminable-marvels-ant-man-and-the-wasp-quantumania-is-fit/) who thought that Quantumania was “both a dispiriting reminder that the MCU has abandoned wit and that even the most clever and idiosyncratic of filmmakers can be steamrolled by the unstoppable obligations of corporate storytelling”. [Seattle Times’ Soren Andersen](https://www.seattletimes.com/subscribe/signup-offers/?pw=redirect&subsource=paywall&return=https://www.seattletimes.com/entertainment/movies/ant-man-and-the-wasp-quantumania-review-its-the-quality-thats-shrinking-here/?utm_source=RSS&utm_medium=Referral&utm_campaign=RSS_movies) warned viewers to “prepare to be slammed by special effects, hammered by an ear-battering soundtrack. * [How 'Loki' sets up the future of Marvel](https://www.stuff.co.nz/entertainment/tv-radio/300360300/how-loki-sets-up-the-future-of-marvel?rm=a) [The nine biggest superhero movies for 2023, from Ant-Man to Aquaman](https://www.stuff.co.nz/entertainment/film/300779065/the-nine-biggest-superhero-movies-for-2023-from-antman-to-aquaman?rm=a) [second-lowest of the now Disney-owned movie series’ 31 titles](https://editorial.rottentomatoes.com/guide/all-marvel-cinematic-universe-movies-ranked/) released so far, only “bested” by 2021’s star-studded polarising tale [ Eternals’ 47%](https://www.rottentomatoes.com/m/eternals).

But the Quantum Realm, the dangerous realm from where the gang rescued Janet Van Dyne (Michelle Pfeiffer), still poses a significant threat, especially after ...

Newton is a smart casting choice and we can only assume Cassie, who has her own superhero suit already, will be a huge part of the MCU in the future. At least Quantumania has one of the best casts in a Marvel film. Visually, the film is messy and flat; the CGI is shockingly poor and the action looks muddled. In Quantumania, by making it a place where laws of physics seem to apply and where several different tribes live, it just feels pretty safe. The Quantum Realm has always been presented to us as a hugely dangerous, abstract space that should be avoided at all costs and that no life could exist there. It officially kickstarts Marvel’s Phase V of films and gives us its next big bad: Jonathan Majors’ Kang the Conqueror.

Uh oh. That was my first thought when I saw the review scores rolling in for Ant-Man and The Wasp: Quantumania, the third Ant-Man movie, but a seemingly ...

I do wonder if a few more reviews may sink Quantumania below Eternals, though I will say in the middle to bottom ranking order of MCU movies by critic scores, I think they got a long wrong. That’s obviously something DC can’t say, as the DCEU boasts a number of films under that mark, and early on often split between high audience scores for Snyder-era films and low critic scores. Taking place almost entirely in the Quantum Zone, the film is in turn almost completely CGI, and even in the trailers it looked like that could be a problem. Second, since the movie is actually out now, user scores are in and they are not just higher than critics, which you might expect, but much higher, currently at an 84%. That’s a dismal score for an MCU feature, and marks only the second time that an MCU movie has had a “rotten” (below 60%) score on the site, the first time being Eternals in 2021. The thrill isn't just gone, it's been buried beneath a swarm of plot contrivances and truly hideous CGI.” [Whynow](https://whynow.co.uk/read/ant-man-and-the-wasp-quantumania-review): “Visually, the film is messy and flat; the CGI is shockingly poor and the action looks muddled. It says something that out of 30+ MCU features in a decade and a half, that there are literally only two with sub 60% scores. Of course, many MCU fans may wait and see what audience scores are like. But I would be surprised if this was a huge disparity as this always seemed like a pretty risky film. What’s wrong with the movie? We know there’s currently a visual effects shortage in Hollywood, in part because of the demands of places like Marvel, and perhaps this was too much work given not enough time and the end result is just…not very good. They were never really considered top-tier Marvel movies but this is a huge drop.

It's a real indictment of any movie as unrelentingly loud, bombastic and big when you turn to your plus one in the screening room and find them asleep.

The post-Endgame era of Marvel has been crying out for some kindling, something to throw the afterburners on; this is just more ugly cement. In the meantime, daughter Cassie (Kathryn Newton), who has seen no end of shit and is presumably in desperate need of a therapist, has been getting herself in heaps of trouble, protesting the crisis of homelessness in the wake of the snap. The object, then, is to get back to Big Earth: fortunately, Janet knows a guy from her own 30-year marooning down on the Quantum side, who they meet up with in a jovial (again, It's a shame he's given so much of that aforementioned, dawdling exposition to deal with. It's around an hour in that we're properly acquainted with Majors' Kang, by far the most compelling element at play: he emanates movie star gravitas, helped by the fact that he's the only guy who really seems committed to the bit. It's a real indictment of any movie as unrelentingly loud, bombastic and big when you turn to your plus one in the screening room and find them asleep.

Domestically, the superhero threequel is expected to make between $95 million and $100 million in its first three days, according to Variety, with the number ...

[Peyton Reed](https://collider.com/the-mandalorian-volume-technology-peyton-reed-comments/), who also helmed Ant-Man 1 and 2, declared heading into this one that he no longer wanted his films to be perceived as counter-programming within the MCU, and made it a point to craft a more epic narrative. Reviews for Ant-Man 3 have been generally muted, otherwise; this is only the second MCU film ever, for instance, to get a “rotten” score on review aggregator Rotten Tomatoes. The first Ant-Man tapped out with $519 million globally, while the second film finished with a little more than $620 million worldwide. Ant-Man 3 also happens to be only the second MCU film since 2019’s Avengers: Endgame to score a China release. [Ant-Man and the Wasp: Quantumania](https://collider.com/tag/ant-man-and-the-wasp-quantumania/) have been lowered heading into its opening weekend. Domestically, the superhero threequel is expected to make between $95 million and $100 million in its first three days, according to [Variety](https://variety.com/2023/film/box-office/box-office-preview-ant-man-and-the-wasp-quantumania-opening-weekend-1235522559/), with the number increasing to $110 million across the four-day extended President’s Day weekend.

Scott Lang, aka Ant-Man, and his allies return to the big screen on Friday, years after the origin story in 2015's Ant-Man cameos in other Marvel films, ...

The third film in Marvel's Ant-Man trilogy sends the MCU's tinest titans into a subatomic universe, where they — and we the viewers — get stuck.

The characters of Ant-Man and the Wasp: Quantumania, at least, are flat. Just look at the standard line item in the budget for, say, the Mysterious Glowing Object That's Terribly Terribly Important To Everyone In Whichever Marvel Movie This Happens To Be — in this case, that yellow orb thingy with all those metal rings flying around inside it that Kang wants, for reasons I can't remember now. ... Oh and also throw in a few bucks on coconut oil while you're at it. The voice actors record their tracks in separate sound booths at separate times. In previous Ant-Man films, we may all have looked past the thinness of his characterization, because the charming Ruddishness of the performance blinded us to it. She might as well be one of the CGI barstools.) But as I sat there watching Ant-Man and the Wasp: Quantumania, I started to wonder if perhaps, back when we as nerdy little kids wished for it, all those long years ago, someone snuck a monkey's paw into the whole affair. But in absolutely no way does it look like they did, and it sure as hell doesn't feel like they did. They could have made a film together at any time during that period and now, finally, here they are and here it is. When we eventually get a The Making Of Ant-Man and the Wasp: Quantumania, we might well learn that those three actors actually filmed that scene together. Even more mind-boggling: This third Ant-Man film posits the purple, time-traveling despot Kang the Conqueror as a bad guy to take seriously. This time out, it's the entire Ant-Family that gets sucked down into the MCU's own microscopic Whoville, with its sunless, surreal, slimy Color Out of Space production design.

This is only the second Marvel Cinematic Universe film to earn a Rotten rating. Jonathan Majors shines as Kang the Conqueror, but the film is an overstuffed ...

"Michael Pena's absence should have been a warning," wrote Kristy Puchko in her review of "Ant-Man and the Wasp: Quantumania" for Mashable. "Ant-Man and the Wasp in Quantumania" held a 53% "rotten" rating from 148 reviews, as of Wednesday afternoon. "The result is an undercooked, overstuffed action movie that feels like a shadow of better pulpy adventure sendups before it." to buckle at the knees," O'Sullivan wrote. "Ultimately, 'Quantumania' does a middling job of both. The film itself is anything but light. There, they face off against Kang, a dimension-hopping tyrant who is trying to escape from the realm after being exiled there for his rampages across time and space. (Majors will also appear as the antagonist in next month's "Creed III." Critics praised Majors' performance in the film, as the actor was able to bring gravitas to the the role and exude the kind of menace that made previous big bad Thanos (Josh Brolin) such a compelling, and threatening, villain. He was introduced in the Disney+ show "Loki." However, Kang's larger-than-life presence overshadowed the quirky and charming narrative that fans have come to expect from Ant-Man side quests, critics say. Peyton Reed's previous Ant-Man installments offered the MCU a smaller-than-life look at what it means to be a hero.

Ant-Man and the Wasp: Quantumania is a sci-fi adventure in the mold of Thor: Ragnarok.

The bigger, more general theme is the strength of the little guy, even in the face of overwhelming power. Cassie (Newton) is the heart of the film, Hank (Douglas) does the science and Janet (Pfeiffer) is the plot powerhouse whose worst nightmare catches up to her. Quantumania sets up the future of the MCU, and also manages to pack in some other bigger themes. Still, the number of times characters refuse to divulge crucial information to string out the supposed suspense ("No time to explain!" If Quantumania doesn't quite know what to do with Ant-Man, it really doesn't know what to do with the other title character. Fans have been prepped for the arrival of Kang, who was first seen in the Disney Plus series Loki, and the movie does a fine job introducing the villainous characters to fresh viewers. It's a breezy, bizarro sci-fi adventure in the mold of Thor: Ragnarok, as familiar faces from the Marvel roster drop into an alien realm for fun and fighting before inspiring the locals to rise up and overthrow a hateful dictator. The weirdness of the micro-Mad Max setting gives rise to some entertaining jokes, arresting visuals and one or two mind-bending set pieces. Old enemies come looking for her and her fam, forcing her to face up to what she did during exile. Having rescued Janet van Dyne from the quantum realm in the previous Ant-Man and the Wasp film (and you'd be forgiven for remembering basically nothing about that movie), the Ant-gang is sucked back into the itty-bitty universe layered below the atoms of our full-size world. Kathryn Newton plays the now-teenaged Cassie Lang, Scott's daughter, and in the quantum realm they encounter William Jackson Harper, Katy O'Brian and Bill Murray (yes, that Bill Murray). [Ant-Man and the Wasp: Quantumania](https://www.cnet.com/culture/entertainment/ant-man-and-the-wasp-quantumania-trailer-plot-cast-release-date/) is in theaters Friday, Feb.