Yeesh. What a mess.
This newest Marvel Cinematic Universe entry is a classic “kitchen sink” movie: Scripter Jeff Loveness has thrown everything on the wall, in the feverish, desperate hope that something will stick.
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| Kang (Jonathan Majors, right) makes it clear that if Scott (Paul Rudd) refuses to cooperate, something very bad will happen to his daughter ... which he then will be forced to re-live for eternity. |
(I still wince at the memory of the ill-advised tabletop toy train battle that climaxed 2015’s Ant Man. Ouch.)
Director Peyton Reed, determined to maintain the style of Ant Man’s two previous starring outings, has made this third adventure another silly children’s film.
Events begin with this family unit happily reunited, in the wake of Avengers End Game: Scott Lang (Rudd), his sweetie-pie Hope (Evangeline Lilly), their now-teenage daughter Cassie (Kathryn Newton), Hope’s mother Janet (Michelle Pfeiffer) and father Hank (Michael Douglas).
Cassie has matured into an 18-year-old social activist: a timely nod to current events in this San Francisco setting. She also possesses her grandfather’s passion for science and technology, and — unbeknownst to Scott, Hope and particularly Janet — has been working with Hank to establish a connection to the molecular level of the microscopic Quantum Realm.
When Janet does find out, she’s horrified … because, well, y’see, she never explained what happened during the 30 years she was stuck in the Quantum Realm, or why it’s so dangerous.
(Yes, this is one of those contrived calamities that wouldn’t exist if characters actually talked to each other.)
Ah, but too late! Just as Janet frantically demands that Hank and Cassie cease their efforts, all five — along with the contents of Hank’s lab — are sucked into the weird landscapes and even weirder creatures of the Quantum Realm.
Which, sad to say, looks an awful lot like last November’s Strange World. Given that both films emerged under the Disney banner, one suspects a serious case of Looking Over Each Other’s Shoulders.
Anyway…
Janet’s return isn’t exactly celebrated by this realm’s varied denizens. During her previous three-decade sojourn, she unwittingly rescued an injured traveler (Jonathan Majors) who was less than candid about the fact that he’d been banished to the Quantum Realm. He turned out to be Kang the Conqueror, a longtime Marvel Comics über-villain, with a twisted determination to “save” all multiverse time streams by destroying them.
Janet’s previous departure trapped Kang in the Quantum Realm: a good thing, for the rest of the multiverse — including Earth — but a bad thing for all the Quantum civilizations stuck with him.
Now, thanks to the tech developed by Hank and Cassie, Kang has the means to escape the Quantum Realm … which, needless to say, can’t be allowed to happen.
As an added bonus, Kang’s primary assassin turns out to be Scott’s former nemesis: Darren Cross, aka Yellowjacket (Corey Stoll), now transformed into the grotesquely lethal, bulbous-headed MODOK (Mechanized Organism Designed Only for Killing).
Difficult as it is to take that acronym seriously, Reed and Loveness worsen the situation by feeding Stoll the Worst. Dialogue. Ever.
The Quantum Realm’s freedom-fighting good guys are a blend of humanoids and CGI cuteness and weirdness; picture the Star Wars cantina sequence gone berserk. They include the squishy Veb, a friendly pink blob obsessed with holes (don’t ask); and Xolum, a formidable steampunk warrior with an energy-surging, cylindrical glass head.
The freedom fighters are led by Jentorra (Katy O’Brian), a hard-charging warrior who’d be right at home among Wakanda’s elite guards; and Quaz (William Jackson Harper), a telepath able to discern truth from lies. They’re in charge of all the other wonderfully weird creatures because, well, as human-being types, we — and Scott & Co. — can more easily relate to them. (Should we call this species-ism?)
Bill Murray, of all people, pops up as Lord Krylar, governor of Axia, a bizarre and cushy (read: wealthy) community within the Quantum Realm. Once upon a time, Krylar was one of Janet’s freedom-fighting allies, but — alas — being unbothered by Kang has come at the cost of becoming a turncoat.
Murray simply plays himself in this brief cameo: not much of an acting stretch.
Indeed, most of these performances are wafer-thin and one-dimensional. Newton deserves credit for making Cassie reasonably earnest and passionate; Douglas, in turn, knows how to deliver a quip with crusty impatience.
Majors gets top honors as the quietly malevolent Kang. His Shakespearean regality is quite imposing, and he radiates menace without ever raising his voice: a true bad guy.
That said, he’s clearly powerful enough to extinguish our five heroes and all the freedom fighters, in the blink of an eye … on top of which, he’s backed by MODOK and an endless army of black-garbed Quantumnaut foot soldiers.
The story therefore lurches forward, in the manner of all bad fantasies, only because each character, good and bad, is only as strong — or as weak — as is necessary, for a given scene. That includes Scott, whose size-shifting abilities take on, um, incalculable proportions at timely moments.
A seemingly endless supply of cookie-size growth/shrinkage gizmos also prove useful, as does Hank’s ability to bond with this realm’s version of ants (in fairness, quite cool).
An eye-rolling epilogue sets the stage for the next wave of the Marvel Cinematic Universe; I hope Scott will be allowed to play a more seriously heroic role.
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