Film Buffa: Overstuffed 'Quantamania' suffers from Marvel sequelitis

Lots of 'Star Wars' dry-humping, but little that is actually memorable.

Sequels start out at a deficit. They’re trying to capture lightning in a bottle for a second time, which brings on heightened expectations and lots of messes to trip over. Marvel doesn’t seem to care much about this particular obstacle, because they’re busy making sequels galore. 

A few months after “Wakanda Forever” underwhelmed and “Doctor Strange 2” made everything and everyone weird, it’s Scott Lang’s (Paul Rudd) turn to get mixed up in a standoff with a new villain who has the same goals as the last supervillain. The happy-go-unlucky former thief has been reunited with his daughter and enjoys a healthy relationship with his miniature crime fighting partner, Hope aka the Wasp (Evangeline Lilly). Rudd narrations still come off warm, and I honestly could have enjoyed a quiet third entry. No fighting. No fuss. 

But complacency is not Kevin Feige’s game. After being introduced in the Disney Plus series, Loki, Jonathan Majors’ Kang The Conqueror has come to play and disturb. He needs Scott’s help with escaping a world of split personalities and entities; basically what makes him stronger is his versatility. So instead of squashing Rudd’s tiny superhero and turning this two hour movie into a short film, Kang “needs” his help. 

That’s the beginning and end of my spoilers, but if you’re not a fan of ANY critique of certain plot points, turn away now or forever hold your social media peace. 

Here’s the thing. Ant-Man and the Wasp: Quantamania is an overstuffed, derivative sequel that spends more time introducing a mediocre villain than it does advancing the story of its central characters that fans have grown to love. It goes very hard on the “Star Wars” tributes and aesthetic dry humping, but never gives the audience much to care about or dig into. 

Lilly, Michelle Pfeiffer, and Michael Douglas are essentially window dressing for the eventual Scott and Kang face off, which holds all the suspense of the fight between Thor and Gorr at the end of last spring’s Love and Thunder. The conflicts here with Kang are similar to Thanos’ mad plan: destroy all superheroes and rebuild the universe in bad guy blood. 

Rudd is eternally likable, but he’s merely going through the motions. It’s the by-product of a script that doesn’t give him much to do. I’d die to see him take on a role like the unkempt soul he played in one of Netflix’s first original films, Mute.

Majors is a very intuitive actor, capable of making any sized role intriguing or at the very least entertaining, but even he seems lost here. There are moments where you think his big bad walked in from a different movie entirely, which takes away the film’s focus. It only took two scenes in Infinity War to be petrified of Josh Brolin’s world destroyer. By the time he whipped Hulk’s ass and broke Loki’s neck, we were all in. 

In this sequel, Kang doesn’t even show up for nearly an hour. By the time he does, a middling second act is searching for cinema carbs as it tries to compose a reason to exist. All of this is redundant and messy, lacking the polish of those 2018 and 2019 movies. 

If this is the start of a new phase in the MCU, I’m moderately underwhelmed and wish they would spend more time bringing new characters to light instead of dragging overused ones back to the spotlight. I loved the first two Ant-Man films because they operated outside of the big dilemma, almost aloof to the events. I liked that. They were like neat and witty lunch breaks. 

Part 3 plugs all of it back into Feige and company’s plan, an increasingly bland one. Maybe it’s Marvel fatigue or a simple case of sequelitis, but the magic in these films has ceased to exist. 

I want more of each follow up entry, and it all goes back to the outright challenge of a sequel. Can we do more, or enough, to thrill the audience again? With the MCU lately, I’m sad to report that the thrill isn’t gone, but it’s getting there. 

My last WTF gripe is about Michael Pena, David Dastmalchian, and T.I. The three sidekicks of Lang were sorely missed in “Quantamania,” and the script tried pushing more of that remedial mind-reader humor down our throats. Strike one, two, and three. I don’t care if it was about money or ego; failing to retain one of the integral parts of the first two films was a bad idea.

Verdict: See if you’re a Marvel fanatic or big Ant-Man fan, but this is one you can wait on.