My name is Quantum Tarantino and a few years ago a cruel gag forced me to review all the movies that had the word “Quantum” in the title. I was driven by an unknown force to look for the best in every film. My only guide was Nanni Cobretti, the founder of the 400 Calci, who appeared to me in the form of a hologram that only I could see and hear. Trapped in the Marvel Cinematic Universe, jumping from movie to movie, helping those in trouble, and always hoping that my next review will be the last…
Ant-Man and The Wasp: Quantumania is the thirty-first film of the Marvel Cinematic Universe, the first of Phase 5, the third dedicated to the character of Ant-Man and the second, with Eternals, with an average grade below sufficiency at Rotten Tomatoes and Metacritic. That doesn’t mean, to be clear, that people get bored with Marvel movies or they wouldn’t have made $100 million in a weekend. But if the big review aggregators like Rotten and Metacritic are a vaguely reliable thermometer (and no more) of American audience tastes, with this film Marvel has finally managed the impossible feat of beating the expectations of people who walked into the cinema with no expectations.
It’s kind of an Ant-Man thing, if you think about it. We didn’t expect anything with the first film and instead it pleasantly surprised us. We didn’t expect anything from the second and nothing is exactly what we got. We didn’t expect anything from the third and as the famous meme says
A problem that resonates with all post-endgame MCUs, this seeming nonsense that the most ambitious operation in the history of cinema (cinema with a small c, out of respect for Scorsese) is taking much longer than expected to figure out what that is Shit, he wants to be great…
“What to do when you grow up”: Go there, what a crazy help to talk about the plot! ‘Cause there’s that Ant-Man thing that has the power to get awesome, right? But there is also the character of Cassie, Ant-Man’s daughter, who was a little girl in the first film but has now grown up and now that she’s grown up wants to be Ant-Man too.
kids, am I right? They grow up so fast..!
You may have noticed, too, but there are a few films where Marvel seem to have a slight obsession with parenting. There is certainly a utilitarian aspect as well, the need to prepare the ground for a generational change as the franchise is eternal but the actors are not (the case of Jeremy Renner is emblematic, who just about managed to pass the baton before he was run over by a snow plough). But in recent years, we’ve seen far too many characters give birth to, adopt, or take young mini-me’s under their wing not to believe that around 2018, Kevin Feige called all his minions together and announced that henceforth the meaning of life is to be a parent.
And may I say something?
I don’t care that much.
It’s a legitimate subject, god forbid, one that’s naturally tempting to explore – if you have friends with kids you’ll have noticed they just talk about it – and offers a handful of valid ideas, but is it absolutely necessary? does this happen in all movies? For all characters and always the same?
But I digress.
In Ant-Man 3, it so happens that Scott Lang and his extended family finally explore the quantum realm after almost 10 years of hanging around, and the result is a set of narrative presets that can be traced back to any franchise except, ironically, the admire one: There’s the self-contained and super-schematic structure of Star Trek where the heroes arrive at a planet / help the locals solve a problem / go home; There are spaceships, an evil empire of faceless soldiers, and a variety of absurdist creatures from Star Wars, complete with a basement moment where the characters -gasp!- enter a bar and see that it’s full of aliens, all of whom are mad a man with a head of broccoli or Bill Murray; and there’s the worst cinematography ever seen in a Marvel movie, dark and with an inexplicable fondness for the color orange that immediately makes you think of certain DC messes.
In addition, it is also an incredible compilation of missed opportunities.
When Scott and Cassie’s relationship is presented, one thinks that, at least in this round, the premises are in place to say something new. She, a “politicized” teenager, wants to use Ant-Man’s powers to change the world; he, an adult who has already seen everything, just wants to stay calm a little: it’s the perfect recipe for a good generational struggle and instead everything is solved at every moment without the slightest doubt touching one or both characters (or spectators). ) nor that a conversion takes place. At the end of the film, Scott and Cassie are the same as they were at the beginning of the film, only now they are no longer fighting.
As Kang (yes the villain of the movie is Kang the Conqueror, do we really need to talk about him? I dunno, he’s a villain, he wants bad things and to get them he does bad things, I swear) he says to Scott “I need you to steal something from me” thoughts whirl about the first film: a return to basics! Scott must pull off a quantum heist! Instead, it turns out that “stealing” is just a synonym for “carrying an item from point A to point B.”
When Kang is presented as very strong, very powerful, practically invincible, you think the heroes have to beat him with cunning or with something other than brute force. But it turns out that the trick to beating an unbeatable opponent is to beating a lot of them for a very long time until they become beatable.
As Scott stands at the center of the Quantum Storm and “infinite possibilities of himself” materialize before him, expect that thing to enrich the story: Scott sees the thousand other directions his existence could have taken and learns about himself . Or something like that, I don’t know, we’re still in the multiverse saga aren’t we? And instead it’s just an excuse for a gag: among infinite possibilities of himself, all identical, there is one in which he’s dressed like an idiot. How crazy!
Am I seeing double or is it four bulkheads?
Even from a visual point of view, it feels like you’re watching a cartoon written by very boring people, and with all the limitations that come with dealing with flesh-and-blood people. In a cartoon you can at least make anything happen, in a Marvel movie you have Paul Rudd’s agent telling you anything goes, but the boy has to be in my face at least 85% of the time (and so we witness among other things this obsessive-compulsive disorder that the characters in this film have of constantly taking their helmets off and on). The quantum realm is brown Pandora. Kang’s superfuturistic tech is generic sci-fi stuff – guns, spaceships, elevators – not much different than the generic sci-fi stuff characters use every day in the Marvel world. Millions of dollars in special effects to make the pew-pew laser shoot out of almost every character’s hands and make Corey Stoll’s head levitate (I won’t go into that further).
special effects! Pew Pew!
And don’t get me started on the issue of performative inclusivity, which doesn’t count for an iota on the big Hollywood themes of machismo and racism, but, hey, at least lest Instagram activists break our balls.
The film is called “Ant-Man and The Wasp” but it is absolutely clear, without the slightest possibility of error, that the undisputed protagonist of this film is Scott Lang, while Janet is “The Wasp” (but has anyone ever called her that? ) isn’t even the most interesting of the supporting characters. Co-directing the film with her (for the second time) just to show that Marvel is gender sensitive, hurtful and fucking condescending. Let’s imagine for a second that in the infinite possibilities of the multiverse of madness there is a little girl whose favorite character is The Wasp: She would like to watch a movie called Ant-Man *and The Wasp* and then sit through 2 hours Ant-Man while The Wasp blends into the green screen and the last 5 minutes saves the day?
“They say I’m in this movie too…”
Because that’s the only thing these pioneers of late-capitalist corporate feminism can write when they set out to “shake up the patriarchy”: tough, resolute and no-bullshit women who have nothing interesting to say but get through the situation Shoot or loose punches, just like men but better than men.
Also check out the character of Katy O’Brian, leader of the Quantum Realm rebels, dressed as He-Man’s villain: can you imagine the conversation that was going on at the time this was written?
– Hey hey, let’s make sure the leader of the rebels is a woman, girl power!
– Ok, but who is it?
– She is the leader of the rebels
– Yes, I understand, but what is his characterization?
– Are you dumb? I said she’s the leader of the rebels
Is it more feminist, a female character with a social role but solid characterization and without sexualizing her, or a very strong female character who dominates everyone but no characterization and walks around in a bathing suit?
It makes you smile when you think that in these years of profound gender reassessment in cinema, men are being taught that it’s okay to be sensitive, it’s okay to cry, it’s okay to fail, as long as they are young women are offered an ultra-pragmatic and affective superwoman as the only model, practically robocop but less fun. Give this style of writing another 5 years and you will arrive at the paradox that true liberation is going into the kitchen to make me a sandwich.
It comes full circle with the boldest attempt to talk politics you could expect from a studio that wants to please everyone without upsetting anyone. The film begins with Cassie being arrested at a rally and ends with Michael Douglas telling us to learn socialism from ants. First of all: MACCOSA. And then, seriously, I’m glad, but like this, with no context, no continuation… what does it represent me? Falcon and the Winter Soldier feels like Three Days of the Condor in comparison.
However, someone managed to take it
While Quantummania remains a weaker-than-bad movie, it’s incredible how Quantummania doesn’t abandon any original idea in order to save his life, and systematically gets almost everything wrong that could be wrong. It recycles old ideas, it flattens everything, it’s neither funny nor emotional. It takes a character who was all the more interesting for the smaller, more intimate, and more personal his stories were, and throws him into an epic adventure about the fate of an entire universe (which we don’t give a damn about because it’s the first and last time we see him) (I hope). He drowns every shot in ugly, unimaginative GCI and nobody but Corey Stoll seems to enjoy it.
Glad you’re forgetting about it.
“Pussy That Sucks”
Disney+ odds:
“Quantum Noia”
Quantum Tarantino, i400calci.com
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