ANT-MAN and THE WASP: QUANTUMANIA is HUGE!

Hi, friends! I am delighted to tell you that I saw my first movie in the cinema in 2023 and of course it was supposed to be a show. Who better to deliver the spectacular, then, than Marvel? I can confidently say that after a series of divisive releases at best, Marvel is back in true form with ANT-MAN & THE WASP: QUANTUMANIA! (There will be slight spoilers ahead)

As I walked to the theater and remembered the shots from Michael Peña's previous exhibition, a smile crossed my face. That's one hell of a trick if it can make you smile just thinking about it, so I was very interested and excited to see if we'd get a third round in his lovely tangential head. Unfortunately no. There is no Peña, no T.I., but surprisingly there is still Dastmalchian, but not in the flesh. We will come back to this.

ANT-MAN 3 takes place almost entirely in the Quantum Realm, giving Marvel/Disney visual artists the ability to turn the creativity and colors up to eleven. There was a lot going on during filming to make the movie's logo look like a Led Zeppelin album name and those jokes pay off when the movie itself unfolds like a psychedelic concept album of unity through our otherness.

Unlike Scott Lang's first two outings, ANT-MAN 3 is a deadly serious movie. There is always humor, of course, but it is used intelligently and sparingly. While THOR: LOVE & THUNDER has abused humor to its detriment, ANT-MAN 3 uses it where it belongs: in the spaces between life and death. The film's villain, Kang, is unmistakably menacing and seemingly insurmountable, so there's very little to laugh about when he's on screen.

The film is a three-legged table, supported by Pfeiffer, Rudd and Majors. Newcomer Kathryn Newton is wonderful but is largely relegated to a plot device, albeit an engaging one. Dasmtalchian voices a slimy creature named Veb, who brings levity to the uncertainty of the Quantum Realm, and Hannah John-Kamen plays a resistance fighter who is indistinguishable from Valkyrie because she has no motivation or backstory. p>

But I'm not here to split hairs and talk about what this movie does wrong. I'm here to praise it, because after the latest feature films released by Marvel, this film marks a return to the formula that creates a product that will in no way divide its fans. I predict this movie will be universally celebrated because it has a huge heart, a terrifying villain, visceral fight sequences, and just the right amount of peril to satisfy that itch we didn't know we had until Marvel. scratches us in 2008 with IRON MAN.

One ​​of the things the movie gets particularly good at is M.O.D.O.K. that I forgot was in the movie before his name was mentioned. I was talking to a friend about its inclusion in the film and a certain awareness that I felt needed to be present in a live-action adaptation. When M.O.D.O.K. appears in a comic book or an animated feature film everyone shivers and goes “Oh no! It's M.O.D.O.K. But if he were to appear to someone thought to have a loose connection to our real world, the answer would still be the same:

"Damn right? Are you a giant head? Holy shit!"

And this movie does that! Every time someone sees him for the first time, he says "Holy shit!" Which doesn't mean that M.O.D.O.K. isn't scary when he's on screen, because he's really scary, but he's also a fucking giant head, so we have to take some time to recognize him.

Pfeiffer is also a plot device, but he's also an exposition machine, which gives him plenty of time to chew up the screen and show off a badass side to which it was only hinted at in its previous Marvel release. She shines as a mother and protector of all children, and her scenes with Michael Douglas and Bill Murray are a sparkling tribute to historical actors in a fun and imaginative environment.

Paul Rudd plays his ass in this film, and his portrayal of Scott shows an arc from a carefree hero reading his own titles and resting on his laurels to a devoted father who will stop at nothing to protect her daughter and her loved ones. His fight with Kang near the end of the film is so tense that the sound design went all the way up to the rafters with punches that sound like they could take down a T-Rex. I grabbed my...