Paul Rudd is a superhero? I mean, Rudd is a highly charismatic performer, but of all the actors to sign on to play a hero in the Marvel Cinematic Universe, I always found Rudd’s inclusion a little odd. Oh, I still like him as Scott “Ant-Man” Lang, but it always seemed like he was the guy who maybe was an outside the box pick. Most other MCU heroes were either up-and-comers or just someone like Benedict Cumberbatch where it was just really obvious who should get be cast in the role. But every time I saw Rudd with the other heroes or even in his own movies, I always felt like he was a bit different.
I still tend to enjoy the Ant-Man movies. Will that hold true for the third installment, Ant-Man and the Wasp: Quantumania?
Scott Lang (Rudd) is marveling over his life. He’s a local celebrity in San Francisco where his partner Hope “Wasp” VanDyne (Evangeline Lily) is doing a lot of good as the head of her parents’ old corporation. Meanwhile, Scott’s daughter Cassie (Kathryn Newton) seems to have taken a bit after her father by getting into a bit of trouble with the law while trying to do good for people. But she’s also been working with Hank Pym (Michael Douglas) and Hope to build a device that could map the subatomic Quantum Realm. However, that involves sending a signal down there, and Hank’s wife Janet (Michelle Pfeiffer) suddenly sees that as a problem. See, there’s someone down there, someone she neglected to mention, someone who scares her, and someone who really wants her to come back.
So, naturally, when everyone gets sucked down to the Quantum Realm, things go very weird. Hope, Hank, and Janet go off in one way while Janet very gradually lets the others know what happened. Meanwhile, Scott and Cassie find themselves being hunted by one Kang the Conqueror (Jonathan Majors). See, Kang is a warlord with a taste for conquest, sent to the Quantum Realm as a punishment. While stranded down there, he’s basically taken over the place, but he can’t leave without a piece of equipment that only someone with access to Pym Particles can get. And quite frankly, Kang knows how to get leverage. Can Scott figure out a way to defeat a time traveling despot with technology far beyond Scott’s understanding?
In many ways, this is new ground for the Ant-Man franchise. Past films have been, no pun intended, rather small scale. The fate of the world is never in Scott’s hands the same way it is in just about any other Marvel hero’s. Put Scott in someone else’s movie, and that’s a different story. But on his own, he’s mostly dealt with one on one bad guys and mobster types. This here is an adventure that is much bigger and more epic than anything the Ant-Man movies have ever dealt with before, and it doesn’t quite work. There’s nothing really bad on display here. Majors is a fantastic actor who should make for a good master villain in future MCU films. The problem is he doesn’t quite fit into these movies. Why is Ant-Man the first Marvel hero to face off against Kang? There’s no particularly good answer to that, and considering the secondary baddie for the movie is the ridiculous-looking MODOK, I kept wondering if Kang wandered in from a different movie.
There’s really just too much going on here, and I think the best way to explain the tonal shift is the absence of Michael Pena’s Luis. Luis’s storytelling were definite scene-stealers in the previous two movies, and while I can’t say excluding him from this one doesn’t make sense–the character definitely would not have fit into this movie–it is a sign of just what a different movie this one is for the Ant-Man character. Sure, Rudd is his usually charming self, Douglas and Pfeiffer could do their roles while asleep, and there are some good humorous moments, but this one is just too much happening in a film series that never really went that way before. In the end, there’s nothing really wrong with this movie, but at the same time, I have a hard time recommending it to anyone who isn’t already onboard with Scott Lang’s adventures.
Grade: C
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