After an Infinity Saga that has evolved in a constant crescendo since its debut with Jon Favreau’s ‘Iron Man’, Phase 4 of the Marvel Cinematic Universe was little short of an ordeal. With some honorable exceptions such as the solvent ‘Shang-Chi and the legend of the ten rings’ or ‘Thor: Love and Thunder’, his mix of series and feature films was limited to rack up watered down, formulaic, and wildly accommodated character introductions; especially when it comes to the big screen.
In contrast, the start of the Multiverse Saga was little less than an antithesis of the first steps of the MCU. In them, the emotion, the comic book spirit and the evolution in scale and impact led the way to a duo ‘Infinity War’ – ‘Endgame’ that meant a zenith that has not been matched again and after which everything has been done especially uphill.
Under this scenario, Phase 5 had a very difficult time getting disenchanted viewers as a server, to whom not even FOMO encouraged us to return to the marvelite episodic tangle, arouse a minimum of interest in Kevin Feige’s macro-project again. But, completely unexpectedly, ‘Ant-Man and the Wasp: Quantumania’ has once again put enough meat on the grill with a surprising science fiction adventure with a charming vintage spirit.
The importance of the framework
One of the biggest evils that I attribute to the watered down recent proposal from Marvel Studios is the lack of surprise factor. Neither multiversal bets like ‘Doctor Strange 2’ nor more authorial products like the soporific ‘Eternals’ managed to awaken in me that feeling of wonder that usually invades me when I immerse myself in the pages of a comic. It may have been due to the routine or the lack of risk in the proposals set in a well-known world; of what there is no doubt is that ‘Ant-Man 3’ has had an unbeatable secret weapon to overcome this problem: its setting.
The opening shot of the film, of a gigantic scale, is revealed as a perfect sample of what it is going to offer us in global computing. In this great general plane a scene can be glimpsed strange, unusual and beautiful at the same time that, like one more character, he channels the enormous sense of adventure and the spectacle of an almost more twinned with EC’s Weird Science line than with the own bibliography of La casa de las ideas.
This unique framework, which distinguishes the film from its recent counterparts and significantly boosts its appeal, is only the foundation for a title that is as simple in its ambitions as it is effective in its results. It’s your fault for this a narrative that avoids beating around the bush and that condenses in just a couple of hours —seeing current trends, 120 minutes are nothing— a balanced cocktail of action, adventure, the comedy associated with its protagonist and a good dose of epic in a sci-fi key.
Peyton Reed, who once again fulfills his mission without problems behind the cameras, succeeds in condensing a very brief first act during the initial minutes to, at the first opportunity, plunge Scott Lang and company into an impossible and hilarious journey that, now Yeah, launches a Multiverse Saga that has been narratively and cinematically comatose speaking since its startup in early 2021.
Activating the machinery
There is no doubt that, on top of the interesting dynamic between the members of the Pym and Lang families, joined by a perfectly functioning Cassie who continues to pave the way for the Young Avengers, the great claim of ‘Ant-Man and the Wasp: Quantumania’ is the Kang the Conqueror by Jonathan Majors; Probably the best treated character of the functional set as opposed to an aberrational MODOK in form and substance and sadly wasted.
After the brief appetizer that we were served in the last chapter of the first season of ‘Loki’, the MCU machinery has been reactivated to introduce ourselves properly to the great villain of the current arc and begin to discover the cards that will be played in the horizontal plot of the new saga; which is not in conflict with take care of a vertical plot who succeeds in focusing his gaze on a subject as mundane and universal as family relationships and dynamics.
Without, apparently, greater airs than entertain and offer a different experience within the recent moth-eaten offer of Marvel Sutdios, ‘Ant-Man and the Wasp: Quantumania’, despite not being exempt from the tics and patterns of the house, is a fantastic start to a Phase 5 that invites to restore confidence in the company. Now it only remains to check if these sensations are real or if we are only facing another mirage in a creative desert.