I’m not going to deceive you: except for some loose moments scattered throughout seven movies, nine series and two specials, Phase 4 was a particular desert in my relationship with Marvel. I was fascinated by the brilliant first sections of ‘Scarlet Witch and Vision’, ‘Hawkeye’ or ‘Shang-Chi’, but beyond those oases nothing quite fit, even in tapes that excited me at first (you can read my very enthusiastic review of ‘Thor: Love and Thunder’ whose opinion faded shortly after writing it) and time has put it in its place. Marvel felt with nothing to tell, as if after ‘Avengers: Endgame’ the gum, once full of flavors, had become rubbery and tasteless. Fortunately, Phase 5 seems to be ready to make amends… before it’s too late.
something tiny
Until now, the ‘Ant-man’ movies were consistent with his personality and his size: some small works within the marvelita organization chart that nobody took seriously. After all, it was still the saga of a guy who talks to ants. Personally, I enjoyed both like candy, a parenthesis within the continuous ultra-epic. And that’s why the trailers for ‘Ant-man and the Wasp: Quantumania’ terrified me so much: it seemed as if the Pym particles they would have artificially grown the character in intent and size, giving him more than he could handle. Luckily, I was more than wrong.
Halfway between space opera and modern superhero comics‘Quantumania’ puts all its effort into being overwhelmingly entertaining, but without ever ceasing to look to the long term and pave the way to the future of Phase 5. This leads to, at times, Kang having to stop at explain the plot, but he’s a necessary evil that never breaks a beat and makes him much more interesting than your standard Marvel villain. If in the next films they don’t twist the course or abuse it, I see it as possible to reach the installments of ‘Avengers’ with more enthusiasm than marketing.
Kevin Feige is aware that one of the things that has been blamed the most on Marvel in recent years has been that, After Thanos, things just happened, without a goal to reach or a great goal that encompasses everything. With the arrival of the multiverses and Kang, everything makes sense again: it is again a series in which missing a chapter can be vital to the plot, and not the procedural to which we have been accustomed. The start of Phase 5 smells and tastes of Phase 3, and that’s very, very good.
Quantumania, every two by three
One of the biggest surprises that ‘Quantumania’ keeps inside is his absolutely overflowing use of imagination and color, more indebted to ‘Flash Gordon’ than to Marvel comics themselves on which it is based. Original creatures go through the screen with charismatic and overwhelming designs, their own personality and certain little jokes that will make some frownlike forgetting that they are watching an Ant-Man movie.
The trailers promised an epic and royal film, completely breaking with the saga to which it belongs, but it was impossible for a Scott Lang adventure not to have its basis in a sense of humor, more like a presence that hovers over the entire film and prevents anything from being taken too seriously than as specific gags. In fact, they have reached a meeting point between those who gave a sound blow to the jokes of ‘Thor: Love and Thunder’ and those who demand that it differ from DC in its light tone. There aren’t as many jokes as in other movies, but the ones that do work and they don’t get burdensome at all.
In its attempt to be different from everything we expect, it is true that ‘Quantumania’ makes a serious mistake: bringing MODOK to life, a character who works well in comics and animation, but taken to live action is, at least when the mask is removed, too grotesque, an immediate part of the uncanny valley. The use of him as a secondary comic does not work at any time and his arc is unconvincing, with an impossible ending. The film already has enough differential points with other superhero films and its supervillain is very charismatic: the presence of MODOK is annoying and gives the feeling of a job not achieved. In fact, it can easily be described as a “disaster”. Luckily, the film is clear about what it is and what it wants to be, and it knows how to get around this bump with a certain style.
There are those who would put the visual effects in the category of disaster, which in the trailers were reminiscent of ‘Spy Kids’, but, except for some specific shots, it does not seem that there is a green screen behind the characters. It is true that As all of it takes place in a setting created by CGI, nothing is going to be completely normal, but they have solved the ballot in a fairly solvent way. It may not be Pandora, but it’s not a movie set either. Not all the time, at least.
The ant expenses
First of all, ‘Quantumania’ lives by and for adventure, something that had been lost in previous tapes of the Marvel Universe. He is to the point (in minute ten they are already fully immersed in the main plot), he is not afraid to create large set pieces no matter how ridiculous they may seem on paper and he never leaves his characters alone: things are always happening, discovering parts of the past , fighting strange enemies or running away. What’s more: the first moment they stand still, Bill Murray appears to brighten up the roost. You can’t have more sense of fun.
No one goes to see the thirty-first Marvel movie expecting art and essays, but it is appreciated that, in addition to setting a course and being brutally entertaining, worry about making the characters growespecially Hope, whose past in the Quantum Realm we can finally explore, and Cassie, who finally becomes a superhero in her own right. Even the deus ex machina (there are, there are) are planted throughout the footage so that everything has union and does not feel disjointed.
We’ll have time to discuss the ending, Marvel’s missed opportunities, and the two post-credits that, at least, they show a work of redemption and listen to the fandom. Although in his last stretch he sins of being much more conventional than what he presumes in the other two acts, ‘Quantumania’ is colorful, original, different and corrects the mistakes that Marvel has made during these three years of experimentation. Now all that remains is to check if the long-awaited public is still waiting or has already given up.