Movie Review: Ant-Man and the Wasp: Quantumania

One of the many problems with the latest Ant-Man movie “Ant-Man and the Wasp: Quantumania” is that within 10 minutes of this film, the rest of the scenes take place within this strange Quantum universe. This means that with this many special effects for 90% of the movie, you enter a state of special effects overload – before this film is half over. Once again, the producers threw out any idea of a good story or screenplay and just came up with insane special effects first and then filled in the story later. Unfortunately, there are way too many action movies that go this same wrong route; all of them forgetting that it is always the story first, with good dialogue, including some kind of a message. Nonstop explosions, strange creatures, and insane scenes will never be a substitute for good ideas and a story.

As far as any kind of a story, there really isn’t one here, just a series of conflicts and fight scenes. The only bright spot is the acting of Jonathan Majors, who plays the main villain in this movie. Majors has recently proven that he is an up-and-coming star in the film industry, also appearing in the recent film “Devotion”, reviewed in this blog. He also appears in the new Creed 3 film, releasing in early March, directed by Michael B. Jordan. Majors has a subtle and impressive charisma in several scenes, within the rare moments that are not about crazy and insane special effects.

This latest Ant-Man movie just might be the last one, due to the low 48% rating on Rotten Tomatoes and the poor screenplay. All of the previous cast members appear again, including Michael Douglas, Evangeline Lilly, Paul Rudd who plays Scott Lang, Michelle Pfeiffer, and Kathryn Newton who plays Lang's daughter. Unfortunately, this latest version seems to be about the same, with small variations from the previous 2 Ant-Man films, but with many more insane special effects that get very old within the first hour.

This time around the Rotten Tomatoes ratings are a correct 48% and I agree with this number and do not recommend this film, even for the most die-hard Marvel fans.