Top Line Thoughts: This movie has gotten some not-so-great reviews and, while I didn’t think it was the best Marvel movie, I did not by any means think it was the worst. It did all the Marvel things: it was entertaining, funny, action-packed, and advanced the larger plot of the universe. That being said, for a movie that was marketed as “game-changing” for the Marvel Universe, it didn’t feel as high-stakes as it may have been intended to. I thought it was entertaining enough but nothing special as a Marvel movie or, more broadly, as a superhero movie.

Spoiler Section: There are a few reasons why this story didn’t have the impact it was supposed to. A big one is the setting. 95% of this movie takes place in the quantum realm, which translates on screen to a CGI-fest. There are no “real people” aside from our main characters who have been sucked into this world. It feels impossible to gauge the real-world stakes of this villain and the battle at hand when the world we’re in doesn’t feel real. Fighting to protect the quantum realm doesn’t have the same emotional impact and resonance as The Avengers fighting to protect New York City in the first Avengers movie. We know that place. We know what it means in the world. We see ourselves in the people on the street. While we do get introduced to some people and communities in the quantum realm, it’s not enough time or familiarity to create the emotional connection needed to make us care in the same way. The setting also prevented us from seeing other characters we are actually familiar with and would care about the fates of. Is Kang a threat to the other Avengers and associates? He’s supposed to be set up as one by this movie, but it is hard to tell when our other heroes aren’t in this world. I didn’t expect anyone else to show up in this Ant-Man led film but to be as consequential of a story as Marvel made this out to be, I think others may have been needed.

Speaking of the threat of this film, Jonathan Majors as the villain, Kang, was one of the highlights of the movie. However I will say I liked him more as He Who Remains (who is also Kang?) in season 1 of “Loki”. I realize that while they’re technically the same character, they are also technically different characters, so it makes sense they’d be slightly different from each other. I just preferred the more fun, whimsical, maniacal He Who Remains to the more serious and prickly Kang the Conquerer. The unpredictable energy of the former made him all the more terrifying. But I am excited for the future of Kang (and all his variants) in the MCU and the differences in the characters already is promising for the variety of performances and personalities we may get from Majors going forward.

Maybe my least favorite part of this movie was the ending. I was honestly shocked when everything kind of worked out okay. Scott, Hope, Cassie, Janet, and Hank all made it back completely unharmed from the quantum realm and just went back to their regular lives. I didn’t necessarily want to lose any of the characters or repeat the storyline of someone being trapped in the quantum realm again but it all just seemed to fit too neatly. And then the writers tried to solve that by ending on a literal “everything is great… or is it?” moment. If they wanted a happy ending, they should have just stuck to a happy ending without having to be like “in case you forgot, there’s still a threat out there.” We know. This is the Marvel Universe, there’s always a threat out there.

Aside from some minor to mid-level issues, I had fun watching this movie. Paul Rudd is always charming and funny and I liked Kathryn Newton as Cassie, despite some mixed reviews of her performance. Michael Douglas was also perfect as Hank, coming in at just the right time with humor, action, plot, or whatever else was needed. This one is tough to recommend because if you’re an MCU purist, you’ll watch it whether it’s good or bad and if you’re not, then you probably won’t care about this at all. But if any casual MCU fans still exist, I would say there are plenty of better entries to watch before getting to this one.

2023 Count: 4 seasons, 15 movies