INDIA: Ant-Man and the Wasp: Quantumania is finally here! Marvel Studios released the third instalment in the Ant-Man trilogy, which held high hopes among the MCU fandom for the introduction of Kang the Conqueror.
The quoted to be a big baddie after Mad Titan Thanos, bagged high praise from trailers and promo. Activating the comic geek inside us, let’s see what Marvel has cooked up for us as its first dish in Phase 5.
Ant-Man 3: A saga of the post-End Game crisis continues
It’s a tiresome day, and boom! A Marvel movie releasing in the upcoming week; what else can be as much as this exciting? Yeah, it used to be exhilarating and so much fun in the pre-End Game era. Now, within a gap of a few months, most MCU projects, which no one has asked for, knock at our doors. Spider-Man: Now Way Home and Shang Chi are exceptions or, to say, rare gems of Phase 4.
This led to major superhero fatigue or, to specify, ‘Marvel fatigue’. Talking about Ant-Man 3, the film continues the post-End Game crisis. Yes, it is too early to jump to a conclusion without discussing the pros and cons, but I express what I felt while watching the movie.
Spoilers ahead!
The only good aspect of Ant-Man 3 is that Jonathan Majors is Kang the Conqueror. His performance as the much-hyped antagonist brings entertaining aspects to the Marvel film. He has stolen the spotlight from almost every character present in the film.
Keeping asides Majors’ phenomenal performance, the same can’t be said about his character of the Conqueror. Paul Rudd, Evangeline Lilly, Michael Douglas, and Michelle Pfeiffer give decent performances, nothing exceptional and not bad either.
Now comes the dissecting part, Ant-Man 3, or to say “Ant-Man family trip to the Quantum realm”, with the very small role of Scott Lang fits perfectly. Lang as the titular protagonist instead of Hank Pym was an interesting route to explore the superhero in the first film, which worked perfectly.
Then there comes Ant-Man and the Wasp (2018), which completely nerfed Ant-Man’s character, and this continues in the third film. Lang, as a main character, barely plays any impactful role in the story. He’s just there for the sake of the plot and nothing more. Lang barely does anything besides recovering the core of Kang’s ship or some kind of chair (the worst plot device).
Ant-Man 3 offered a unique concept of exploring the Quantum realm, but the notion fails to do that too. The movie hardly explores anything regarding the significant and most sci-fi-hyped realm. It feels like Disney’s Star Wars universe (another butchered franchise) or any generic space opera.
The movie could have offered a decent world-building, but it only taps one thing, which is a ‘universe within a universe’ populated with random characters having a one-dimensional set of emotions.
Take an example of Bill Muray’s character. What’s the point of casting a prominent Hollywood actor if he’s going to die within a minute of his introduction? Any other actor could have played his role, but only God knows why Marvel did it so.
Kang’s character, which was hyped in the trailer, lands perfectly on the performance level, thanks to Majors casting in the role. However, regarding how the Conqueror’s character has been written, we can only say ‘a mixed bag of errors.’
Kang is a human being with a knowledge of futuristic technology and powers to control time, ultimately making him higher on the plot to achieve anything. However, despite having Yellow Jacket-turned M.O.D.O.K (a creative idea with a laughable CGI) who has a baseline idea of making Pym particles, the Conqueror fails to create an essential thing required to escape the Quantum realm.
Bonus cons
M.O.D.O.K is wasted miserably. He is called an ultimate killing machine and misses every target, which is impossible in his domain. The character joins the list of butchered Marvel characters, which includes Hulk, Task Master, Thor, Ghost, Gorr the God Butcher and many more.
If Janet knew Kang was such a menace to the universe, why didn’t she warn anyone about him and keep quiet until Cassie built some ‘don’t know stuff with Quantum in its name’?
Kathryn Newton as Cassie fails to leave an impact on performance level. The father-daughter relationship between her and Paul as Scott lacks emotional depth.
Is there anything to talk about regarding direction and writing? Yes, a big pile of plot holes and randomly happening things, and boom, we have a script ready for Ant-Man and the Wasp: Quantumania.
Verdict:
Ant-Man 3 offers a interesting concept handled poorly with a randomly occurring plot elements and titular character playing an unimpactful role in the story. Its a one time watch only for the setup of Jonathan Majors as Kang in MCU.
The films has one mid-credit scene and one post-credit scene which feels highly impactful from the whole storyline.
Transcontinental Times rating: 2.5/5
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