By CJ GRACE
Contributing Writer
When it first came out in 2015, JJ Abrams’ “Star Wars: The Force Awakens” received what can only be called heavily mixed reviews, with some criticizing it for overreliance on barely-altered story beats, settings, or the general sense of deja-vu it shared to the original Star Wars film from 1977. “Ant-Man and the Wasp: Quantumania” is, in a sense, the step down from this step down, a step into sci-fi from Peyton Reed that feels like the half-remembered dream of someone who saw “The Force Awakens” while reading an Ant-Man comic the night before.
The bookend segments that take place within San Francisco hold the same dopey but jovial tone that has followed Scott Lang through his last two solo outings, aggressively winking and nudging at the unseriousness that the character possesses within the larger context of the Marvel Cinematic Universe. When immediately following the reintroduction of Jonathan Majors’ Kang the Conqueror, it feels drastic, but not negatively so.
As the film progresses toward the Quantum Realm, though, the seams begin to show. CGI in this film is at its blatant worst, with both the Ant-Man and Wasp suits and some Quantum Realm backdrops feeling stunningly artificial, even with suspension of disbelief engaged. As the heroes enter this realm in full force, their division into two groups also forces chemistry out of relationships that have not yet been fully explored, and it takes some time to get used to their interactions.
Beyond this, the Quantum Realm as a setting feels as if Disney was trying to replicate the Star Wars formula yet again, with its natives resembling Tusken Raiders and others appearing to copy the inhabitants of the Mos Eisley Cantina in their seeming randomness for the sake of it. Smug bastard Bill Murray plays smug bastard Klaxar, a hybrid of the actor’s own ego and Ian McDiarmid’s Sheev Palpatine, and the primary version of Kang shown feels like an attempt at a more Shakespearean rendition of Darth Vader. Even the ship the Pym family uses in the region resembles a barely-altered model of Boba Fett’s Slave 1.
There are a few upsides, of course. William Jackson Harper of “The Good Place” turns out a hilarious performance as the telepathic Quaz, who in a just world would be this film’s co-lead, and Corey Stoll’s return as a revamped M.O.D.O.K. is perhaps unnecessary, but wholly enjoyable. Beyond this, however, “Quantumania” is a weaker film than it has any right to be, misusing both its premise and its cast for a high-C or low-B rendition of a film that was fine enough 44 years ago and has since been trodden through another ten times. “Ant-Man and the Wasp: Quantumania” is good, but it could absolutely be better.
