Starring Paul Rudd, Evangeline Lilly, Jonathan Majors Kathryn Newton, David Dastmalchian, Katy O'Brian, William Jackson Harper, Mill Murray Michelle Pfeiffer, Corey Stoll and Michael Douglas. Written by Jeff Loveness and directed by Peyton Reed. Running time 124 minutes.
You know how it is, you wait 15 years for a super hero movie based on the Marvel Universe then 31 come at you! Yes, that's right 31 super hero movies, like a conveyer belt churning them out, one after another, up to three a year in furious quick succession, the idea being that if you didn't like the current one then don't worry there'll be another along in a month or too. And so be it with this one which for the sake of speed I'm just going to call AMATWQ.
Yes! The third instalment of the Ant Man movies, the ones that star Paul Rudd, and Michael Douglas and Michelle Pfeiffer. Oh and Evangeline Lilly!
The first Ant-Man film released in 2015, was the last film of the second phase and was great fun, being quite down to Earth and having the incredibly charismatic Rudd as its eponymous hero. The second released three whole years was, as is often the case, nowhere near as good, being overblown, over-bloated and rather unnecessary, much of which can be said of this the third standalone movie for our titular hero, which marks the beginning of the MCU's fifth phase.
The plot which races out of the starting gate and has all our heroes, and there a lot of them, trapped in the Quantum Realm quicker than you can say Syd Field arrives at the 10 minute mark, as prescribed and then adheres to the formula like glue. There's the mid point mark, the end of the second act which sees our hero seemingly lose and the obligatory third act triumph. It's all there to see!
This has so much plot wedged into it that none of the characters have time to actually explain the situation, and indeed it's one of those films where the main protagonists know far more than the rest of us and if they'd only taken a few moments to explain themselves and what they know every thing could be resolved in a matter of minutes. On top of that, you need to have watched the TV series LOKI to understand the post credit sequences and also to understand who Kang is and what his objectives are, something not necessary with the development of Thanos.
Anyway our band of heroes, there are five of them, and an ant farm of intelligent ants, which I'm sure will play a part later on in the proceedings, are all transported to the Quantum Realm where they get split up and instantly form and are forced to do battle with the limitless and nameless army of Kang an evil baddie with evil on his mind. He obviously shares a history with one of our band of heroes but neither bothers to tell anyone else about the other or indeed what they hell they've been up to in the realm for the past 30 years...
After that, our heroes battle to reunite, get captured, escape, form allegiances with the repressed peoples of the Quantumverse and do all the things heroes in these films when transported to an alien world, or quantum realm (if you will) to fill the two hour plus running time.
Add to that a lot of pixels, action beats, all with rapid editing, and the need for the patented Marvel Movie Humour matrix, for some 'hilarious' funny quips and gags, a surprising cameo or two and bob's your uncle, or Ant-Man if you will.
Because the entire cast has the ability to change their mass and height at will, there really is nothing special about Ant-Man and he ends up being quite a secondary character to the others. Similarly being in a realm where size is everything, our Ant-Man needs to start calling himself Giant Man, since he spends most of the time in that form. There's also this deeply annoying need for each sequence of action featuring Ant Man in full garb to instantly deactivate his nanobot helmet to reveal Paul Rudd's face, the second the action has stopped. I want my superheroes to remain in full costume, not be constantly popping it on and off again.
This being the film to really introduce the new MCU villain to the cinematic world, much time is given over to Jonathan Majors' character Kang and he really is the films MVP. Majors is pure acting power and he gives Kang some real menace. Although despite that, we know nothing about him except for the fact he wants to escape from the Quantum Realm with his army of Storm Troopers.
This film has no real highs or lows, it sort of meanders along at its own pace leading to action–packed showdown, followed by two post credit stings where the whole film reveals itself to have been nothing more than one massive prologue for the rest of the phase.
It feels more like a Star Wars film than a Marvel Universe movie, especially tonally and in it's alien and spaceship designs. Thankfully it's not the terrible unfunny mess that Thor: Love and Thunder was, nor is it as poe-faced as Black Panther: Wankars Forever, or as crushingly dull and tedious as The Eternals. Infact it's better thanall but two of the Phase Four's rather dull output..
The cast is fine, Rudd gives good, hmm 'Rudd', and the rest do everything required of them, they're professionals how could they not? But god I'm getting bored of this all and I never thought I'd say that, although that said, of course I'm going to go and see Guardians of the Galaxy Vol3, it's an addiction, but I'm aware and they say that's the first step on the road to recovery.
And I'll still take this over the DCU's efforts, I know everyone's losing their collective sanity over the next Flash movie trailer, but I'll still take Marvel any day.
There's nothing here new or worth writing home about, apart from MODOK, but I don't want to spoil that here. Added to that the sheer volume of knowledge needed to understand these films, which on one hand demands you have a knowledge of the canon, while on the other expects you to ignore each and very other Marvel movie, for example STILL no mention of the half dead Eternal sticking out of the Earth, nor ever any other superhero in this overbloated universe.
After 31 films, the MCU is has become samey, boring, almost bland and most certainly generic. They follow a pattern religiously, both in terms of tone and structure, there's nothing unique, they've lost the ability to be smaller in scope or scale having to have the threat in each film been universe sized leaving no room for smaller or relatable threats.
And at least it's less than three hours in length.
6/10
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