Three years later, Marvel fans think they've worked out why Ant-Man and the Wasp: Quantumania was such a disappointment – and it's because it (if you'll excuse the pun) was too afraid to stay small.
"I honestly think the biggest issue with Quantumania is not just the CGI, or MODOK, or even Kang. It is that the film feels weirdly embarrassed by what made the Ant-Man movies work in the first place," wrote one fan on Reddit.
The movie sees Paul Rudd's tiny hero is accidentally transported to the Quantum Realm with Evangeline Lilly's Hope/Wasp and their family, where they have to face off against supervillain Kang the Conqueror. The movie's outsized plot fell even flatter when Kang was written out of the MCU after actor Jonathan Majors was fired.
The fan argues that what made the Ant-Man movies work is that they "were smaller, lighter, and more playful than most Marvel films." However, they think that Quantumania was "so focused on launching Phase 5 and turning Kang into the next huge MCU threat that it stops feeling like an Ant-Man movie and starts feeling like an obligation. That is why the problems feel conceptual rather than just technical. The execution is messy, sure, but I think the bigger issue is that the core creative instinct was wrong from the start."
Others agree, with someone else writing, "They forgot about the minor characters that made the first two so good. Luis and TI and that Russian dude. Like why drop them?"
"The whole Kang lore being tied to Ant-Man threw it off so much," said another. "If I wanted to learn more about Kang, they should have left it with the Loki TV show which handled the ominous setting much better. It’s like playing Resident Evil expecting a horror survival game and instead you get a comedy strategy game."
Released in 2023, Ant-Man and the Wasp: Quantumania was a box office disappointment and only managed to scrape a profit of around $88,000 thanks to a tax credit received for filming in the UK. Critics weren't keen on the film, either, and the Marvel Phase 5 movie holds a score of 46% on Rotten Tomatoes.
Next up on the big screen from the MCU is Spider-Man: Brand New Day, which arrives in theaters on July 31. For more on Marvel Phase 6, check out our guide to all the other upcoming Marvel movies and shows.
