Ant-Man & The Wasp: Quantumania

Take a trip to the Quantum Realm - they’ve got Star Wars-like cantinas, talking pieces of broccoli and beautiful if trippy natural vistas. You might even spot Bill Murray. Probably not ATOL protected.

Ant-Man & The Wasp: Quantumania (gettit – quANTuMANia has Ant-Man in the title) kicks off the MCU’s Phase Five and the second part of the ‘Multiverse Saga’ with exactly what you’d expect: a fun, exciting, villain-introducing romp sealed with Marvel’s usual wit, pizzazz, stacked casts and surprises.

I still don’t think we’ve seen a true ‘5 star’ gamechanger from Marvel since the end of the Infinity Saga but their output is so consistent, strong and enjoyable that it doesn’t really matter. Now we know where this Phase is going and Kang The Conqueror is properly introduced here (well, probably – who knows with the MCU and his potential multiversal variants) after his Man Who Remains variant in Loki it just feels like a raising of the stakes.

They can still do this whilst retaining the core of what makes these particular characters special (no doubt aided by the consistency of having Peyton Reed as Director across all the Ant-Man films) and not raising those inevitable questions of ‘why doesn’t this character get involved’ etc etc.

Extra character depth for Janet and Cassie is hugely welcome and important moving forward and it feels much more of a solid building block than its forebear (Ant-Man & The Wasp very much a lite-‘MCU Tales’ like film).

It loses a little of the comedic relief without the earthbound exploits (and no Luis!) but the Quantum Realm is a suitably bizarre and imaginative place with, as aforementioned, its own share of surprises (SLIGHT SPOILER what a brilliant way of getting MODOK into the MCU!)

Jonathan Majors is wonderfully menacing as Kang (and wildly different to his variant in Loki) and it’s hugely exciting to see what other Kangs are going to bring to the game moving forward.

Overall, another wonderful star added into the MCU timeline and an exciting jump into a new Phase set to bring the goods.

4 stars ****