The first instalment of Phase Five of the MCU comes with a lot of baggage. It’s not just the third superhero movie about stocky everyman turned size-fluid Avenger, Scott Lang, aka Ant-Man (Paul Rudd). It’s also the big screen debut of infinitely devious multiverse baddie, Kang the Conqueror (Jonathan Majors), whose legacy is so powerful that an Avengers project we’ll see in two years’ time bears the title The Kang Dynasty.
Sometimes the weight of all this responsibility causes Ant-Man and the Wasp: Quantumania – which is almost entirely set in the “quantum realm” – to buckle at the knees. But mostly this story of a beleaguered little guy and his loved ones stands tall because the cast is so solid (especially Majors). Also, its humour is in the right place. Remember the emotionally damaged scientist, Darren, from the first Ant-Man movie? Well, he’s back, albeit visually altered (imagine Humpty Dumpty, crossed with an angry armchair). Corey Stoll’s slightly dick-ish character all but steals the show. I think I’m in love.
But wait, not everyone saw the Ant-Man movies (or Avengers: Endgame, or the TV show Loki). So let’s have a quick recap for those who have busy lives, no access to Disney + and/or a Scorsese-like disdain for this genre.
Scott got his Ant-Man suit and powers thanks to a testy genius and former S.H.I.E.L.D scientist, Hank Pym (Michael Douglas), whose equally brilliant wife Janet (Michelle Pfeiffer) found herself trapped in the quantum realm for 29 years. Hank and Janet’s daughter, Hope (Evangeline Lilly), is Scott’s love interest and a wily warrior in her own right (she’s the titular Wasp).
At the start of Quantumania, as Scott basks in the fact that he and the rest of the Avengers managed to save the world from Thanos, the Pyms are celebrating the can-do spirit of Scott’s activist teenage daughter, Cassie (Kathryn Newton). The latter has created a “Hubble Telescope” that will allow her to spy on the land where Time and Space get trippy.
Janet, however, is horrified by Cassie’s invention. And when all five get dragged into the quantum realm, we discover why. Turns out Janet and power-mad Kang (whose melancholy and verbose variant made such a splash in season one of Loki) are old enemies.
Pfieffer and Douglas are given plenty of room here to show off their comic timing. Janet was a career woman with “needs” (Bill Murray pops up, as her one-time paramour, the grandiose bon viveur, Krylar) and the bit where Hank admits that he himself had a few dinner-dates, while his wife was “away”, is brilliantly down-to-earth.
As is much of the humour. A debate about how many “holes” Scott has is another casually cheeky highlight and puts the spotlight on an excellent new character, the gelatinous and excitable freedom-fighter, Veb (David Dastmalchian).
There’s a huge hole in the proceedings, where Michael Pena’s ex-con, Luis, from the previous films, should be, and Newton takes a while to settle into her role. Also the visuals owe too much to Star Wars (imitation is the sincerest form of flattery, but the scale of this worship is embarrassing). Still, when the special effects click, the result is glorious. The beauty and power of teeming ‘red’ ants (I swear Hank specifically compares the creatures to socialists) has never been more prominently displayed.
If you can ignore the convoluted plot – not, sadly, a rarity in the increasingly complex Marvel Cinematic Universe – you’ll have a blast with these characters. In a typically sharp in-joke, Kang says of the Avengers, “They all blur together, after a while”. Ha ha, I totally disagree.
124mins, cert 12A
