Rating: PG-13 | Runtime: 124 minutes
Release Date: February 17th, 2023 (USA)
Studio: Marvel Studios / Walt Disney Studios Motion Pictures
Director(s): Peyton Reed
Writer(s): Jeff Loveness / Stan Lee, Larry Lieber & Jack Kirby (Ant-Man) / Stan Lee, Ernest Hart & Jack Kirby (Wasp)

Oh, you’re an Avenger. Have I killed you before?

What if Star Wars … but Marvel? That’s what director Peyton Reed, screenwriter Jeff Loveness, and MCU head Kevin Feige seem to have asked themselves when brainstorming Ant-Man and the Wasp: Quantumania. Because it is literally just Star Wars. Stormtroopers doing the bidding of a dark lord. Cantinas populated by alien creatures. There’s even a bit of “the Force” in how Kang The Conqueror (Jonathan Majors) fights courtesy of an exosuit light years beyond Earth’s own capabilities.

Call Janet Van Dyne (Michelle Pfeiffer) Obi Wan Kenobi as she dresses Hope (Evangeline Lilly) and Hank (Michael Douglas) in desert clothing and let her exposition dump the origin of a new enemy—an enemy that actually might be fighting against the actual enemy. Because this Kang isn’t the worst Kang. He’s an exile. He’s destroying worlds to destroy himself. So, killing him might end up guaranteeing extinction rather than staving it off.

But that’s getting ahead of ourselves. That’s for another chapter years from now. Scott Lang’s (Paul Rudd) latest adventure into cartoon land is simply our introduction to a new galaxy beneath the surface of our own, similar to the old galaxies traveled by the Guardians above. This is where we glean a bit more about what He Who Remains said to Loki and Sylvie at the end of “Loki” season one. How the Kangs ravaging the multiverse have labeled this “Exiled One” a threat, banishing him to the Quantum Realm because it is a world outside of space and time.

Unfortunately for humanity, however, it’s also a world Scott’s daughter Cassie (recast as Kathryn Newton) is keenly interested in discovering with the help of Hope and Hank. And since Janet still hasn’t shared the trauma of her thirty years trapped within it, they don’t realize the ramifications of trying to connect.

At the center of the journey lies the common theme of “Just because it’s not happening to you doesn’t mean it’s not happening.” Cassie says those words to her father because she believes his desire to live life basking in the glory of victories only shows he never actually cared about the meaning of those victories. That he fought to save himself and those close to him instead of fighting to save everything.

That leads into story threads of rebellion (see Star Wars again) and the duality of hero/villain when it comes to one man’s freedom fighter being another man’s terrorist. Does Reed and company delve into the psychology of that dynamic? No. It’s merely one superficial part of a fantasy film for kids with jokes about how many holes humans have in comparison to aliens. It’s a two-hour-long computer-generated video game that stays afloat because of two things: Rudd’s comic timing and Majors’ acting clinic.

It’s just too bad that an end stinger featuring Loki (Tom Hiddleston) and Mobius (Owen Wilson) gazing upon a benign version of Kang with the latter quizzically wondering how he could be a monster has bled into real life with the soft-spoken and introspective Majors being revealed as a violent abuser himself. Will he be recast like Terrence Howard? Who knows?

His team has already started damage control with stories of new love as potential payouts to old loves quiet the storm, so Disney might just hope it all blows over before a decision is necessary—much like DC has with Ezra Miller as Flash. It’s a sad state of affairs and one that admittedly is in its “allegations” faze, but you can’t pick and choose which victims you listen to because you like the alleged abuser’s art. So, Majors inclusion will taint the experience even as his craft lifts it up.

Because without him, it’s all a low stakes affair that occurs in a realm that Feige could choose to never visit again. Katy M. O’Brian and William Jackson Harper do well in small roles as Quantum natives, but who they are and their place in the grander scheme of the MCU is nonexistent beyond this chapter … at least for now.

Maybe that will change. Maybe this whole exercise was for Scott and company to learn about Kang and pass along the information to the rest of the Avengers once other Kangs begin to descend upon Earth. This latest phase is still in its infancy, after all. It’s still opening doors to new pathways and tying off loose threads to close others. Our enjoyment is therefore solely reliant upon the characters in front of us and the ones surrounding Ant-Man are at least fun to follow regardless of how hollow the plot they’re in might prove.

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L-R): Paul Rudd as Scott Lang/Ant-Man, Kathryn Newton as Cassandra “Cassie” Lang, Evangeline Lilly as Hope Van Dyne/Wasp in Marvel Studios’ ANT-MAN AND THE WASP: QUANTUMANIA. Photo courtesy of Marvel Studios. © 2022 MARVEL.