If you’re hungry for that third Avatar movie, Ant-Man and the Wasp: Quantumania might satiate you, at least for the moment. Largely set in the “Quantum Realm”—a sub-atomic world discovered by scientist Hank Pym (Michael Douglas)—the movie features enough oogly landscapes and googly creatures to power two Star Wars pictures and half a Dune (David Lynch’s, of course). From the first slug horse, I was in. And I mostly stayed there, despite my ambivalence about the two previous Ant-Man pictures directed by Peyton Reed (Ant-Man, Ant-Man and the Wasp). The clarity and imagination of the world-building carried me through, as well as the fountain of charm that is Paul Rudd, returning here as Ant-Man/Scott Lang. Enjoying life as a superhero celebrity at the film’s start, Scott is challenged by his daughter Cassie (Kathryn Newton) to not rest on his laurels but risk his privilege for the good of others. This becomes a very real scenario when he, Cassie, and Hank—along with Hank’s daughter Hope/Wasp (Evangeline Lilly) and wife Janet (Michelle Pfeiffer)—all get sucked into the Quantum Realm, where they meet a civilization struggling under the boot of a brutal oppressor. (Spoiler ahead?) There is a lot of build-up to the reveal of this character, partly, I suspect, because he’s being positioned as the super-villain of the next batch of MCU movies. At first Jonathan Majors (The Last Black Man in San Francisco) delivers in the part. As Kang the Conqueror, he carries a sense of weariness and hurt, as if the world-dominating drive within him is something of a curse. But then the long, thoughtful pauses begin to feel mannered, while the bursts of violent rage verge on the comical. (I was also never sure as to the limits of Kang’s powers; apparently he’s something like a nuclear Darth Vader.) We’ll see where Majors eventually takes the character, as Ant-Man and the Wasp: Quantumania makes one thing abundantly clear: there is plenty more Kang to come.
(2/14/2023)