It's not going too well for Marvel at the moment...
Director: Peyton Reed
Starring: Paul Rudd, Evangeline Lilly, Michael Douglas
Running time: 125 minutes
If you thought previous Marvel instalments didn’t fully utilise the CGI available, you’ll be pleased to know that Ant-Man and the Wasp: Quantumania does not scrimp on that score. A good ninety percent of the third Ant-Man outing is filmed in front of a green screen and, if you’re okay with having slightly goggly eyes after two hours of it, then you’re onto a winner. I personally was looking forward to a bit of daylight after about forty minutes...
Having binged the whole Marvel franchise up until Endgame during lockdown, I feel pretty up-to-speed with the superhero series. Thor, Captain America, Iron Man et al are all played by strong leading actors with confident screen presence and timely humour. Paul Rudd as Ant-Man has never struck me as the right casting. Rudd is a funny man and not a bad actor, but he works well in an ensemble cast – see his stint as Mike in Friends and his memorable turn as Brian Fantana in Anchorman. As far as leading a cast as the protagonist goes, though, he simply isn’t effective. Kathryn Newton, who plays his teenage daughter, Cassie, however, has tons of screen presence and outshines Rudd in every scene they share.
The villain, Kang The Conqueror, is played with such subtlety that it’s almost boring
Michelle Pfeiffer gets quite the look in. I’d go as far as to say it should’ve been called Janet Van Dyme (her character, Ant-Man’s mother-in-law for all intents and purposes) in Quantumania because the majority of the plot revolves around her. Pfeiffer does what she can with the script and its slightly stale plot while sporting a strong wardrobe of Star Wars-inspired neutral toned robes with a spectacular blow dry throughout.
The villain, Kang The Conqueror (Jonathan Majors) is played with such subtlety that it’s almost boring. I understand Majors must have read the script and imagined untold levels of mayhem and nonsense and decided to improve the quality of the film by playing down his character, but it actually just feels a bit flat - like he couldn’t be bothered. The best character, by far, is the jelly creature with a strange obsession with human holes – it’s exactly as it sounds – who runs around during various chaotic fight scenes looking ridiculous and hilarious.
A timely release for the half-term holidays; one to put the kids in front of while you catch some shut-eye.
Ant-Man and the Wasp: Quantumania is now showing at Savoy Cinema
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