Movie: Ant-Man & The Wasp: Quantumania (02-17-2023)

[Jorge]

I still can't believe how bad this was. That scene with Bill Murray is legitimately one of the worst things I have ever seen

[lennytheweedwhacker]

I doubt I watch this. Also, I’m 10 movies behind with Marvel.

[Jorge]

You can safely stay there and you'll be missing nothing. Watch Avatar 2! It's much better than this bullshit and Disney still wins

[lennytheweedwhacker]

You can safely stay there and you'll be missing nothing. Watch Avatar 2! It's much better than this bullshit and Disney still wins

I’m giving up.

[Got Some]

It's hard to compare

On one hand, Ant Man 3 is thankfully much shorter.
On the other, it's a movie that feels like it doesn't matter at all, a completely disposable adventure. Black Panther 2, for all its flaws, at least has some emotion to it.
And Black Panther 2 doesn't all take place in just one single green screen soundstage.
I don't know. They are both bad. I think Ant Man 3 is worse because it's blander.

Fair call. I found Ant-Man a fun ride for the most part.

Wakanda Forever is a more powerful movie no doubt its just very long.


I did like the last end credit scene of ant-Man linking it all to Loki season 2.

[VinylGuy]

i cant really get why people think wakanda forever is powerful....really if you want a very powerful and touching family movie, then go and see Avatar 2. Its also groundbreaking and has great action scenes.

[B]

Wakanda Forever was a long, LONG movie punctuated by some cool and powerful moments. Clear out the Ironheart and Thunderbolts stuff and that movie would have hit hard.

[wease]

Going this afternoon to see this.

[The Argonaut]

BP2 was a complete failure. An extended meditation on grief does not fit within the confines of an MCU film.

Ant-Man 3 is at least a Marvel movie. But that's it's main problem. It fits so perfectly into the cookie cutter shape of a Marvel movie that It all feels like we've done this thirty times before (because we have).

How do you make a good kid-friendly superhero movie that grown-up losers like me could still enjoy? I don't know. You'd have to start breaking the rules in a meaningful way, but kids don't like it when you break the rules

[Mecca]

I liked it well enough but it’s not something worth rushing to the theater to see. Jonathan Majors was menacing and oddly charismatic in a way.

It was very distracting that every set piece looked very round because of the Volume.

[Mecca]

BP2 was a complete failure. An extended meditation on grief does not fit within the confines of an MCU film.

Ant-Man 3 is at least a Marvel movie. But that's it's main problem. It fits so perfectly into the cookie cutter shape of a Marvel movie that It all feels like we've done this thirty times before (because we have).

How do you make a good kid-friendly superhero movie that grown-up losers like me could still enjoy? I don't know. You'd have to start breaking the rules in a meaningful way, but kids don't like it when you break the rules

The first act of Endgame was a meditation on grief, though.

[wease]

I liked it. With Loki as a prelude, started off Phase 5 and The Kang Dynasty quite well.

[spike]

I found myself pleasantly surprised I was enjoying it as much as I was for the first 75-80% of the movie and then it devolved into the standard MCU mass destruction and guys punching each other finale. Then they kill the most interesting character and replace him with a bunch of knockoffs in cheap Kang cosplay outfits during that awful mid-credits scene.

The kid in me who grew up reading comics is thrilled that something like this is onscreen (there’s some outstanding, crazy shit in this #Darren) but, after the last decade of these movies and some tremendous high points, the quality bar should be well above what we got here.

Ultimately, these movies have just become interstitials designed to keep a larger plot moving forward instead of standing on their own. I did enjoy most of it but I have absolutely zero desire to ever watch it again.

And where are we headed with all this? An army of cheap Kangs just causing destruction on a galactic scale? Why should we care about this? Do something NEW!

It’s time to blow it all up and reboot with the X-Men and Fantastic Four.

Just use spoiler tags man.

[Hypnos]

I still can't believe how bad this was. That scene with Bill Murray is legitimately one of the worst things I have ever seen

Jesus, Jorge, could you be more exaggerated? The movie was fine, really fun, with tons of good scenes and imaginative characters. You really should stop watching Marvel, is obviously not for you.

[Jorge]

Obviously I disagree that this movie was "fine," "fun" or "imaginative." I'm not exaggerating when I say this is the worst movie I have watched in a long time. Probably since Thor 4, which this movie is a little better than.

I watch any movie I have the chance or inclination to watch. I've liked some recent Marvel projects much more than this.

BP2 was a complete failure. An extended meditation on grief does not fit within the confines of an MCU film.

Ant-Man 3 is at least a Marvel movie. But that's it's main problem. It fits so perfectly into the cookie cutter shape of a Marvel movie that It all feels like we've done this thirty times before (because we have).

Really can't think of anything I care less about than whether a movie "fits within the confines of an MCU film" or "succeeds at being a Marvel movie." For all its problems, Black Panther 2 actually feels like a work made by people who care about it, and it attempts to explore some themes. Quantumania feels like the most cynical, tossed-off bullshit, with a minimal amount of thought given to the script.

Those quantum realm scenes with Michelle Pfeiffer, Michael Douglas and Evangeline Lily running around are so bad. Feels like a cartoon from the 90s.

[Jorge]

Ultimately, these movies have just become interstitials designed to keep a larger plot moving forward

I'm not even sure this is true. How did this "move the larger plot forward?" By the end of the adventure the status quo is essentially restored, aside from the vaguely defined threat of more Kang (which we already had anyway after Loki)

[The Argonaut]

BP2 was a complete failure. An extended meditation on grief does not fit within the confines of an MCU film.

Ant-Man 3 is at least a Marvel movie. But that's it's main problem. It fits so perfectly into the cookie cutter shape of a Marvel movie that It all feels like we've done this thirty times before (because we have).

Really can't think of anything I care less about than whether a movie "fits within the confines of an MCU film" or "succeeds at being a Marvel movie." For all its problems, Black Panther 2 actually feels like a work made by people who care about it, and it attempts to explore some themes. Quantumania feels like the most cynical, tossed-off bullshit, with a minimal amount of thought given to the script.

Those quantum realm scenes with Michelle Pfeiffer, Michael Douglas and Evangeline Lily running around are so bad. Feels like a cartoon from the 90s.

That was kind of my point, I think. At this point, there is a very clear mould for an MCU movie. It's easy to just pour the raw ingredients into that mould and come out with a cookie, no creativity or care necessary (Ant Man 3).

But it's also hard, or perhaps at this point impossible, not to use that mould. To do something bigger or stranger or deeper than that standard cookie. The mould is so set and so defined. It's bigger than the filmmakers themselves. Coogler and Waititi and whoever can try to do something interesting within the mould, but they can't break the mould. It's too set. So they're bound to fail

[Jorge]

Thinking about this more, it feels like big parts were hacked out of it, or it was simply plotted out very sloppily. There are scene transitions that don't make sense (a scene where Kang carries Cassie into a portal, immediately cutting to a scene where Kang is sitting at his throne and Cassie is being brought to him by his guards) or are transparently expository and breaking the limits of verisimilitude (three scientist characters keeping a time-intensive project like building a satellite to the quantum realm a secret from a fourth character who is also a scientist [because everybody is a scientist in this movie] so that she can never bring up the plot-breaking objection which is a secret even though it makes no sense to keep it a secret and it would make sense to consult her THE MOST out of anyone else)

guys this fucking sucks

[Jorge]

But it's also hard, or perhaps at this point impossible, not to use that mould. To do something bigger or stranger or deeper than that standard cookie. The mould is so set and so defined. It's bigger than the filmmakers themselves. Coogler and Waititi and whoever can try to do something interesting within the mould, but they can't break the mould. It's too set. So they're bound to fail

This might come back to bite me in the ass in a few months but I have faith in James Gunn. His work within the Marvel universe has consistently been the most interesting, imaginative, and loaded with genuine pathos of the entire MCU, while still operating within the bounds of what could be considered the "Marvel style." I think for all their wackiness, the Guardians films are complex, emotional movies that put their themes first and are filled with striking imagery. I feel the same about the movie he made for DC

[The Argonaut]

Them not telling Michelle Pfeiffer about it bugged me, too.

My theory of how that happened is that Michael Douglass originally wasn't supposed to be in on it. It was just Hope and Cassie, and Hope knew her mom didn't like talking about Quantum Realm so she never mentioned it to her.

In fact, I don't think Michael Douglass was originally going to be in this movie at all. I suspect he turned down the role so they didn't write him into the script. But then he just showrd up on set so they put him in.

You mentioned that it seems like he was just being fed lines from off screen. Totally true. But they were also all terrible lines and unfunny jokes. "I like ants" over and over again. I think they were written on the spot.

Even his wardrobe is odd. The first half of the movie he's wearing a boxy, too-large flannel. I think he just showed up on set, they didn't have any wardrobe prepared for him, so they just left him in his street clothes for a while.