ANT-MAN AND THE WASP : QUANTUMANIA - Tuesday 21st February 2023.

I saw 'ANT-MAN AND THE WASP : QUANTUMANIA' this week, and this M-Rated American superhero film is based on the Marvel Comics characters of Scott Lang (aka Ant-Man) and Hope van Dyne (aka The Wasp) and is the direct sequel to 2015's 'Ant-Man' and 2018's 'Ant-Man and The Wasp', is the 31st entry into the Marvel Cinematic Universe and the lunching film of Phase Five of the MCU. As with the two previous films, Peyton Reed returns as Director for this third instalment. The film saw its Premier screening in Los Angeles on the 6th February, before its worldwide release last week, having gained mixed Reviews from critics, although it has so far earned US$288M off the back of a production budget of US$200M, making it the third highest grossing film of 2023 so far. 

The film begins with the back story of Janet van Dyne (Michelle Pfeiffer) trapped for some thirty years in the Quantum Realm, where one day she encounters Kang (Jonathan Majors) an exiled traveller who crash lands his craft, and who explains that they can both escape from the Realm if she helps him repair the Multiversal Power Core that is necessary for him to leave and for Janet to return to Earth to be reunited with her daughter. After many attempts to repair it have failed they one day have success but as Janet plugs in the power core she sees a vision of Kang conquering and destroying entire timelines. Kang reveals he was exiled by his own variants out of fear, which leads Janet to turn on him. Outmatched, Janet uses her Pym Particles to enlarge the Power Core and therefore render it useless.

Back in the present day and following the Battle of Earth, Scott Lang (Paul Rudd) has become a successful memoirist having penned a best selling autobiography titled 'Look Out For The Little Guy' which charts his adventures with The Avengers, and has been living happily with his girlfriend, Hope van Dyne (Evangeline Lilly). Scott's now-teenage daughter Cassie (Kathryn Newton) has become a political activist, resulting in her doing jail time before being bailed out by her father. While visiting Hope's parents, Hank Pym (Michael Douglas) and Janet, Cassie reveals that she has been working on a mechanism that can establish a link to the Quantum Realm. 

When demonstrating how the device works, Janet panics and shuts it down, but contact had already been established so opening up a portal which sucks Janet, Hank, Cassie, Hope and Scott down into the Quantum Realm. Scott and Cassie land together and are found by natives who are rebelling against their ruler, while Hope, Janet, and Hank land in close proximity elsewhere and set off to a sprawling city to find Scott and Cassie. 

Hope, Janet, and Hank meet with Lord Krylar (Bill Murray), a former close friend of Janet's, who explains that things have changed since she left, and that he now answers to Kang, who is now the Realm's ruler. The three are forced to flee and steal Krylar's ship. The Langs, meanwhile, are told by rebel leader Jentorra (Katy O'Brian) that Janet's involvement with Kang is indirectly responsible for his rise to power. The rebels soon come under attack by Kang's forces led by M.O.D.O.K. (Mechanised Organism Designed Only for Killing), who is revealed to be Darren Cross (Corey Stoll), having survived his apparent death at Scott's hands when he was unevenly shrunken to subatomic size in the Quantum Realm and became a mutated, cybernetically enhanced individual with an oversized head. 

Scott and Cassie are taken to Kang, who has them detained in cells. He demands that Scott helps get his power core back and restore it to its normal workable size or else he will kill Cassie. Scott is taken to the core's location and shrinks down. Once inside he is overwhelmed by a mass of variants of himself, but Hope arrives and helps him gain the power core and using several Pym Particles reduces it in size. Kang, surprise surprise, reneges on his deal with Scott, and captures Janet and destroys her ship with Hank on it. 

After being rescued by his ants, who were also pulled into the Quantum Realm, they evolved rapidly, and became hyper-intelligent, Hank helps Scott and Hope as they make their way to Kang, aided in vast numbers by an army of ants, and Scott who has grown to an enormous size that he towers over Kang's domain. Cassie rescues Jentorra and they begin an offensive uprising against Kang and his army. During the fight, Cassie convinces Cross to turn sides and fight Kang, though he sacrifices his own life in the process.

Janet is able to fix the power core as she, Hank, Hope, and Cassie jump through a portal home, but Kang appears before Scott is able to make the jump and attacks him nearly beating him into submission. Hope returns and, together with Scott, destroy the power core and knock Kang into it, causing him to be pulled into oblivion. Cassie reopens the portal at her end for Scott and Hope to return home. As Scott happily resumes his life, he begins to rethink what he was told about Kang's death being the start of something terrible happening, but quickly dismisses the notion as he joins the family to celebrate Cassie's unbirthday at a restaurant, making up for all her birthday's that Scott missed. Remember to remain in your seat for the customary mid-credits and end credits sequences. 

'Ant-Man and The Wasp : Quantumania' is everything you have come to expect from a big budget, big spectacle MCU offering, with its heavy handed use of CGI to build a world and all the fantastical creatures and structures contained within it, to its use of A-list acting talent to give the film gravitas, to the introduction of a new cosmic villain that we are likely to see across multiple MCU films into the future in Kang the Conqueror all wrapped up with Scott Lang's quirky and not too serious take on his world and his new found place as an Avenger. All of that said, there is so much seemingly endless spectacle on screen here, that at times it's difficult to keep track of exactly what is going on. The story is also pedestrian and predictable and the plot is thin on the ground and seems to serve no other purpose than to introduce us to a new super villain and establish the next phase of the MCU. However, at a lean 123 minutes running time it doesn't outstay its welcome.

'Ant-Man and The Wasp : Quantumania' merits three claps of the Odeon Online clapperboard from a possible five claps.

-Steve, at Odeon Online-