Cinephiles

Quantumania: Darren Rises

Liz Curtin

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Photo by Walt Disney Studios

Quantumania is a wacky yet fun time

Editors Note: This article contains heavy spoilers for the film “Ant-Man and the Wasp: Quantamania.”

“Ant-Man and the Wasp: Quantumania” has to be one of the stupidest movies I’ve seen in a long time, and I loved every freaking second of it. 

It is a cheesy mess with a complete disregard for character development, has strange visuals that somehow manage to be extremely uninteresting, and treats its main villain like a joke. 

However, unlike another Marvel movie I know (cough, cough, “Doctor Strange in the Multiverse of Madness”), it doesn’t bore me to tears and actually manages to, if you can believe it, be fun. 

Let me tell you how by taking you through the plot of “Ant-Man and the Wasp: Quantumania.” To quote Snoop Dogg in the “California Girls” music video, “Let’s take a journey.” 

The film starts by showing us how Ant-Man and the Pym family have become highly successful since the events of “Avengers: Endgame.” Scott Lang has even published a book called “Look Out For The Little Guy” which you can actually purchase in real life. 

But when Scott’s daughter Cassie sends a signal to the quantum realm, someone on the other side creates a portal that takes all of our main characters there. This is the film’s point where the visuals become akin to what, I would assume, it’s like to take a bunch of mushrooms. 

Everything around our characters in the quantum realm is either floating or wildly colorful, and the new world they’re in is pretty unique and interesting. 

At this point, Scott and Cassie, now separated from the Pym family, are taken by citizens of the quantum realm to drink the ooze of a blob-like creature named Veb. This will allow them to understand the language of the quantum realm. 

Veb is also highly obsessed with body holes because he unfortunately has none. Depending on who you are, Veb’s obsession is either really funny or really gross. I, personally, think it’s both. 

Scott and Cassie join the rebellion of the quantum realm against Kang the Conqueror but they are caught by M.O.D.O.K., a mechanized organism designed only for killing. However, M.O.D.O.K. actually turns out to be Darren Cross, Yellow Jacket in “Ant-Man.” 

And yes, all the rumors are true. M.O.D.O.K. looks like Mr. Electric from “The Adventures of Sharkboy And Lavagirl.” But is that really a bad thing? Everyone is aware that “The Adventures of Sharkboy And Lavagirl” is high art, so who wouldn’t want to imitate it? 

After their capture, Scott and Cassie meet Kang the Conqueror who looks equally as silly as M.O.D.O.K. Scott is then forced to help Kang get his spaceship up and running so he can leave the quantum realm and conquer other dimensions. 

But then, Scott is reunited with the Pym family and, through a series of events I would describe as the weirdest stuff I’ve seen on a screen, Kang is defeated. He is defeated by a pile of ants. Literal ants. 

As it turns out, when our heroes were brought to the Quantum realm, so were several ants from Hank Pym’s lab. The ants then became a thousand years more advanced and developed technology that allowed them to overpower Kang. That is so dumb and I love it. 

Plus, M.O.D.O.K. betrays Kang just because Cassie told him he should stop being a jerk, then he dies thinking he’s an Avenger and Ant-Man suffers no consequences for these actions, at all, which is ridiculous but at this point in the film, I didn’t care. 

This movie is clearly just action fluff, but it’s weird and engaging action fluff. If you haven’t seen it, you should definitely go, but keep in mind you probably won’t see something coherent or logical. And that’s just the way I like it.

Liz Curtin can be contacted at [email protected]