Ant-Man and the Wasp: Quantumania premieres this week, but critics have already viewed the film and the reviews are not pretty. As of writing this, Ant-Man and the Wasp: Quantumania is 53% Rotten, based on 129 reviews. Of course, the movie will still be #1 at the box office and audiences will enjoy it much more than the critics.
In this Marvel sequel, Ant-Man (Paul Rudd) and the Wasp (Evangeline Lilly) find themselves exploring the Quantum Realm, interacting with strange new creatures and embarking on an adventure that pushes them beyond the limits of what they thought was possible. Also starring Kathryn Newton, Jonathan Majors, Tony McCarthy, Bill Murray, Michelle Pfeiffer, Samuel L. Jackson, Michael Peña, Michael Douglas, and Randall Park.
Here’s what critics are saying:
Mick LaSalle from San Francisco Chronicle said, “Here and there, screenwriter Jeff Loveness, remembering that he’s writing an Ant-Man movie, will throw in some half-hearted joke, but it doesn’t belong and only seems jarring. Ant-Man isn’t an example of bad comedy. It’s bad drama, bad science fiction, and a waste of everyone in it, including Evangeline Lily and Michael Douglas (yes, he’s back, too). The case of Lilly is particularly hilarious, in that her character’s name is in the title, but she does nothing in the movie but stand next to Rudd, while he’s also doing nothing. “
David Fear from Rolling Stone agrees, “And you can admire, I guess, the fact that director Peyton Reed switches things up by ditching the ring-a-ding vibe of the first two Ant-Man movies for a more somber, almost funereal tone. Those films distinguished themselves not just with Rudd’s deadpan self-deprecation and some peripheral goofiness (pour one out for Michael Peña’s motor-mouthed patter, much missed here), but also via a deft blend of heroics and heist-flick pleasures, down to a Lalo Schifrin-esque score. Quantumania is somehow heavy without feeling substantial, almost desperate in its dourness. Even scattered with occasional wisecracks, it makes Eternals feel positively breezy by comparison.”
Lindsey Bahr from Associated Press also wasn’t a fan and said, “Majors is certainly chilling and captivating, but Kang seems like a mismatched foe for a standalone Ant-Man film and the result is a Quantumania that is trying to be too many things. One thing it is not is a Wasp movie, though. Lilly gets a lot to do but not a lot of — or any — character development.”
Justin Chang from Los Angeles Times seems to have really disliked the experience and said, “What a chore this so-called entertainment is! How strenuous are even its ostensibly funnier conceits, including a secondary villain who’s dredged up from the Marvel archives and placed in service of an especially tiresome running gag.”
Matt Zoller Seitz from RogerEbert.com said, “It’s like something a kid threw together for a science fair, hoping that sheer charm would compensate for not having any actual science content. Too bad that, for all its amusing jokes, the world onscreen mostly looks like a Marvel screen-saver.”
Michael Phillips from Chicago Tribune seems equally disappointed, “Midway through, as everyone on screen was restating their interest in getting home again, I thought: Same!”
Johnny Oleksinski from New York Post didn’t mince words, “Sorry to Raid on your parade, Ant-Man fans, but the third chapter is a pile of dirt.”
REELated:
Don’t despair, there are still some true believers out there who didn’t actually hate the film. A few critics gave Ant-Man and the Wasp: Quantumania positive reviews!
Randy Meeks from Empire Magazine said, “Quantunmania is colorful, original, and different, and corrects the mistakes that Marvel has made during these three years of experimentation.”
Alonso Duralde from TheWrap enjoyed it and said, “It’s a frequent complaint about the Marvel movies that they spend more time setting up the next five chapters than they do resolving the one they’re in, but Quantumania offers threats both immediate and long-range, making it satisfactory as both an individual movie and as a preview for what’s to come. It also makes generous use of its ensemble; Rudd and Majors — the latter injecting some always-welcome intensity into the MCU — are the key players here, and the yin-and-yang of their sensibilities provides the motor for the plot, while Pfeiffer and Douglas get plenty to do and aren’t treated as nostalgic tag-alongs.”
Matthew Huff from AV Club said, “Quantumania’s tone is sure to be polarizing, but if you can surrender yourself to its bonkers A Bug’s Life-meets-Return of the Jedi antics, the two hours (already short for a Marvel film) will fly by. Now we just need Pym to invent some lightsabers for their next trip to a galaxy far far away the multiverse.”
Owen Gleiberman from Variety said, “with Ant-Man and the Wasp: Quantumania, the Ant-Man series has gone Full Marvel. The new movie takes place almost entirely in the Quantum Realm, a mutating sub-atomic sphere that exists outside our space-time continuum. It’s essentially an anything-goes FX playground that resembles a psychedelic album cover crossed with a 21st-century update of Fantastic Voyage (lots of things that look like corpuscles). What it feels like, most directly, is a planet from one of the later Star Wars films, with a few old-school Cantina vibes. (You could make a case that the George Lucas prequels represented the takeover of Star Wars by the Cantina.)”
Frank Scheck from Hollywood Reporter also seemed to enjoy it and said, “While it’s not surprising that [Majors’] imposing physicality perfectly suits his iconic villainous character, he also invests his performance with such an arrestingly quiet stillness and ambivalence that you’re on edge every moment he’s onscreen.”
Brian Truitt from USA Today agrees, “Majors thankfully rights the ship every time he pops up with his deliciously disconcerting presence. Kang’s deal is slightly more confusing than the last MCU big bad, a large purple alien collecting pieces of jewelry. One day, though, we’ll probably be talking about the multifaceted Kang in the same breath as Heath Ledger’s Joker: Majors brings an innate and understandable humanity to a king in his own mind who’s all about manipulation and winning but not without weakness.”
Matt Singer from ScreenCrush said, “reaction to Quantumania will probably be determined by what you want out of the movie. If you want to see a lot of strange CGI visuals and the you’re interested in the groundwork of the next phase of the Marvel Cinematic Universe, you’ll likely walk out satisfied”
