Quantumania (2023) Movie Review And Download

Ant-Man and the Wasp: Quantumania is a horrible movie, but it’s horrible in a way that Marvel movies rarely are. So far, the MCU films have for the most part managed to pull off a decent mix of sentimentality, provocative humor, and superhero exploits. When they succeed, it is because most of these elements are shooting at full explosion. When they fail, it is generally because they pushed too much in one direction or the other: the films are too sentimental, comic or crowded with a few impressive action scenes. I’ve loved and hated my share of these movies (and, as a parent, had to watch nearly all of them multiple times), but I’ve never been more in awe of Quantummania. .
 
Except for a relatively short and lighthearted opening section set in present-day Marvel where Scott Lang (Paul Rudd) has written a memoir about his eventful life as Ant-Man and his experiences saving the world at The aftermath of the Thanos Snap and the battles that ensue, the vast majority of Quantummania takes place in the Quantum Realm, that deadly microworld you fall into if you shrink so much that you find yourself slipping between subatomic particles. As you recall, Janet Van Dyne (Michelle Pfeiffer) was rescued from that land in the previous Ant-Man film. Now, she reveals that she wasn’t alone down there, that there is a whole universe of beings in the Quantum Realm, elaborate and diverse alien tribes in seemingly constant conflict. Among them, we learn, is Kang (Jonathan Majors), an enigmatic traveler who Janet initially befriended, thinking he was a stray soul who accidentally ended up in this dimension. However, Kang was revealed to be a dangerous, imperious, and all-powerful being who had been exiled to the Quantum Realm from his own world.

What does all this have to do with Ant-Man or the Wasp (Evangeline Lilly)? In what feels like the first 15 minutes of the film, our heroes end up being sucked into the Quantum Realm (along with Janet and her husband Hank Pym, played again by Michael Douglas) when Scott’s daughter Cassie (Kathryn Newton) begins to send signals. in this world in an attempt to map it. It all happens so fast that I wondered if I was seeing a dream sequence.
 
Look, I’m getting bored just writing all this. More troubling, it seems the filmmakers themselves got bored putting it on screen. When Janet told us there were people down there, she wasn’t kidding: there are rogue tribes, smugglers, tangled new aliens, uneasy alliances, new spaceships and cantinas. Maybe director Peyton Reed and his collaborators thought they were making a Star Wars movie; The protagonists’ adventures in the Quantum Realm sometimes seem meant to be a copied version of George Lucas’s space operas, albeit in a compressed form. Or maybe they only saw Taika Waititi’s Thor Ragnarok once.

But good luck finding anything of Lucas’ earnestness or imagination, or Waititi’s flippant, playful sensibility, here. Our heroes’ journeys through the Quantum Realm are presented in a wholly listless manner and the performances fail to convey either the awe or awe the characters are supposed to feel. Everyone just wanders through this film, through its elaborate, colorful, psychedelic album cover-style crowded environments. From time to time they make jokes or cross their arms. Nothing seems to match. If you told me the actors were filmed before the filmmakers decided what they were going to watch or interact with, I would have believed you. 

Even Majors, a fine actor who can usually muster intensity with seemingly minimal effort, doesn’t seem to know what to make of Kang. Most of his acting consists of pacing and softly muttering his dialogue. You keep waiting for the threat or greatness or vengeance to escalate; we’ve been told that Kang is a terrifying, near-omnipotent being who must be stopped from escaping the Quantum Realm, lest he destroy the universe, but other than a few lame battle sequences in the last entry, there really doesn’t seem to be much for Kang. . Yes, he can levitate people and shoot lasers from his hands, but seriously, is he particularly special in the world of Marvel? 

So the movie falls short of the basic level of a meat and potatoes comic. He can’t even clearly explain the magical gadget (there’s always a magical gadget) that our heroes have to retrieve this time. More importantly, it fails to make you feel anything, which is odd since part of the story involves Ant-Man’s desperate attempts to save his daughter, a character motivation as blatantly relatable and as immediate as one can imagine. But it’s all executed with so little effort (by talented actors) that the end result is numb alienation, which is probably not something you should want from a superhero movie. The action is tired, the universe unconvincing, and no one on screen seems to want to be there. It seems they don’t even know where it is. 

Quantumania makes you appreciate the achievement of something like the Avatar movies even more. There too we have mostly decorated environments created with visual effects, but they have been carefully imagined and thought out; there’s a vision to them, a coherence and an inner logic to go with the wonder, that helps with the immersion. The Quantum Realm, by contrast, looks like an army of artists and techies who have just released whatever strikes their fancy. Maybe this patchwork quality was intentional, but as expressed on screen, it’s a dog’s breakfast with elements of fantasy. 

The first Ant-Man, one of the highlights of the entire Marvel film project, was notable for its goofy humor and small-scale story. At a time when MCU films seemed to lean more towards expansive storylines and portentous mythology (all in an attempt to build up to the final Avengers visuals, at least one of which were excellent), it came as a breath of fresh air. fresh air. The smaller scale is all but gone this time around, but some humor remains, albeit in the weirdest possible way. Darren Cross (Corey Stoll), the villain from the first film, is reincarnated by Kang as MODOK, a giant, distorted, pathetic head inside a diving suit-like contraption, with tiny, weak limbs. Looks like a Minion and Max Headroom had a baby. she won’t lie; I laughed every time it was on screen. I would probably watch a MODOK spin-off series.

But it’s hard to decide whether Quantumania needs more of these kinds of jokes, or not. There are a few more shots of cheeky humor, including a jelly-like creature that really gets excited about having holes. (It’s funny the first couple times he gushes “holes,” but eventually you start living in fear of another line of “holes.”) The problem isn’t that those snippets aren’t funny — sometimes they are — but which reveal a harmful oversight beneath sloppy cinema. This isn’t humor designed to enhance what you’re seeing, or even cleverly undermine it. There’s a lifeless bitterness to it all, like a silly, unimportant joke you might be pulling while doing a boring, demeaning job that you can’t wait to quit. I’m sure it’s going to make a ton of money, but Ant-Man and the Wasp: Quantumania might be the first time I’ve truly felt sorry for the people making any of these movies. Sounds like a cry for help.