Ant-Man and the Wasp: Quantumania

 

Peyton Reed's Ant-Man and the Wasp: Quantumania is a goofy, psychedelic trip of a picture with an incomprehensible storyline about characters that originated on the lower tier of the Marvel cinematic universe affiliated with the highly lucrative Avengers series. 

Reed directed the first two Ant-Man pictures, both of which starred Paul Rudd as Scott Lang, a convicted thief and unlikely contender for superhero status until he bumbles into a shrinking suit designed by scientist Hank Pym (Michael Douglas) and begins life anew as a crime fighter with the ability to grow to gigantic and shrink to subatomic dimensions. 

He is partnered both romantically and heroically with The Wasp (Evangeline Lilly). Not unlike the other "man" franchises -- Iron and Spider -- Ant-Man does feature some intriguing insights about technology, science envy and corporate espionage. There's also familial intrigue as all of the main characters are related to one another, including Cassie, Lang's daughter (Kathryn Newton) who is following in daddy's shrinking footsteps.

It's when things get small -- really, really small -- that the story opens up to Rudd's strongest feature -- his comedic delivery and timing -- and the picture takes on a stoner jokiness that is a welcome alternative to the pseudo-scientific mumbo-jumbo spouted by Douglas and others. I love the weirdness of the tiny denizens of the subatomic universe, and imagine they are intended to parallel the real world's disaffected and disenfranchised, itching to get back at the man.

And who is the man? Who carries the weightiness of existential threat? That's given to the ubiquitous Jonathan Majors as Kang the Conqueror, a mysterious humanoid living and ruling in the quantum realm as master of the infinite multiverses. His nemesis is Janet Van Dyne, the original shrinking woman, played by Michelle Pfeiffer. It's their history that propels this third story along.

Yes, like so much of the later Marvel movies, Quantumania's narrative is a mess and, based on the mid-credits teaser, it is going to get even messier as the studio pushes even further into this narrative of infinite worlds and infinite threats and infinite feature possibilities.

Ka-ching the Conqueror.