Ant-Man and the Wasp: Quantumania Is the MCU's Most Enjoyable Family Adventure Yet
For a movie about superheroes that shrink, Ant-Man and the Wasp: Quantumania goes pretty big. The first superhero film of 2023 kicks off Phase 5 of the MCU but feels less connected to Marvel’s big story than other Marvel movies, and that’s a really good thing. Ant-Man (Paul Rudd) may be an Avenger, but he doesn’t do brunch with the Hulk or golf with Iron-Man (ok, he’s dead, but you get the idea). He really just spends time with his girlfriend and fellow shrinking superhero the Wasp aka Hope (Evangeline Lilly); his daughter Cassie (Kathyrn Newton); and Hope’s parents, Hank (Michael Douglas) and Janet (Michelle Pfeiffer). They’re a family, and Quantumania is a family adventure. Perhaps more than any other Marvel film, Ant-Man and the Wasp: Quantumania is best enjoyed with family.
READ: This Is the Only Marvel Show You Need to Watch Before Seeing Ant-Man and the Wasp: Quantumania
For the seven people who watched last year’s Strange World, the journey to the land beyond space and time might be a bit of deja vu as the Quantum Realm is a strange, alien world that exudes the same vibe as the underrated animated feature. The MCU has taken us to the edges of the universe and even other universes, but it’s the bizarre and colorful landscape and denizens of the Quantum Realm that seem to be the most interesting yet. In fact, the varied and scintillating world looks so fantastic that it’s a good enough reason to see it on IMAX. The Quantum Realm is even more alien than Avatar’s Pandora and it’s just as fascinating to watch on a giant screen.
That’s why the best parts of Quantumania are when it strays as far away from the MCU as possible and shifts the focus on the Star Warsian populace of the Quantum Realm. The less the film reminds you about superheroes and the Blip and Thanos, the more enjoyable it becomes. It’s only necessary to dip a little into that continuity because Scott Lang missed five years of Cassie’s life. But if you pretend he was just trapped in the Quantum Realm the same way Janet Van Dyne was stuck in it for thirty years, you can ignore the entire MCU and enjoy Quantumania for what it is—a full-on, unabashed sci-fi adventure.
The story is bookended by the “real world” where Scott enjoys a bit of fame having been part of the Avengers. He’s written a best-selling memoir, receives free bagels thanks to a bit of mistaken identity, and generally enjoys being semi-retired posing with people’s dogs and children wearing his costume. He’s saved the universe and he’s not interested in being any more superheroic than that. Hope, meanwhile, is a world-changing workaholic genius who continues to do her part but both of them only don their superhero suits to go on dates atop the Golden Gate bridge.
Cassie is a young firebrand who wants to help people and expresses her frustration at her dad for basically resting on his laurels. She chastises him for simply going on book tours and signing autographs which, to be honest, is something completely expected from Gen Z. Look, if your dad got stranded in the Quantum Realm and managed to get out and save the world, he can very well just eat bagels and sign autographs for life. That’s kind of just basic.
Thankfully, Scott’s got enough for at least one more adventure, so off the entire Ant-family (and their science project ant farm) goes into the Quantum Realm, sucked in by a brand-spanking-new villain named Kang the Conqueror (Jonathan Majors), a multiversal being who exists outside of time. We’ve already met a version of him at the end of the Loki series on Disney+, but the one in Quantumania is supposedly so awful that all the other versions of himself exiled him. Imagine being so terrible that even other versions of you don’t want to hang out with you. That’s Kang.
Except that Kang actually seems kind of a nice guy, which makes the whole infinitude of Kangs kind of jerks or at least have some pretty bad judgment. Ok, fine, this Kang killed billions of people and ended numerous timelines and universes, but he really never really exudes the tyrannical aura of a real heavyweight supervillain. Kang is arguably so powerful and can manipulate time and space beyond even Thanos’ imagination but he never quite received the incremental dread afforded the purple-skinned Titan over several Marvel films. At best, we get the Loki television series where we’re all too busy crushing on Tom Hiddleston and/or maybe Sylvie (but really mostly Loki) to notice anything else going on.
Besides, Jonathan Majors just emanates so much nice guy energy that even his worst version seems so inoffensive that you can’t even imagine him having BO. That kind of puts a damper on Kang being the MCU’s next big bad because even after he threatens to kill Cassie in front of her dad, you kind of want to ask if he’s still staying for dinner afterward.
A nice bad guy is terrible for a high-stakes film, but if you treat Quantumania as a one-off adventure, it really isn’t a big deal. Again, the best way to enjoy the film is to completely forget the MCU and just strap yourself in for one hell of a ride. Besides, since we’re talking about villains that don’t quite work, let’s talk about the giant floating head with arms, M.O.D.O.K. This utterly absurd-looking villain is one of Stan Lee and Jack Kirby’s best creations and it’s a shame he doesn’t get his own film to be absurd in. Thankfully, there’s a stop-motion animated series on Disney+ with Patton Oswalt where M.O.D.O.K. shines in his full absurd glory. Watch it and thank me later.
The MCU version of M.O.D.O.K. is played by returning Ant-Man baddie Corey Stoll, who played Darren Cross or Yellowjacket in 2015’s Ant-Man. Quantumania answers what happened to him at the end of the first film, where he was shrunk into apparent nothingness. Clearly, nothingness was actually the Quantum Realm, where Kang found him and put him in a suit of armor, turning him into a Mental Organism Designed Only for Killing, or M.O.D.O.K. (or as Scott accurately points out, M.O.D.O.F.K.).
Stoll is a gem, despite the wonky CGI that makes his head look like a bad face swap filter, and M.O.D.O.K. is every bit as funny as an angry floating head with tiny arms and legs should be. And if you thought Disney was brave for showing a god’s butt in Thor: Love and Thunder, watch Reed outdo Waititi with a glimpse of a glistening wet, tiny butt on a giant head. M.O.D.O.K. is a mere secondary villain here but he gets a decent, satisfying, and deservedly funny character arc.
But all the superhero parts are just sides on the Quantum Realm steak. If there’s any takeaway from Quantumania, it’s that Disney should come out with a television series set in the Quantum Realm featuring the scene-stealing and adorable talking slime Veb (David Dastmalchian) and his friends, the Amazon-like Jentorra (Katy O’Brian) and the telepath Quaz (William Jackson Harper). The Quantum Realm is like Star Wars on steroids, with far more interesting aliens and a more fantastical world with living buildings that look like they were drawn by Moebius and bioluminescent jelly flora that look good enough to eat (and could eat you). Mental note: start a petition for a Disney+ sci-fi sitcom set in the Quantum Realm.
That’s why Quantumania is on another level. It ditches the MCU and tells a pretty self-contained story that focuses on the Ant-family and how parents try to make up for lost time. Scott’s only missed five years of Cassie’s life, but Janet was away from the near entirety of Hope’s, and that’s when you realize that the titular Wasp actually refers more to the elder Van Dyne. Pfeiffer is magnificent as the Quantum Realm-hardened Janet, and it’s a real treat to see her navigate the sci-fi setting where she was trapped for thirty years.
Quantumania focuses on family relationships and it’s hard to miss the point about not squandering time when the villain is actually such a master of it that he obliterates entire timelines on a whim. Kang is a being who considers the concept of time as a prison, making him the ultimate entitled MultiMillennial (or whatever you call someone who exists outside of time, an Infinitennial? Gen Eternity?). As far as our science can tell, we’ve only got one lifetime and can only move forward in time, so any events in our or our children’s lives have greater significance.
Scott’s relationship with Cassie, and with less focus but no less importance Janet’s with Hope’s, is the heart of Quantumania. Ok, so yes, it devolves into the massive action set piece at the end where the revolutionary forces fighting for freedom and the tyrannical time lord’s forces clash; and yes, it becomes super dumb and basic when Kang decides to go all Manny Pacquiao on Scott instead of obliterating him like a proper all-powerful being, but these all seem to be a Disney studio mandate, so let’s give it a pass. Despite the expected Marvel movie stumbles, Quantumania is still the most fun and family-centric MCU movie yet and is far more enjoyable than all the Marvel films of 2022.
Catch it now on the biggest screen possible (so you feel small, like an ant) with the entire family before you’re out of time.
