Ant-Man and the Wasp: Quantumania 2023

Antman quantumania is finally here, and I gotta watch it a day early as I work at a cinema. My rating will probably drop as every time I watch an mcu film I get a bit too excited and rate it a little too high, but I really liked this. There was a lot I didn’t like about it, but I think the good kinda over powered the bad, the good being the reason I was exited for the film, the villains.  From early reviews of this film I was a bit excited. Stuff like “Ant-Man and the Wasp: Quantumania is an eccentric and essential spectacle, which further expands the possibilities of what the MCU’s tentpole projects can still be capable of.”, but then it was given the second lowest Rotten Tomatoes score after eternals of every mcu film, so I kinda figured what kinda film this would be. People have been hating on the mcu recently, with end game the mcu peaked, and everything they have put out since in comparison has been kinda mid. We are in a bit of a bad era I would agree, but after the peak of the mcu I think that’s ok, it’s setting up new stuff, setting up the next phase, just like phase one all over again we are getting all these new characters, with TV shows and origins and sequels, the mcu is kinda just expanding for the sake of expanding right now and the quality has dropped for a lot of the film, but as someone who has been following the mcu since I was 9 years old I’m all for it and excited to see where it all leads to. We are getting a secret wars film and that’ll hopefully make it all worth it! Unless secret wars is bad in which case I may not be able to continue with the marvel cinematic universe.  Modok I kinda loved. People will probably hate him. Every time he popped on screen I laughed because he looked comedically bad, but it’s modok, he was never gonna look good unless they did a cop out and made him wear the mask the whole time which I’m really glad they didn’t. I don’t think we will see him in anymore films which is a shame as I really like modok but I’m glad we finally gotta see him on the big screen and he did get a little character development.  I can really see why people wouldn’t like this film, it’s a cgi fest that doesn’t really have any qualities as a film that make it on par with some of the top mcu films. I don’t think it’ll help much with the mcu hate that people are justifiably starting to get, but as a massive fan of the mcu, I found it really exciting. The side characters of antman I never really liked, Hank is ok sometimes but I don’t like hope, Cassie or the mum whose name I’ve forgotten. I like Michael Peña but he wasn’t even in this. Scott isn’t even that good of a character and his main motivation being his daughter has become a bit of a worn out character trait in my opinion. Really kinda feels like he’s had no character development after the first film and is exactly the same every time we see him now. But Paul Rudd plays antman and he’s so likeable that it kinda carries the whole character, really a perfect casting. Scott Lang wasn’t that good in this and he hasn’t been that good for a while, but Paul Rudd is amazing.  So the reason this film is good is Jonathan Majors, this is Kang’s film, he’s incredible and I’m exited to see what he has in store for us. I have been so excited for Kang’s entrance into the mcu since before even endgame, and this was it. I like him more than thanos, such a good actor and a really interesting villain, really everything I wanted it to be.  Some of the one off side characters were fun, kinda funny but there were really simple and were kinda useless, I liked the hole guy but we will very likely never see him again and he was just a pointless side character, and there were others even more forgettable that weren’t as fun as him. But overall the quantum realm was fun, again it was a bit of a cgi fest but the overall world they created was pretty well designed and I liked it.  Honestly probably not the best Marvel film and I’m sure people are gonna shit on it, but kang was great, I love the mcu and I think this phase is quite good, excited for future movies and glad I gotta watch it and keep up my streak of seeing every mcu film at the cinema since avengers came out 11 years ago.  I kinda get the whole argument that a lot of directors, most notably Martin Scorsese have made, that marvel films feel like theme park rides and have ruined cinema. Realistically though it’s kinda keeping the movie industry going right now bringing more and more people to the cinema. A film like this that is pretty much entirely cgi, I do get the comparison to a theme park ride, with every shot being filmed in a big green screen studio and the cgi being a little shitty and cheesy. If you don’t wanna view these films as real films I guess that’s fine, but they are, some of them can be kinda lazy and follow a simple and basic formulae, but they are entertaining, they can make you laugh and they can make you cry, we are invested in the characters who all develop and I think as long as people still enjoy and watch them they shouldn’t be looked down on as much. This was a fun film, it wasn’t amazing but I liked it and think it was a fun addition into the mcu.  Also kang.  7.5/10 After credits 8.0/10