Ant-Man 3 is Ant-Man 4 kind of. Let s back up. Full spoilers, by the way.
So, naturally, there s a lot of discourse and takes flying round about the new Ant-Man
film and unsurprisingly, a lot of it s pretty hyperbolic. Having now seen the picture, I
m not really buying into many of these narratives for one, the visual effects were generally
pretty rad. There s maybe a couple moments where it s kinda obvious that the characters
aren t really standing in front of the things behind them, but mostly, the visuals here
are impressive, and at times inventive. Also? Kathryn Newton s performance was fine I don
t know that a recast was necessary, and it s obviously a shame for Emma Fuhrmann - but
Newton s time in the role was solid, with some good moments. Not Daniel Day-Lewis level,
obviously, but, y know, solid. But sitting in the theatre, I kept remembering one post
I had seen beforehand this one, a guy pointing out the lack of really any of the first 2
films supporting characters besides the Pyms. Because the thing is it isn t just characters
that feel curiously absent here. It s also the identity of the cinematic Ant-Man franchise.
Also quick note! On account of the film having just released I don t have a great deal of
footage to edit with here, so apologies. When the credits roll at the end of Quantumania,
and a version of that Ant-Man theme starts playing you know, the one we d heard in the
preceding films, this one: when that came in at the end, a part of me was surprised.
Oh yeah, this is one of these! This was an Ant-Man film wasn t it?
I don t want to spend ages on this point, but, real quick: context matters. More specifically,
when we watch a film, the formal context of that film impacts the way we understand it.
Lord of the Rings: Return of the King is the conclusion of Peter Jackson s first trilogy,
and it s a great film, but that greatness doesn t come merely from that text itself
it also comes from the way it concludes the trilogy, completing arcs, resolving thematic
questions, and so on. Obviously the Ant-Man films exist in a far looser sequence narratively,
thematically, tonally, even than those Lord of the Rings films did I m not trying to compare
how well these two conclusions conclude. This is just to say that we come to expect things
in trilogies, or quadrilogies, or what have you a level of continuity in certain areas,
continuing to explore the same themes, or related themes, often bringing back characters
and cast members besides the protagonist, or settings, and on and on. Not every third
film in a franchise has to.. think trilogically like this Star Trek Beyond s a good example
of a film that doesn t really, without suffering for it but I think it s fair to say that the
preceding film there, Into Darkness, was a more conclusive piece than Ant-Man and the
Wasp was. All of this is to say I don t think those expectations we have for what an Ant-Man
3 ought to be, how it ought to exist in relation to those first two, are at all unfair and
I think the film knows this on some level too. Quantumania gestures toward the first
two films a few times, motions at an attempt to conclude. The secondary antagonist isn
t some Quantum Realm goober like the Bill Murray character, it s MODOK, or rather it
s Darren Cross, the shrunken Ant-Man 1 villain, who reunites and eventually reconciles with
our protagonist, becoming an Avenger, for realises, before a tragic death. The film
even continues the heist motif that s kind of defined the cinematic Ant-Man franchise
in a key moment but it really does feel more like gesturing toward these previous films
than continuing or concluding them, because so much of what drives Quantumania feels foreign
to Ant-Man. Many people have commented that this film
is carried by Kang, that he s the best bit. That may be true, it may not be, but watching
this thing you do get the sense that he was the priority here, that establishing this
character, that kicking off the next part of this Multiverse Saga was an impetus behind
this film s production that was always firmly central. That s why there s no Luis, or Dave,
or Kurt. No Paxton, no Maggie. That s why even Hope takes a backseat here. That heist
sequence? It s about 5 minutes long and it isn t even really a heist. Kang doesn t need
a thief, he needs a guy who can shrink. It s more a reference to the start of this trilogy
than a meaningful development of it. The film s climax sees Kang and Scott grappling at
each other, embroiled in a messy fight, and I think in this sequence, the filmmakers unintentionally
created the perfect metaphor for their own piece because all throughout the picture,
you get the sense that Quantumania is torn, that there s a tug-of-war going on between
Scott and Kang, between the Ant-Man franchise and the Multiverse Saga, and the result is
something still clearly connected to those first two Ant-Mans, but at a remove. This
does still feel like an Ant-Man film, but it doesn t really feel like the conclusion
to the Ant-Man trilogy. A lot of the time, it feels kinda like it s own thing, like the
start of something new reusing some characters from before, maybe in slightly altered ways,
while dropping most other trappings of the franchise, and especially when you consider
that the ways in which Quantumania does revisit, continue the franchise s ideas tend to orient
themselves around a passing of the torch, around Scott seeing the myth of Ant-Man he
s created for his daughter, and grappling with that . This does feel more like Ant-Man
4 than Ant-Man 3, like there s a missing film that s fallen through a crack in reality between
Ant-Man and the Wasp and this piece. Look, I don t want to try and boil down everyone
s issues, even my issues, with this film to that franchise tension. There s other weirdness,
too. Despite how much of a departure this new setting is, I was excited to explore it.
The first 20, 30 minutes of the film had me straight up intrigued in this regard the translation
goop, the living buildings, and all that but there came a point not too far in when the
exploration seemed to just stop dead. No new places, no new concepts, really, beyond that
opening volley. The PR was calling this Marvel s Dune, Marvel s Star Wars, and I do think
that potential was here but, come on, there s like 3 places total we spend time at in
the Quantum Realm, the rebel camp, Kang city, and the multiversal core. I also wonder if
the way the worldbuilding kinda grinds to a halt is the reason the film s gestures toward
ideas of colonialism and imperialism feel fairly half-baked it isn t easy to feel the
severity of Kang s actions here if we only see a handful of affected people, affected
places, and it isn t easy to say something about those actions if that s all you re working
with. That brief aside about the socialist ants is cool, but we see them and their world
for maybe a minute, max. Maybe that s inevitable, though like I suggested in that video I did
the other week about capitalist realism and the multiverse moments of true alterity like
this can only be peripheral. Personally, though, I could look past all
that, look past most other flaws, if it weren t for one thing that the other Ant-Man films
really nailed stakes, specifically familial stakes. I think until this point, that d been
the core identity of the cinematic Ant-Man franchise. Forget the pym particles, forget
the supporting cast, forget the Luis recaps the backbone of these stories, to me, is the
fact that if Scott doesn t manage to pull off these wacky schemes, the thing that s
most important to him, his relationship with Cassie, will be taken away. In Ant-Man 1,
if Scott doesn t find a way to make child support, he can t see Cassie. If he doesn
t manage to escape the cops, ditto. He becomes Ant-Man to try and live up to the person she
thinks he is and crucially, in the film s climax, he has to stop Cross or Cassie is
toast. In the second film, if Scott doesn t help the gang complete that Quantum Realm
caper in time, the terms of his parole are violated, and bye bye Cassie. We know all
the way through that something really important to Scott, something really important to the
viewer, will be lost if the hero fails and that isn t so clear here. I wasn t really
on the edge of my seat too much, particularly toward the film s close. There s a section
of the film, around Scott s capture and that non-heist heist, where those same stakes are
back, in focus, but after that sequence it gets muddy again and particularly in the final
act, when the gang s rebelling together against Kang s army, the cost of failure doesn t seem
so high, or even so present. What happens if they lose? Well, Kang gets out, and does
something bad probably, but maybe not even to our universe, to any characters we know.
Maybe he will start off with 616, but since there s no X-Con, no Maggie or Paxton, since
the gang s all here down below, that doesn t feel as pressing a threat. And even if Kang
does get out all our characters will be fine. His army s going with him, and we know the
Quantum Realm is livable, so for these guys, for the people who we re emotionally invested
in, it really isn t the end of the world. I think the stakes could have been heightened
some if we had spent a little time with those other characters, if the threat posed by Kang
had been made a bit more explicit, if that other threat Kang teases had been elaborated
upon, but most of all if the film had taken it back to that classic Ant-Man drama-well
of family. Cassie s idealistic here I d imagine she d think a lot less of her dad if, albeit
in an attempt to save her life, he d kickstarted the jailbreak of an interdimensional mass-murderer.
This could have been played up the idea that Scott s not only fighting to stop Kang, but
to once again live up to his daughter s perception of him is half-present here, but if that were
foregrounded, if perhaps we were given the impression their relationship would be really
broken if Scott didn t clean up his mess? I think this, I think moves like this would
have resulted in a better film, and maybe more importantly, a more Ant-Man film.
I don t want to be overly negative here and I do think some of the disdain we re seeing
for Quantumania is reductive and hyperbolic. The negatives have subsumed the positives
and there are positives. One thing which I really haven t seen anyone talking about is
the that ostensibly, at least this is the film we wanted, that comic-book movie fans
have been asking for. There s a rare balance of silliness and seriousness here. There s
so many moments that an earlier Marvel film might have lampshaded the don t be a dick
moment, the ants-ex-machina, in which the film buys into this silliness wholeheartedly.
There s no well, that just happened , or wait, that doesn t make sense . This is maybe the
most cartoony, comic-booky MCU project yet, and it embraces that in a way we really haven
t seen too often. It s also the most different one of these we ve seen in a hot minute, barring
maybe Eternals. This is sci-fi fantasy. It s not really even a superhero film, at least
not in the way we re more familiar with. People have been calling for the MCU to do things
differently, to take swings, to really push into different genres, to go to new places,
for, like, forever, and Quantumania makes good on that. It doesn t do it perfectly,
but it does it and that hasn t really been recognised so far.
Maybe that s because the identity crisis, the flimsy stakes are just too big to ignore.
Maybe this comes back to the missing Ant-Man 3. Maybe it isn t Ant-Man 4, but maybe it
should have been. Because maybe a non-trilogy concluding film, a film that didn t have to
force in a non-heist heist, a film that could have felt comfortable dredging the Quantum
Realm for a secondary antagonist instead of bringing someone back, a film that could have
spent more time really getting to grips with the setting, with what Kang had done to these
people, with the stakes of his escape, would have been the way to do this.
But really? Thinking like this for too long is kind of pointless. Because this isn t Ant-Man
4, and it didn t do any of these things. The film we got is the film we got. It s a good
time, but maybe not too much more. The film we got is torn between the preceding films
and the Multiversal future, between Scott and Kang. It s a film that s an ok conclusion
to this series, and an ok Quantum Realm, saga-kickstarting film, but it s not great, truly, at either.
And that s more boring than it being awful, or great, but things aren t always this straightforward.
To a point, there s a lot of complexities here. The film we got is complex. Perhaps
unknowingly, but complex all the same. A lot of you aren t ready to hear this, but films
like this are complex I mean, just think about it! There s a bunch of different cooks, maybe
too many, all trying to balance individual storytelling with overarching narratives,
with corporate demands, and the raw ingredients from which this dish is formed are a hodgepodge
of decades-old characters and ideas, themselves inspired by yet older stories, themselves
never static, themselves remade again and again, different each time. And even the finished
product is never finished Quantumania will go on to be recontextualised for years to
come, with where these characters and ideas go next. Maybe retrospect will polish this
film, will take its moves and developments and push them to places that reveal a sort
of logic or sense to them we can t see right now. Maybe the opposite will happen.
You could get lost in all this the fact that even a film that seems straightforward, seems
like more franchise slop, is made from a thousand moving parts, and can only ever be read provisionally.
But for me? For now? I m comfortable saying that Ant-Man 3 doesn t really feel like Ant-Man
3, that it s a film divided, held back from focusing by this franchise tension. That it
s a film with a fair bit to like, but little to love. But not nothing to love! See, I like
to be positive when I can so instead of concluding on that conclusion, instead of this video
being all about failures and limitation, I want to spend the last section talking about
something I thought was great about Quantumania. I mentioned earlier that one thing the film
is interested in is how Cassie sees Scott s actions. That s maybe the cornerstone of
their relationship, and the thing that drove her to try and become a hero herself. But
Scott never meant that to happen, right? Unintended consequences that s what Quantumania
does right. Across this film, again and again, we re shown unforeseen effects rippling out
from actions taken. Sometimes these are negative Janet s aid given to the traveller leads to
Kang s conquest of the Quantum Realm. Cassie s construction of the Quantum Realm beacon
is what gets them all back into this mess. But it s not all bad Hank s intelligent ants
develop into sentient, advanced life as a result of his actions, helping save the day.
And while Scott s actions, his image, lead Cassie into some trouble at the start of the
film, by the end? They re the reason she s able to live up to that image, to escape,
to inspire the rebellion. Against this, of course, we see Kang a man perpetually grappling
with consequences, with time, with what s going to happen, a man for whom actions don
t motivate consequences, consequences motivate actions. One idea Quantumania dips into, and
I wish it took further, is that conflict between taking good actions and what those actions
might cost down the road. We see it mostly between Scott and Cassie Cassie performing
the kind of reckless acts of altruism that once defined Scott, and Scott now less on
board. If we re being generous to him, he s taking a longer view. If we re not he s
being selfish, and is more worried about keeping his life safe than protecting others. Scott
s become paralyzingly aware of the fact that your well-intentioned actions can result in
negative outcomes and has really tried to stop acting as a result. There is a parallel
of sorts with Kang here while the latter justifies evil rather than inaction because of his supposed
knowledge of the future, both embrace a sort of fatalism. But, at least with Scott, that
changes because of those unintended consequences. Throughout the film, we see, and he sees,
that you can never account for every possibility and that while unexpected negativity might
follow well-intentioned action unexpected positivity can too, that as a result, falling
into that trap of fatalistic inaction isn t the right thing to do. If even Kang can
t predict everything, can t predict he ll get munched on by big based ants, what excuse
does Scott have, do we have, for standing back?
That s cool! That s a cool part of the film. So amidst all that franchise tension, the
imperfect stakes and setting and focus, the last minute rewrites, there is success here.
I think that s the note I want to end on. Thanks for watching, and special shoutout
as always to my Patreon supporters, especially Daniel Longhorn and Ryan Emerle. See you all
next time.