Kathryn Newton as Cassandra “Cassie” Lang and Paul Rudd as Scott Lang/Ant-Man in Marvel Studios’ Ant-Man and The Wasp: Quantumania. Photograph: Jay Maidment. © 2022 MARVEL. Click to view the trailer.
Ant-Man and The Wasp: Quantumania is the worst superhero film I’ve seen as far as I remember.
When the first part of the franchise came into cinemas in 2015, this reviewer wrote “Want to be entertained and laugh while escaping most of the clichés that sometimes haunt movies of the superhero kind? Go and watch Ant-Man.”
Now when the third installment is about to premiere tomorrow, this reviewer writes:
Want to be entertained and laugh, avoid Ant-Man and The Wasp: Quantumania at all costs.
It beats me how the director of the first two parts, Peyton Reed, would accept going forward with this abysmal screenplay, which includes nothing but clichés and bad jokes.
And what’s worse: The score, the sounds, the characters and the villains seem like a lackluster rip-off of The Mandalorian (2019 –) or The Book of Boba Fett (2021 –) — the excellent original TV series based on the Star Wars franchise and created for the streaming service Disney+.
Yeah, Reed probably did it for the money. The story was, after all, penned by Jeff Loveness, the same guy known for writing jokes for Jimmy Kimmel Live!, one of those late-night American talk shows. That should be self-explanatory.
Even the sixth sense of Paul Rudd, the lead actor, who plays Scott Lang, who can shrink himself to the size of an ant or depending on his mood grow into a giant, seems to perceive that this piece of production may not turn out well. Therefore, he seems to lose his passion for acting, which makes everything much worse.
Even a brief appearance by Bill Murray (Krylar) can’t help this disaster and makes the viewer wonder why he appeared in the movie at all.
With all this being said, the best part of the film is Michelle Pfeiffer as Janet Van Dyne, a scientist, who can morph into one of the Wasps. (Evangeline Lilly who plays her daughter Hope Van Dyne is the other Wasp.)
Pfeiffer did her best work in the ’90s, so it’s nice to see her back in the acting circuit.
Or in this case: the acting circus.
‘Ant-Man and The Wasp: Quantumania’ premieres in cinemas on January 15. Running time: 125 minutes.
