I never thought I would be reviewing another MCU movie again this soon, but here we are. Here we are with Ant-Man 3: in the Quantum Realm of Madness and I have decided to re-emerge from my slumber to review this film because I felt inspired. It’s weird as this film shares similar problems with other MCU movies as it mostly reminds me of the flaws of that one movie that disappointed me so much it made me distance myself from this franchise and to this day I refuse to say of its name. Although there are certain aspects of this new Ant-Man movie that has given me hope and sparked a sort of renew interest in this never-ending franchise, which is why this review exists.
Firstly, I have a love hate type of relationship with the Ant-Man movies as they usually have some cool ideas but are held back by lame comedy and a very mundane cast of characters. I like how each of these movies have built up the mystery of the Quantum realm and this movie gives us the payoff. Too bad it’s kind of hard to appreciate this payoff, because these movies on put a large focus the bland misadventures of team Ant-Man. I don’t really get the appeal of Scott Lang as he is basically a middle age punching bag. He has nothing going for him character wise besides his relationship with his daughter, which isn’t very interesting. An unrelated note, Scott’s daughter was bratty as and she might be my least favourite character next to the grandma.
Anyway, onto the plot, which has Team Ant-Man going into the Quantum realm by complete accident of course, because there is just no other way these superheroes can get to weird places, I’m sorry. Our heroes are completely unprepared for this and get caught between a larger battle going on in tiny town they know nothing about. Except for the grandma/Michelle Pfeffer who knows exactly what’s going on but chooses to not tell them anything until they’re literally face to face with the bad guy. I hate that in movies, just tell them! Don’t give me you had a traumatic experience excuse, that should just give you more reason to spill the beans!
A thing that made me like this movie was when Hope (the girl Ant-Man) goes to this strange bar full of aliens/tiny, odd creatures with her parents. It had the Star Wars vibe going, which got me a little interested in what’s happening. This movie only works for the exploration of the Quantum Realm as it’s very much like Star Wars where all these weird aliens are suppressed by a tyrannical leader. I wish I could trade more knowledge of this world for the quippy jokes, but they can’t do that. This movie is very silly comedy, just like every other MCU film. Team Ant-Man is a gang of jokie machines. Including Michael Douglas, who I remember being the serious old man character in the other movies. Though they got Michelle Pfeiffer to fill that role, so I guess that slot is already taken. Probably didn’t need the whole crew for this movie as it has that same problem that other Marvel movie that I don’t want to get into as it’s too much. The film would be better with just Ant-Man, his daughter and maybe Michelle Pfeiffer as they’re most relevant to this story, so maybe then we have some good character development. This term that I am quite fond of does apply to our villain of the movie, Kang the Conqueror.
As was advertised in the trailers and I can confirm that its blue visor villain is the selling point. I didn’t want to talk about him right way as he doesn’t even show up until halfway through. Most of the film we just hear that The Conqueror is a very mean dude who has killed trillions of people across the multiverse, but we’re not shown any of this so woop-dee-do I’m shaking. What we do learn about Kang here I must admit is a little interesting. Kang is basically like Rick from Rick and Morty as he is this unstoppable powerful crazy murderer man, who everyone hates and fears, because he thinks killing everyone will save everyone. Jonathan Majors does a good job at selling this, but where Kang fails for me is I don’t fully get why he is the way he is, nor do I really understand his ultimate goal. I would like to know more, but the writers really want to hold back off on Kang’s backstory for future movies. It feels like a mistake as despite how good Kang is, he still is just a delusional mass murdering nut that is doing it just because, which is just like every other MCU baddie. Perhaps Kang should have been the main character of this movie, which could’ve given us the depth that made Thanos so revered.
I’m dedicating this paragraph to Modok, only because I can and I’ve being waiting for Marvel to put him on the big screen for years. Modok is an evil giant head that shoots laser beams and I used to watch him on the Super Herro Squad Show and ever since these movies became so massive, I always wanted to see how Modok would turn out in live action. The weird looking aliens really makes Modok the least goofy thing in this movie, besides for the Mr. Electric comparisons. This was quite disrespectful for the poor Modok representation. He’s not the main villain and feels like an afterthought as he’s just overall really lame. For Shame Marvel! The potential was there, and you wasted it!
This is pretty much the end. I just wanted to share this little reflection I needed to do to be at peace with this franchise. I think this movie is perfectly watchable and for Kang alone I guess there is something worth seeing. The only real surprise to this movie I didn’t even realise that this Ant-Man movie was the start of Phase 5. It makes you think like what was the point of phase 4? On retrospect I feel like I could’ve skipped 95% of phase 4 and I would still be able to follow the major story, just fine and I might be less annoyed with this franchise. I don’t know, only Phase 6 can make sense of this, and I hope this time they end this cinematic universe for good. What I really want from Marvel is for them to try something very different, because their current strategy I think even they are realising has gotten very stale. I want something that mocks superheroes like The Boys, or be something innovative like Into the Spider-verse, or something that feels fresh like Joker, or better yet don’t make any more superhero movies for the rest of my life. That’s it, Blog Complainer, signing out.
