Big Budget, Family-Friendly But Lacking: ‘Ant-Man and the Wasp: Quantumania’ Review

The Little Guy Welcome back to the wonderful world of Scott Lang, where things just always work out in the end. When we left off with Scott in Endgame in 2019. Wait, we haven’t seen this dude for a whole presidency?!? Well, nothing has really changed. He’s still coasting off being the MVP of ‘the blip’ and finally getting the recognition he’s always wanted. He wrote a book. Now, Quantumania is clearly supposed to change his status as a hero, but how do we do that after Thanos? Where can he possibly go from here? What’s the next level up? Oh yeah, he’s Ant-Man so the next level is down. We’re going back to the Quantum Realm. Back up in the land down under? (Paul Rudd L. as Scott Lang/Ant Man and Kathryn Newton as Cassie Lang R.) Image courtesy of Walt Disney Studios 2023 Scott Lang, Edgelord? Quantumania tries really hard to make us care about Scott Lang and the stakes of his hero’s journey, and it falls kind of flat. There’s a huge focus on Scott’s home life and his relationship with his daughter in particular. Cassie is running around these streets doing vigilante things having never been to one superhero class. The whole movie really revolves around two plots. Cassie and her development into who we know to be the hero, Stinger. Also, the mystery of what led Janet Van Dyne to want to escape the Quantum Realm and never return. Both points are never really resolved, have Galactus-sized plotholes in them, and make this movie look a lot like a setup for later Phase 5 projects. Q…