‘Ant-Man’ Is Flashy, but Leaves Viewers Itching for a Decent Plot

Expect the box office for “Ant-Man and the Wasp: Quantumania” to keep crawling higher as the CGI spectacle launches Phase 5 of the Marvel Cinematic Universe. The cast displays talent, but viewers will waste 123 minutes watching a plot so full of holes, they’ll think it has termites.First, a word for actors who let their hair gray and don’t subject themselves to the knife that renders many older performers unrecognizable. Michelle Pfeiffer, as Janet Van Dyne, is 64. Michael Douglas, as her husband Dr. Hank Pym, is 78. Bill Murray, who steals the one scene he’s in as Lord Krylar, is 72.All look good and act their age — absurd hand-to-hand fights by Ms. Pfeiffer aside — which is a rare feature of “Quantumania” that makes sense. It’s tragic that they’re wasted on this, the third solo appearance of Ant-Man, but they’re a large part of the reason for its third-highest opening day ever in February.I’ll just describe a few of the misfires. Paul Rudd, the titular hero — who co-wrote the previous two films but not this one — is kidnapped along with his daughter, Cassie Lang, played by Kathryn Newton. They’re dragged to a refugee camp and presented to its leader, Jentorra, played by Katy M. O’Brian, as a Native American allegory complete with face paint.Jentorra is part 1960s B-movie stereotype, part modern trope of a “strong female character” who doesn’t need help and is always angry. When the enemy finds her camp, Jentorra shouts at Ant-Man and Cassie, “You led them right to us,” as if her minions hadn’t dragged them there at gunpoint. Despite the band’s lack of redeeming qualities, Cassie insists Ant-Man help.When characters do dumb things, known in fiction as “the Idiot in the Attic Syndrome,” we stop caring about them, but expect this eye-rolling trend to continue in Phase 5 as young women and daughters — never young men or sons — supplant established male heroes and reduce them to comic-relief sidekicks in their own movies.The source material for Ant-Man is smart: comics stressing teamwork to overcome problems with science and ingenuity. On screen, that’s dumbed down to punching and blowing things up until the Villain of the Week — Kang the Conqueror — succumbs.Kang is another waste of a great performance. Jonathan Majors depicts him as conflicted and bitter, yet we never get a clear motivation. His goal is recovering yet another Magic Marvel McGuffin so he can escape the Quantum Realm and kill trillions as revenge on those who exiled him.However, Kang states that he has no intention of destroying earth, which is where audience members live. Since “Quantumania” doesn’t introduce us to the beings on other planets that Kang plans to exterminate, maybe they’re jerks. We’ll never know.Kang’s abilities are portrayed with the same fuzzy writing. In jail, Kang is far more powerful than Ant-Man, but our hero overpowers him later in the film, doing so Idiot-in-the-Attic style outside Kang’s fortress, which requires him to fight through an army. In the comics, he’d infiltrate it at ant-size and take the bad guy by surprise. Evangeline Lilly — Hope Van Dyne as the Wasp — exists to show up when the plot and Ant-Man need saving. Her dialogue with Janet is nothing like the way a real adult would speak to her mother, but at least she doesn’t save the day by rallying Jentorra’s natives with a high-tech Instagram post like Cassie.The only character with any kind of arc is the secondary antagonist, M.O.D.O.K., a terrible CGI rendering of actor Corey Stoll’s floating head as Darren Cross, villain Yellowjacket from the first film of the series. Like Ant-Man, he too obeys Cassie, betraying Kang for no reason other than she admonishes him, “Don’t be a d—.”“Quantumania” does its best to keep the audience distracted with explosions and broccoli creatures, hoping they don’t notice that the story is a confusing mess. It’s making millions regardless, but if this lazy offering is what’s served up in Phase 5, the ants in the audience are going to stop showing up for Marvel’s picnics.

‘Ant-Man’ Is Flashy, but Leaves Viewers Itching for a Decent Plot

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