Ant-Man and the Wasp Quantumania movie review: Paul Rudd film is a hot mess

The law of diminishing returns was always a clear and present danger for this also-an-Avenger story, much as it liked to emphasise about the importance of caring for the little man. What it had going for it was everyman Rudd as everyman’s friendly neighbourhood superhero. Few could resist rooting for the ex-con dad with the crinkly-eyed smile, with a daughter, and a pretty nifty girlfriend and her family.

Well, say goodbye to all that warmth, and dive deep instead into the hot mess that is the “quantum realm”, or as the film itself calls it, “Quantumania”. In a terrible idea, almost the entirety of the film – again directed by Peyton Reed — is shot in this universe “below ours”, which is “somewhere between time and space”, “beyond void and subatomia”.
Basic science tells us not much can bloom in a world without sun or light. But oh, there is some range of life floating around in this strange blue-orange paletted world – from gooey bubbly, to creatures with orbs of light for face, to perfectly decent-looking humans, to Bill Murray. He saunters in for a quick drink of mini-octopus-like beings floating in coloured liquid, and disappears – guess there is only so much one would do for a paycheck.

No such luck for Rudd, who must shoulder most of the sad attempts at humour here, while being dragged into trouble that he as the Avenger with a successful book now behind him would rather keep away from.

Lily, who acquired space in the title last time as the Wasp, has very little to do, except hang around in the shadow of her illustrious parents – the Van Dyne science geniuses played by Douglas and Pfeiffer. While Pfeiffer is worth the kicks she lands, Rudd’s daughter, played by Newton, who also gets an extended role and an ant-suit of her own, is less effective.

Giving the wafer-thin plot some gravitas is Kang (Majors), who is intent on destruction. You have to take his word for the fact that since he has lived on and on in multiple verses – across time zones and universes – he has seen it all end, again and again. “I don’t live in a straight line,” Kang says, deadpan, serious, chewing his words out, with dramatic pauses – somewhere between Shakespeare and a good, old BJP campaign speech.

It’s an interesting thought, and Kang doesn’t let you forget his “immortality”, particularly when the conflict has lumbered along to its inevitable end – which seems to have escaped him in his multiversal journeys.

There is another question that the film’s bruised, bellowing but never beaten characters keep asking one another: “What does any of it mean?”

Sometimes, it’s good to wait for the answer