The title may say ‘Ant-Man And The Wasp’ but both Scott/Ant-Man (Rudd) and Hope/Wasp (Lilly) take a back seat for this Marvel adventure that should really have been titled ‘Kang: The Origin Story’.
For after a little preamble where we see that Scott has a pretty decent life on Earth (free coffee!) as a superhero and former Avenger with a lot of time on his hands, the action moves to the Quantum Realm after his daughter Cassie (Newton) accidentally zaps them both, along with Hope and her parents Hank (Douglas) and Janet (Pfeiffer) to the CGI-heavy universe and they discover that a man named Kang the Conqueror (Majors, who first appeared as Kang variant ‘He Who Remains’ in the series Loki) is ruling over the creatures who survive there.
Fans expecting a third Ant-Man movie with Ant-Man as the focus may be disappointed as – aside from one great scene featuring multiple mini-Scotts – there’s not much for Rudd to do here, except try to hold his own against all the special effects (some of which are surprisingly ropey, especially the face of baddie M.O.D.O.K, which is all kinds of wrong).
The action splits as Scott and Cassie go one way while Hank and Janet – Pfeiffer and Douglas making a great double act while Pfeiffer steals every scene she is in – go in search of answers to what has happened since Janet herself escaped the Quantum Realm, a move that leads them to the Marvel equivalent/rip-off of Star Wars’ cantina along the way. While that adds lots more characters (and a fun cameo), it also makes the film feel unfocused and busy, and throughout the adventure only the scenes featuring Kang are memorable.
If you’re more a fan of the Marvel universe as a whole, there’s some fun to be had as we learn about Kang’s back story and more about Janet’s time trapped in the realm, but it says something that the mid-credit and end-credit scenes are more fun and intriguing than anything that happened in the actual movie.
Is Ant-Man And The Wasp: Quantumania suitable for kids? Here are our parents’ notes...
This is aimed at older kids – some of the creatures and Kang himself may scare the under-9s.
The family are often in danger, but the action is quite light-hearted and shouldn’t frighten younger viewers too much.
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