From director Peyton Reed comes the third installment to the beloved Ant-Man franchise, Ant-Man and The Wasp: Quantumania.

Kicking off phase 5 of the MCU, Paul Rudd, Micheal Douglas, Michelle Pfeiffer and Evangeline Lily return for the 3rd outing of the Ant-Man franchise. Kathryn Newton also joins the MCU, portraying a much older Cassie Lang. This film immerses the viewer in a new world and thrusts you into a fairly new corner of the MCU, the Quantum realm. A world of new civilizations and mysterious creatures, full of twists and turns. Ant-Man and The Wasp, by a matter of certain circumstances, find themselves stuck in the Quantum Realm, as they embark on a new adventure. Pushing them beyond their limits of what they once thought was possible.  

Coming off of the events of Avengers Endgame, ex-con Scott Lang has been living the good life, signing autographs and overall, enjoying the time he has lost. He finds himself finally being recognized as an official Avenger and world renowned author, indulging in the limelight of being a superhero. He has even found the time to write a book, depicting his experience as an Avenger and saving the world. After experiencing being stuck in Quantum Realm for 5 hours (5 years to everyone else) the focus has been to try and make up all of the time he has lost with his daughter. 

Hank and Janet Have been living life low-key since the events of Avengers Endgame and Ant-Man and The Wasp, being able to just kick back and relax after a long while. Janet, after being trapped in the Quantum Realm for 30 years, has been quiet about her time in the quantum Realm leaving some unanswered questions. Despite this, she has been happy for the past few years, putting her trauma behind her and not looking back. She is finally able to enjoy time with her family.

Their daughter, Hope Vandine is also pushing her glory days to the rear view mirror as she is now focused on handling a new contracting and real estate job working at Pym Industries. While she knows the importance of saving lives, she has been enjoying living a normal life. As you can probably tell, the events of this film will force her back into action as The Wasp.

This film also introduces a new hero joining Ant-Man and The Wasp on their expedition through the Quantum Realm, Cassie Lang. This film puts Scott Lang alongside his teenage daughter who is new to the world of Superhero-ing into action. Cassie starts off as intelligent. Building a Quantum beacon that sends a signal down to the Quantum Realm. Unbounonced to Scott however, she has been learning under the eyes of Hank Pym, the original Ant-Man. While Scott‘s actions and his image lead Cassie into some trouble at the beginning of the film, he’s the reason she is able to live up to that image. To escape and to inspire those around her. More commonly addressed under the alias Stinger in the comics, Cassie dons a similar suit and helmet to her predecessor with purple accents, rather than the red we commonly expect to see on the Ant-man suit. Similar to her father, this suit functions in the same way, allowing her to shrink and grow as she pleases. She is also a highly skilled fighter utilizing her shrinking abilities to take down anything that comes her way. 

Ant-Man is put up to the test when a powerful new threat emerges, Kang The Conqueror. A ruthless ruler, Conqueror and Nexus being determined to escape the Quantum Realm. This multiversal ruler differs in many ways from his variant ¨He Who Remains¨, who you may recognize as he was previously seen in the Loki series. In contrast to “He Who Remains”, Kang is a dangerous foe, set on escaping the Quantum Realm.

Unlike most, Kang is a human. This makes him easier to sympathize with and gives you a different perspective. This also allows him to manipulate people in unexpected ways. Kang is a man perpetually grappling with the consequences of time. A man for which actions don’t motivate consequences, rather consequences motivate actions.

One idea this film dipped into, and I wish they explored further, is the conflict between taking good actions and visually showing what those specific actions might cost down the road. We see it mostly between Scott and Cassie. 

Whether it’s Cassie performing relentless acts of altruism, or Scott‘s arrogance, Scott is now less on board. He has to take the long road. He must push his personal morals and viewpoints aside. If not, he ends up being selfish and is more worried about keeping his life safe, than protecting others. Scott and Cassie become unaware that their well-intentioned actions can result in negative outcomes.

Senior Jakob Stafford, State High student and fellow moviegoer goes on to explain how this movie was a step in the right direction from the past two films. However, falling short in properly introducing some of its new characters.

”In my opinion, the movie was pretty good overall.¨ Jakob says. ¨It was definitely better than what Marvel has done recently. Stuff like M.O.D.O.K‘s cgi and the broccoli alien really took me out of it.”

Senior Eathan Sheaffer, State High student and fellow moviegoer was able to share his thoughts on the movie. He feels that this movie set the bar from the past two films, and speaks on how the negatives tend to overshadow the positives.

¨I thought it was a really fun movie to watch and much better than their recent movies,¨ Sheaffer says. ¨I thought it maintained the humor of the first two films, while also successfully making it a higher stakes movie, with an amazing villain. It definitely deserves higher than the ratings it got. The only downside was some of the ratings it got.¨

Jonathan Majors portrayal of Kang The Conqueror is the highlight of this film. His presence brings out an intimidating, powerful, shakespearean esc. persona strengthening his performance.

Closing out this trilogy of films, this movie handles dark themes, while also giving you an engaging story. What this film seems to be invested in the most, is how Cassie views Scott´s actions. That’s maybe the cornerstone of their relationship and is the thing that drove her to become a hero herself. Scott never meant that to happen. Across this film again and again, we see unforeseen effects, we see these effects rippling out of certain actions taken. Sometimes these can be negative. Whether it‘s Janet‘s need to keep quiet regarding everything about this environment or Scott‘s willingness to fight, they are both blinded by winning something rather than losing something. 

There is a parallel of sorts with Kang. While the latter justifies evil rather than inaction, because of his supposed knowledge of the future, both embrace a type of fatalism. With Scott, that changes because of those unintended consequences. Throughout the film we see and he sees from a perspective, that you cannot account for every possibility. While unexpected negativity might follow unintended action, unexpected positivity can too. As a result falling into that trap of fatalistic inaction, isn’t the right thing to do. When even Kang can’t predict everything, what excuse does Scott have? What excuse do we have for standing back? That’s what’s cool about this film. In a mist of all that franchised tension, the imperfect stakes, setting and focus, there is still success.

I feel that this movie is a mix between Marvel and Starwars. While thats not a bad thing, it makes the movie boring, seeing things we have already seen before. While this film explores the idea of introducing these new civilizations of characters, none of them had a point. I couldn’t personally feel any connection. This is what resulted in us not getting enough focusing on the Ant-Man characters that we have followed for years. Some of them, missing from the film entirely. The Wasp, despite being in the title of the movie, gets sidelined for most of the film, focusing on Cassie Scott´s relationship. Despite this, however, the film is so rushed in getting to the Quantum Realm that it doesn’t tell why or how Cassie can build a Quantum beacon or get her suit. These things are quickly glanced over, resulting in much confusion. 

Rather than take you on a classic Ant-Man Adventure, unlike the first two films, This film is focused too much on set-up and stakes. It can’t make a clear cut distinction between other films. It centers in on introducing Kang so much that it doesn’t even feel like an Ant-Man movie, I’d even go further and say that it feels like we skipped a movie and now we´re watching Ant-Man 4!

While this film has its moments, this one didn’t do it for me personally. I would still strongly encourage you to go see this film if you like Ant-Man and if you are interested in the future of the MCU. With that being said, don‘t walk into the theater expecting you´ll come out with a look of amazement on your face. While most of the jokes hit, some of them didn´t, which results in an awkward and cheesy aspect of this film. Overall, I feel this movie has more negatives than positives and for that reason, I’d have to give this movie a solid 6/10 due to its CGI and overall pacing of the story. Unfortunately, I feel that this film drastically fails to deliver a satisfying ending to the Ant-Man franchise.

This film isn’t all bad as it deeply focuses on family dynamics. Furthermore, being able to clearly explore those within this film is important and is something this film handles really well.