Ant-Man and the Wasp: Quantumania is hitting the big screen imminently, kicking off Marvel Phase 5. The follow-up to 2018's Ant-Man and the Wasp sees the titular characters, played by Paul Rudd and Evangeline Lilly, and their respective families transported to the quantum realm where they must face off against Kang the Conqueror (Jonathan Majors). The movie has received mixed and lukewarm reviews from critics, though, with the threequel getting the second-lowest score on Rotten Tomatoes of any Marvel movie.
Total Film's Kevin Harley writes that the movie "can feel a little too much like a warm-up for more from Kang, rather than its own standalone stand-off. Landing flatly, the anti-climactic finale suffers as a result. But [director Peyton] Reed and [screenwriter Jeff] Loveness stir up enough soapy family intrigues and peril to bring out our diminutive hero’s best."
"All in all – particularly when balanced against the weightiness of Majors’s performance – Quantumania nicely hits the mark: it’s goofy, but goofy to just the right degree," says The Independent's Clarisse Loughrey.
However, according to Mashable's Kristy Puchko, the movie is "a chaotic, woefully unfunny mess that has forgotten why its hero was such fun. The thrill isn't just gone, it's been buried beneath a swarm of plot contrivances and truly hideous CGI."
CNN's Brian Lowry says that the movie "works on one key level, establishing Kang the Conqueror as a truly formidable and worthy villain. Yet with its plunge into inner space, Ant-Man comes up short in almost every other way that matters."
The Guardian's Ellen E. Jones writes that "Majors brings the same emotionally intense it-boy energy of Adam Driver in The Force Awakens," a sentiment that Associated Press' Lindsey Bahr echoes in part: "Majors is certainly chilling and captivating, but Kang seems like a mismatched foe for a standalone Ant-Man film and the result is a Quantumania that is trying to be too many things."
Ant-Man and the Wasp: Quantumania arrives in theaters on February 17. In the meantime, make sure you're up to date with the MCU with our recap of Marvel Phase 4.
