The smallest Avenger is back once again, this time facing off against new baddie Kang in the quantum realm.
Fresh from beating Thanos, Scott Lang (portrayed by the un-ageing Paul Rudd) is enjoying life as a local celebrity and book writer, although he is at somewhat at a crossroads. That is until his daughter unwittingly gets them all trapped in the quantum realm and they must try and find a way out, going toe to toe with Marvel’s new future villain (or a variant of him) Kang.
The film is rather vibrant and the quantum realm, where we spend about 95% off the films 2 hour runtime, is full of life. It has a very Guardians of the Galaxy feel about it. We are introduced to an eclectic group of rebels rising up against the Kang dictatorship, however the film never really goes into much depth about how they came to be. They seem to attempt to make up for this in a flurry of CGI – the dialogue and jokes are often tame, leaving us with a somewhat hollow visual spectacle instead.
The only character with any real competent development was Janet Van Dyne, played by Michelle Pfeiffer. The film on a whole rotates around her and her experience from the 30 years she spent in the Quantum Realm. The re-casting of Lang’s daughter Cassie (Katheryn Newton) felt pointless and the character can feel oddly grating at times. As does this universe’s portrayal of big-headed bad guy, Modok, which has divided fans regarding his origin being tied in with Scott’s.
Kang, who’s played by Jonathon Majors is a standout for me and really brought the malevolent character to life. We got a taste of him in Disney+ series, Loki albeit as a different ‘variant’ of the same character. His delivery is slick and powerful – giving us a taste of his underlying rage which is subtle but terrifying . This differs to say, Thanos who feels he must do what he must to solve what he decrees the issues of the universe. Kang for now at least takes this to another level as his threat will go from being one universe to the entire multiverse.
I enjoyed the film on the whole, there are lots of setups for the next series of films (Phase 5 of the Marvel Cinematic Universe). However, I did feel that the new main villain wasn’t as threatening as I thought. As mentioned in the film Kang asks Scott “Have I killed you before”. We also see him show off his power which is beyond what Antman can overcome – so why at the end does it come down to a fist fight? The film is called Antman and the Wasp, however, Hope Van Dyne AKA The Wasp (Evangeline Lilly) has little to do. There is tension with her mum about the keeping of secrets, but there is no reason why this mum/daughter relationship needs to be so distant.
Overall there is a lot to be enjoyed the CGI being truly in your face if a tad draining! The cast are what holds it together with the likes of Michelle Pfeiffer and Michael Douglas using all their experience to bring the film along. Quantumania feel like a teaser for future films, there wasn’t as much depth or development as I expected, but the multiverse is about to give us a whole bunch of content and confusing timelines!
Author: Tom, Bath Store
