Ant-Man and The Wasp: Quantumania - Is it THAT bad?

Ant-Man and The Wasp : Quantumania is the third film in the Ant-Man franchise. As the MCU has set our expectations with previous trilogy enders like Captain America: Civil War, Spider-Man: No Way Home, we expected Quantumania to be a movie that brings a satisfying end to the character arcs explored in the franchise and in line with a common thread in all trilogy enders, the loss of something important - Tony gives up his arc reactor in Iron Man 3, Steve gives up his shield and becomes a fugitive by the end of Civil War, Thor loses Mjolnir, Odin and Asgard in Ragnarok, Peter losses his identity in No Way Home - these are all big changes that affect the story so the question was also, what will Scott lose in Quantumania? Spoiler Alert! NOTHING! And that doesn't make the movie bad. The Rotten Tomotes score is definitely not indicative of the actual film either, it's not that bad. Let's discuss.

The positives

Janet and Kang's flash back was too good, probably the best part of the movie. Janet was the best character, followed by Kang - he has great potential. Hope in the new Wasp suit had some great visually interesting action scenes. What If...? Episode 3 showed us the potential of pym tech and it's yet to be used in a mind-blowing way in live action. The Storm of Possibilities was a great concept would be happy to see it come back in a future movie as a plot device.

Small hero with bigger stakes

It was great to have the low stakes of the Ant-Man franchise amidst all the world-ending stakes of other movies. Quantumania with its trailers hinted at a change of stakes with the Multiverse Saga's big bad - Kang being the antagonist. I really thought it could work but I agree with other reviews that Quantumania lost what made the Ant-Man franchise so special. The movie was more focused on setting up Kang than closing out Scott's arc in his own trilogy. It feels like an episode of TV where they suddenly decided that it's time to introduce our villain and just to show his importance let's add some characters. That's not how the MCU movies used to feel.

Remember the moment Thanos recognised Tony in the battle of Titan that was a brilliant subversion of expectations (inbetween a fight) and gave a layer of character to Thanos - he kept track of his enemies and remembered their potential, that's what makes the stab later on more personal. Kang could've had the same, a single mention of Kang knowing Scott and what he brings to the table would've helped with the story and be in line with the Quantum telescope thing that Cassie built suddenly turning on and pulling in the group. Apart from the Janet connection this knowledge of Kang would make the story more personal. His flex of 'have I killed you before' could've still been kept for dramatic effect but his knowledge of who Scott exactly is and is weakness being Cassie....it writes itself.

Let's talk about the Butt....hm elephant in the room - M.O.D.O.K.

I'm sure no one was dying to see M.O.D.O.K. in the MCU but he is in the movie and I don't mind Daren Cross being turned into M.O.D.O.K. after his fight with Scott in the first Ant-Man, I think it's a cool idea. I liked the deadly nature when the guns came out and the spinning discs gave me a feel of the character but they could've done much better with him. Ironically a Mechanized Organism Designed Only For Killing didn't kill an important character in the movie.

Ant-Man and The Wasp: Ragnarok

When the Quantum civilization was introduced, I thought it was a bad idea to introduce this concept but went along with it. The similarities between Quantumania and Ragnarok is ridiculous. Veb and Korg are similar, Jelly guy and Meek are similar just the talking parts have been changed. The heroes try to cross a bridge and lead a rebellion in a new planet/realm, the main fighters stand on a bridge with the villain approaching them after a going on a killing spree. The overall story would've been better if they just threw away the Quantum civilization crap and stuck with Endgame's approach. Sometimes not explaining everything makes the thing more exciting, that's what made the Time Heist work, we didn't know about the wierdness and potential of the Quantum Realm. In line with Endgame's approach the Quantum Realm should've transported the group to another time where they branched off into an alternate timeline where Kang was trapped or something. I'm starting to feel mixing Time Travel with alternate universe is turning out to be huge mistake because clearly our blind faith in the MCU's capability to handle such stories is not right.

Time: A blessing or a curse?

After watching the movie I wondered what will give us the ultimate stakes in the next two Avengers movies if time is controlled by Kang. Time is always a good tension builder. But if Kang can just erase timelines or revisit and alter them then what will be the tension builder. I'm sure there is something that could be thought of because time is not the only but is definitely the best stake builder. I hope they do something really clever like using Nebula's memory sync between past and present to inform 2014 Thanos about the Avengers' Time heist and surely do address and show Kang wiping out and altering the efforts of our heroes and not just bypass Kang's main quality which is his mastery over time.

Waste of a potentially better climax

The movie was enjoyable but the climax is the only part where I felt they were making huge mistakes. After Hank, Janet, Cassie and Hope pass through the portal back to earth Scott is held back by Kang. They have a fight and just as Kang is about to make his escape Hope comes back to help with the situation. It was a heroic scene and I liked it. They destroy the multiverse travel core and Kang gets sucked in. Then after sometime the portal is opened again by Cassie for Scott and Hope to return. They should've let them be stuck in Quantum Realm! I know it would repeat what happened in Ant-Man and The Wasp but this ending would've been 1000% better to close out the trilogy. Scott who always wanted to be a hero to his daughter stuck in the Quantum Realm doing the right thing and being away from Cassie was his big MCU sacrifice to close out his trilogy.

Later, Scott is seen walking down San Francisco and everything is great, he rightfully questions if he did the right thing by stopping Kang but continues with his humour in classic Ant-Man fashion which was great. They celebrate Cassie's birthday for all the Birthday's Scott missed and it would've been just mind blowing for Kang to have been sitting in a corner of the restaurant observing the family or even be the waiter. I understand that they didn't want to have a cliffhanger but this was a trilogy ender and we are used to having high stakes at the end of these movies.

Kang-mania

Jonathan Majors is a talented actor, I've only seen his work in the MCU and he definitely has what it takes to play variants of Kang. The only problem is the script, someone needs to make use of his talent in the right way; give him great dialogues and make his presence feel menacing. The mid credit was a Kang-mania with our first introduction to Rama Tut, Immortus and a likely furturistic version of Kang. The Kang Dynasty is here giving a new meaning to the title 'Avengers: The Kang Dynasty'. We could see variants of Kang be villains in upcoming projects trying to stop our heroes from messing with the multiverse further and eventually leading all of that into Kang Dynasty - Infinity War stlye with different groups of heroes fighting variants of Kang.

Seems like an awesome idea to me.

The second credit scene introduces us to Victor Timely and it is revealed that Loki and Mobius are attending one of his presentations, it's just a tease for Loki: Season 2 but I can't help but think of how important Loki - the show and the character - have become to the MCU and I'm excited. For another version of Kang (hoping he is not killed off) .

Conclusion

Quantumania is a not awesome but a movie that exists. It does a lot of things right and a lot of things wrong. Hoping that the MCU just slows down and focuses on each project more so we can get projects similar to phase 3 and the phases leading up to that.