The Flop House - Ep.#398 - Ant-Man and the Wasp: Quantumania

Episode Date: June 17, 2023

We've talked about the Sony corner of Marvel more than once, but the relative high quality of MCU movies has saved them from our scrutiny... until now! What did we make of Ant-Man and the Wasp: Quantumania, a film whose very title is a pain in the ass to type out for these show notes? Listen to find out!Wikipedia page for Ant-Man and the Wasp: QuantumaniaMovies recommended in this episode:Torque (2004)What's Love Got To Do With It (1993)Miami Blues (1990)Ever tried Microdosing? Visit Microdose.com and use FLOP for 30% off + Free Shipping.

On this episode we discuss Ant-Man and the Wasp, Quantamania! Are we gonna be members of the Kang gang or are we gonna be FANT-Man? Sorry, spit out nuts while I was doing that hilarious joke. Hey everyone, welcome to the Flop House. I'm Dan McCoy. I'm Stuart Wellington. And I'm Elliott Kalen. Hey guys, how do we get so laid back? I don't know, I'm feeling groovy because I watched Ant-Man in the Wasp, Kwey-Lude. Oh, that explains it. Really takes the edge off of an endless, seemingly never-ending series of decreasingly quality films, hey. Whoa, harsh in mind, hello.

Okay. I don't know who those characters were, but this is a podcast where we watch a bad movie that we talk about, or a movie look. A movie that maybe didn't get such great reviews on the one hand or maybe this is your favorite one. Who knows? I like Marvel movies and this is the first one we're doing. So let's see what happens. True. You say make mine Marvel or make mine Modok is meant. Mm. I say mm.

Mm. Mm. Yeah. That stands for make mine, Modok Marvel. Yeah. And we watch Ant-Man and the Wasp, Quantum Mania, the third Ant-Man film in the Ant-Man series. And with, not a third appearance overall. But let's take a moment, you know what?

As we'll get through this episode, you'll see I have things feelings about this film. But let's say how nice it is to live in a world where you can say the third Ant-Man film in the Ant-Man series. Yeah. I still kind of wish I'd seen the Edgar Wright version of that Ant-Man movie, but.

A hundred thousand percent. A hundred thousand million percent. I'm glad, after bringing on and down with love, he's seeing the success anyway. Yeah. All you have to do is attach yourself Remora like to an enormous bloated corporate IP so that you can gobble up the crumbs that fall out of that shark's mouth as it swims through the ocean. Worked for Martin Scorsese.

Check it out. Yeah, yeah. When he directed, when he directed that Harry Potter movie, yeah, yeah, sure. It was awesome. When Martin Scorsese, he took on the Hasbro library of titles and did that mask movie for the Hasbro cinematic universe, yeah. Yeah, his wacky races for Hannah Barbarra. I would love, honestly, I would love to see more of this. I would like to whack you. Wacky racers, wacky racers, or wacky racers. I don't know. Was it the race that was wacky or the racers that wacky, or other sensible race? I thought, well, what may, I mean, I guess the parameters of the race

were basically pretty sensible, right? It was just, you know, your typical, whoever gets there first. Yeah, you're puttering around through space. It was just your typical whoever gets there first. Yeah, you're puttering around through space. Mm-hmm. Yeah, I mean, aren't we all kind of puttering through space? I know I am these days. Forget about it. Yeah, the older I get.

So we're talking about Ant-Man movies today, right? Or one in particular. Guys, I- Yeah, and this is, as we said, this is the first time we've done an actual MCU Marvel movie. We've done, I feel like every Spider-Man villain's been off. We've done DC movies. And a bunch of DC.

Yeah, and we did the Sony Super Marvel characters, but not the Marvel Super Marvel characters, not the ones in the MCU proper guys. Why do you think this is that we've taken so long to get to an MCU movie? I mean, because they've all basically been pretty good. And I mean, like, I, you know, and pretty good, well, not great is enough to avoid our eye or most of the time. I feel like there's been a, there's been a relatively high level of quality throughout the Marvel series. Now, that high level of quality is sometimes hurt by the repetitiveness of the films. Yes. But it's, they're mostly enjoyable, most the time, right Stu?

I think Scott Tobias on a podcast described the Marvel movies as having a kind of low ceiling, but a kind of high basement, like the best or not, you know, the best movie of the year, I think, but the worst or rarely that bad. Like they're pretty similar. Yeah. They have a pretty, like they all kind of hit in the same zone. It's rare that I'll watch a Marvel movie and I'll feel the kind of despair that I feel watching some of the DC movies where I start being like, I just want to, I just want

to see colorful characters having adventures. Why is the flash saving someone from a bus hitting them, being treated as if there's no beauty in the world. And everything is terrible. Why did Jimmy Olson just get killed? Why did the heroes beat the villain senseless and then chop his unconscious head off his body as they threw him through a portal at his boss? As if to say, you'll get this if you come through. That's not a hero. That did happen. Yeah, we're not just happening. That's, wow, that's pretty wild. That really happened, you know.

What's amazing in that Justice League movie is they bring Superman to life, it's silly, but then he immediately attacks the other heroes and that can just see how tough he is. You know, you see how, you see how powerful he is. But I feel like in the Marvel movies, everyone has a disagreement in fights. But in the DC movies, the heroes are often trying to murder each other in a way that is a little too real, little too bleak, yeah. Guys, you guys are ready to go to the fucking Quantum Realm. Yeah.

I never thought I was and then I did. Now, I'm going to make a confession. This is the first time I've sat through an entire full Ant-Man movie. I watched the first half of the first Ant-Man movie, and then around the time he started being like, I've got powers, what? I lost interest.

I've seen enough movies where people are, I've seen all the movies that I need to, where someone does something amazing and then looks at their hands like, dude, I do that. And so, unless it's Erkle, and he has powers, he's going to do that. I do that. And he goes, he does have power. He powers, he's going to do that. I mean, he does have power.

He suddenly has gone like, power to show America. He goes, got any cheese and then everyone and half the people in the university are turning to cheese and they've got to stop him. But I saw, and I never saw the second one, Ant Man on the Wasp movie that I'm not sure is real. Did you guys see it?

Is that a real movie? Yeah, I saw. You know what, Goggin's in it. Yeah, that mean, I would make a mild argument for the second one being slightly better, because I think it's breezier, like it doesn't spend as much time on like setting a bunch of stuff up and leans into like the idea of like this is just like the zany corner of the, like, where we do a straight comedy.

And then yeah, there's, there's one thing about about those two movies is that they're kind of grounded in the real world of San Francisco. And that Scott Lang has problems that are fairly relatable, like in a sense, like they're, like, I don't want to say they're like low stakes or anything, but they're almost street level problems where he's an ex-con, he can't get caught fooling around with high tech stuff, so he can't break his parole because if he does that, he will lose custody or lose visitation rights with his daughter, Cassie. Even though his ex-wife, Judy Judy Greer is lovely and amazing and

she should be in more TV shows. Why do they cancel her show? Yeah, why did that? And Bobby Conovale, she was not the reason that they canceled her show. Bobby Conovale plays her new husband. And you know what, he's actually not that bad of a guy either. So yeah, yeah. I mean, like, yes, as Sturras says, they're, you know, I mean, and yes, the stairs as they're there, you know, I mean obviously in a real world They would be tremendous bizarre threats, but in the MCU These are small local threats that he's fighting and you know, it's like shrink in and getting big and like they're in like getting a fight So We're in Captain America is like a man out of time and he was frozen

He doesn't understand our he the modern world and Ironman just spent $44 billion to try to prove that he's funny and it's crashing and burning spectacularly. With Ant Man, it's more like, hey, I just got to, I got to get through the day, you know, and maybe every now and then I'll have to fight a bad guy for something. Yeah, and so obviously the thing to do is to put him in a cosmic world where none of that grounded stuff is there. Put him in a two hour episode of Rick and Morty. And it's written by a Rick and Morty writer and it feels like it was, it feels like they

kept saying to him more Rick and Morty, Rick and Morty it up because when they have an alien going, how many holes do you have? And it's like, I don't know, okay, like just, this, let's, at a certain point, it really didn't feel like an Ant-Man movie anymore. And, or even a Marvel movie anymore. It started feeling like what I'll say throughout, watered down Star Wars.

What is that possible? Watered down, but Star Wars is so strong. How can you water it down? Well, we'll find out. Star Wars has been doing it to itself for years. That's what that radiohead song was about. You do it to yourself, Star Wars. That's what that is.

I don't know that song. Can you send me a link? Or can you just sing the whole song? I'll do the tape recorder later. Can you get the stink out of this added special effect? Man, man, man, man, man, you know, you know, wow. So it's a whole song on Star Wars. It's the most the radio had songs about Star Wars.

Yeah, I didn't know that. Yeah, yeah. So kid A, it's Anakin Skywalker. Oh, it actually makes a lot of sense. Yeah, it makes a lot of sense. We're taking a computer. That's what Han Solo tells us. Computer.

When his computer says something that's okay. Yeah. So Ant-Man and the Was the Quantumania. So the first Ant-Man, Paul Rudd gets Ant-Man powers. Second Ant-Man, I guess they introduced the Quantum realm where if you shrink too much, you end up in a, you know, microverse. They actually introduce it in the first one, but it's mainly on this very brief. Yeah. Okay, very brief.

Mainly Ant-Man and the Sofie. This is where my wife, Michelle Fyfe, her went. Dan, you're married to Michelle. What? Michelle Fyfe? Yeah. I don't tell Audrey. And I mean, I actually do tell she would be so excited. It should be very impressed. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Also his enemy Corey stall, stall, stall goes there. You might know him as the fellow who wears a very convincing hair piece in the strain. Oh, okay. Yeah. I guess that is what I know.

He's a villain the first woman now. You know, he shows up as another character that we all know and love. That hasn't acronym as a name. Wasn't he a recurring character on girls also? Of course, all. Oh, maybe. I think that's where I know from. Did he play the, did he play the, he was like, he's like an Anderson Cooper type. It has been so long since I've seen an episode of a girl. So, yes. Maybe I'm getting it wrong. Maybe I think of somebody else.

And there's no way of finding out. It's impossible. I think I'm thinking of somebody else. Oh, no, there he is. Yeah, deal hardcore girls. Okay, that's what I know. That's what I know from. So, so to see him as well, they're kind of isn't. So that's what I know. That's what I know I'm from. So, just see them as a- So, to see them as a-

So, to see them as a- Well, they're kind of isn't. So, let's get into it. Okay. This is one of those movies that has the least of the way this plot is triggered is right out of a 60s Disney-Curtrustle live-action film. So, we start with a goopy-glowy fantasy world. Get used to it.

We're going to be in a world of goopy-purple caves for the ret- like, Rin, Rin, Rin, Princess subconscious for a lot of this. It's just purple everywhere. Everything's kind of flowy and sensuous, but you know, and then it's kind of paisely. And yeah, exactly, yeah. And Michelle Fifer, she's like a, she's like a living there as a nomad or a farmer or something.

She sees a flare and she gets a weapon and she runs out and the weapon is her wasp sting bracelet and there's a bunch of creatures and she shoots wasp sting lasers at them and then she gets saved from the last creature by Jonathan Majors who's like, what is this place? Bum, bum, bum, end of cold open. Now guys, do you think Marvel is a little not feeling great about pinning the next phase of their movies on someone who is not necessarily showing his best face to the world at the moment. A bunch of incredible look accusations against. Yeah. Yeah, I think they're they're they're shuffling. They're shuffling around.

It's like it's like the DC universe was dealing with their whole flash debacle and Marvel's like, well, we don't have to worry about that. And the majors are like, it's also interesting because there's another cast member who had some, like some public issues as well, Evangelion Lilly before making this. There were some issues with her being it. What anti-bac. Anti-bac. Yeah.

And also some issues with Bill Murray and onset behavior. And he is in this movie. Yeah. But with the Evangelion Lilly, it feels like they actually took action because the Wasp has like four lines in the whole movie. It's crazy that it's called Ant-Man and the Wasp and there's very little wasp in this movie. There's not that much Ant-Man at a certain point to be honest.

Oh, it's a fair amount of original wasp. Maybe that's the wasp, please. Maybe. Maybe. They should have called the movie Ant-Man and Wasp and Friends, Quantum Mania. The Ant Family. Yeah. But like, I mean, Ant Family, Quantumania is a great title for this and a better title.

Yeah. But the movie is very much a, like, right from the jump. The movie is selling us on the Kang character, like including both, both post credit scenes are Kang related. Well, yeah, not to jump too far ahead, but I, you know, you, the, one of the post credit scenes, you see a bunch of different versions of Kang and they're all Jonathan majors. But whatever, like if the idea of Kang is there's a lot of different versions of him, I don't think.

Then you can have someone else. I feel like you can recast it, like whatever. But I thought was weirder was, we'll get to that part, but when all the versions of Kang show up, they're just screaming. Like they're just angry. They're just like, they're so happy to be together. They're like, ah, ah, ah, ah, ah, ah, ah, ah, ah, ah, ah, ah, ah, ah, ah, ah, ah, ah, ah, ah, ah, ah, ah, ah, ah, ah, ah, ah, ah, ah, ah, ah, ah, ah, ah, ah, ah, ah, ah, ah, ah, ah, ah, ah, ah, ah, ah, ah, ah, ah, ah, ah, ah, ah, ah, ah, ah, ah, ah, ah, ah, ah, ah, ah, ah, ah, ah, ah, ah, ah, ah, ah, ah, ah, ah, ah, ah, ah, ah, ah, ah, ah, ah, ah, ah, ah, ah, ah, ah, ah, ah, ah, ah, ah, ah, ah, ah, ah, ah, ah, ah, ah, ah, ah, ah, ah, ah, ah, ah, ah, ah, ah, ah, ah, ah, ah, ah, ah, ah, ah, ah, ah, ah, ah, ah, ah, ah, ah, ah, ah, ah, ah, ah, ah, ah, ah, ah, ah, ah, ah, ah, ah, ah, ah, ah, ah, ah, ah, ah, ah, ah, ah, ah, ah, ah, ah, ah, ah, ah, ah, ah, ah, ah, ah, ah, ah, ah, ah, ah, ah, ah, ah, ah, ah, ah, ah, ah, ah, ah, ah, ah, ah, ah, elegant character. And then the end when you see a whole collection of them, they're just yelling their heads off like children. That's why they eggs out him. He was a boring.

They're like, no fun. You don't yell. You're bringing the Kang council down. Could you? You're a real quantum mood killer. So we're in San Francisco. We want more quantum mania in here and you're quantum subdued. So Stuart mentioned to take place in San Francisco. Paul Rudd is a famous Avenger now. Everybody loves him.

He's gone from zero to hero. And he, he is a hope vandine. The wasp eventually Lillie runs the PIM company very charitably. But Paul's teenage daughter Cassie, she's always standing up for her beliefs in ways that get her throne in jail or get in trouble with the authorities. She's a real civil disobedient person. And in this case, they have to bail her at a jail because she used Pim particles

to shrink a cop car down, which is a funny moment when she just slams on the ground and it goes, boop, or something like that. There's a lot of father-daughter attention and really it's because she's disappointed that her dad, Scott Lang, the Ant-Man, that he's resting on his laurels. He saved the universe, sure. But there's so much more he could be doing with his powers and he's not helping people.

I got to admit, this bothered me a fair amount because like, great, Cassie, you know, she's out there actively doing stuff great, great, Cassie, you know, she's out there actively doing stuff great, great for Cassie, but like the fact that she's giving Ant-Man such a hard time about the fact that he's like enjoying himself for a little while, like he did save the universe. He did, and he was like, kind of the most important character in the MCU, like, in in-game, like coming up with a whole idea that helps everything, just like, well, just let him be for a while, like, let the man relax. I think there's a, there's a certain thing, I've, I've thought about this a while, like, out for a lot where it's like in, if you, if in, in most people's life, if you do one thing

that's really heroic, that's amazing, and you'll be celebrated for that forever. But with superheroes, they got to keep doing it over and over again. And I think about how like, if Captain America saves the world once, people like, oh my goodness, you're amazing. And then the world's in trouble again. They're like, cap, are you gonna do? Do you have a captain America or something at one point? Isn't this your job like chop chop? Can you can you save the world again? Or is in the real world, people are not called on to do that more than once, to do something heroic and amazing. But also, you know what, kids are just looking for reasons

to be disappointed in their parents. And this is what's great about this stand, is it creates the sort of character conflict that we can then solve with the story circle, form of storytelling structure. Well, this is a regular, these famous story circle structure. I wanna make it clear too,

I don't think that this, I don't think that this is a, there's too many negatives in this. I think that this is a direction that could have worked. But the movie does not really put in enough leg work to like, like just seeing like Paul Red Happily, like going around town, like reading from his biography and doing stuff. I'm not like, this assholes doesn't care anymore.

You're like, yeah. If you wanna have this character, I should try and find out. He should walk by and all the way while some thugs are beating up a guy and he's like, hmm, too busy as drugs. Which Spider-Man did once in the movies? Possibly the funniest thing that's ever been

in a superhero movie. Yeah, so when he just walks by, those guys beating that person out. Yeah. And the guys like, hell. I mean, to be honest the same thing happens in Guardians of Galaxi 3, right? Where, when they're on counter earth, they just walk by people hurting each other and they're like, oh, animal people, not getting involved.

They have bigger faces to fry, that. Dan. Spider-Man's funnier. Yeah, Spider-Man's funnier. Yeah, Spider-Man is funnier. So it feels like more of a deliberate choice to not get involved. So it feels like a slim, it feels like a TV problem for characters to have. Unless you're gonna, unless you're saying the stakes are high, unless he's doing something that's really disappointing her or she is really involved in a specific thing Or, I mean, the other way they could have gone is like,

Dad, I'm still mad that you missed my recital while you were saving the world, which is also safe. Yeah, but that would have made me more annoyed. She makes one, like, Katty remark about having to, like, take care of herself and then she apologizes for almost immediately, because it's like, yeah, like, you didn't want to be gone for five years.

Yeah. And she's a character, because it's like, yeah, like you didn't want to be gone for five years. Yeah. And she's a character, Cassie's a character who in the first two movies was a child and her main role was to serve as a thing that he is trying to keep in his life. Yeah, yeah. It's a real con-air situation. Yeah. But he tries to interact with her a little bit, but this is kind of like the first time we see this character like fully fleshed out, set up to be the next Ant-Man in

the MCU. Or the character of Stature, which was her codename in the comics. So when she was a member of the Young Avengers, it was the- Because she gets really- The Avengers initially. What's the statue made? Yeah, Avengers Initiative, I think that's what it was. If I'm remembering correctly.

Now, here's the thing, these characters, no one has really fully fleshed out very much in this movie. Like, they don't spend a lot of time giving these characters real personality, or at least like a distinctive thing about them. It feels, I don't know if you felt this way, but it felt like everyone in the movie kind of had the same, was dipping into

the same kind of personality trough, you know, except for Kang maybe. Yeah, Michael Douglas has a different personality, the personality of a man who does not seem to want to be there. But he still has enough movie star charisma that, you know, he's enjoyable to watch. But all of them take everything they're doing pretty lightly throughout it. They're all cracking wise.

Like they all tell the same kinds of jokes. The aliens they meet in the quantum verse all tell the same kinds of jokes and talk the same way. And Michael Douglas, I did read a thing where he's like, he'd be interested in Hank Ben coming back and Ant Man for if he dies in that movie. Like he's fully at the point where he's like, kill my character. Like I don't want to do anymore of this. But there's no, I feel like the characters are not really playing off of each other much. And the way that they create conflict is that Cassie and her is a disappointed her dad.

And Michelle Fifer is continually not telling her family things. that they create conflict is that Cassie and her is a disappointed her dad and Michelle Fyfer is continually not telling her family things that would help them in the moment. And it becomes so excruciatingly infuriating that she they're like, well, we're in the quantum zone and we're being attacked by monsters. There's no time to tell. There's no time to tell you how I know these monsters. I know you protect you somehow, even though we're already here and knowing the stuff would probably be more good. I know these monitors. I know these monitors. I know these monitors. I know these monitors. I know these monitors.

I know these monitors. I know these monitors. I know these monitors. I know these monitors. I know these monitors. I know these monitors. I know these monitors. I know these monitors.

I know these monitors. I know these monitors. I know these monitors. I know these monitors. I know these monitors. I know these monitors. I know these monitors. I know these monitors.

I know these monitors. I know these monitors. I know these monitors. I know these monitors. I know these monitors. I know these monitors. I know these monitors. I know these monitors. that she would know not to do. But anyway, I guess someone saying is characters, they don't always have to do the rational, or the right thing, often characters are best when they don't do the rational right thing. But this is pretty irrational. It makes me doubt the intelligence of this character. So anyway, Hank has apparently helped

and hopes mom Janet Van Dyne, the original wasp, Michelle Fifre, she's back from the quantum zone, but she doesn't want to talk about it. She never wants to talk about her experiences there. And at first it's treated like trauma, but then eventually it becomes revealed. It's more like, it's a dark secret, you know, rather than trauma. She's embarrassed. She helped a guy take over the quantum zone.

Yeah. So Hank, he helped Cassie build a probe for the quantum realm so they can explore it. And Janet gets very angry at the idea of sending a signal into the quantum zone. She demands they turn it off, but it's too late. It turns into a quantum portal and sucks them all in. That's right, this movie starts up with a machine accidentally going bonkers and sucking them in. Like it's an episode of Duck Tales.

Like come on everybody. Later we're given an explanation for this, the villains did it, but it is so sloppy, like, or just, these characters are being so sloppy. They're being so like, they're acting like a Scooby-Doo gang. I feel like at this point where they're like, we got this machine. What's it gonna do? I don't know, turn it on. Like, is that freedom rock?

Turn it up, you know? I'm gonna turn it on before I explain how it works. Yeah, so they're all sucked in. Now they're in and they get split up. The Van Dines, Pitch Slash Pims were one place and Scott and Cassie are another and they're in kind of a weird mushroom kingdom and us getting flashbacks. The Super Mario Brothers movie, maybe we'll talk about it sometime in the podcast. I do think that we should take a little time now that we've been introduced to the quantum

time to talk about the quantum zone. Yeah, let's do it. Yeah, sure. Yeah, I'm, look, I want to offer this disclaimer. I'm going to say some unflattering. You never been to the quantum zone. I'm going to say some unflattering things about the way the movie looks, but I do not think that that is the fault of the artists who worked on it.

I think the artists who worked on it are given unreasonable deadlines by Marvel for everything that I've read, that there's a house Marvel style that like dampens the sort of brights and the darks and the colors in a way that I've got wild about. Well, ironically, since the house Marvel style for decades pretty much was the Jack Kirby style, which is all about bright colors, big bold shapes, but above all clarity, like clear, powerful images.

And it feels like the Marvel movies are all about, yeah, kind of muddy colors and, and, you know, dim lighting and things like that. Well, and if you look at a past Jack Kirby, if you look at artists like Jim Lee, like artists that were the most like, like repopularized comics, it was all about these very distinctive poses. Yes. Like images that really burn into your head. I call it images.

Marvel was about, the characters are super strong and complicated, but a lot of it you write was about like iconic imagery and iconic visual moments. Yeah, and I will say that having seen this in the theater and then rewatched it for this podcast, the computer effects of sort of this realm look so much better actually on my home television than they did in the theater. Well, so you watched it before D, so there's water being sprayed in your face constantly.

Well, I mean, I just think that I wonder that this heavily digital filming, I mean, I know that we have digital projectors now, but like something about like having a high quality like modern, flat screen television with really black, black and whatnot, like this very digital look plays well in that environment. Whereas I do have a question. You probably already did this. I don't want to be a jerk, but when you're at the theater, did you make sure to turn off the motion smooth? Oh, shit.

You should have done that. You thought Nicole Kidman was moving a little too fast when she said, heartbreak feels good in a place like this. I told I slipped the projection as 20 bucks and like, please look at, make it look more like a soap opera. Yeah, yeah. You said smooth the shit out of that motion. But I mean, like, there's like, look, the actual look of the quantum zone, I have no particular

beef with, like, there's like, look, the actual look of the quantum zone, I have no particular beef with, like, there's a lot of cool stuff. And I mean, like, they take, they just take the general idea of small. And so they've got these things that like look like amoeba or whatever, when you're so much smaller than what that would be, but that's fine. I get it. It's cool for a silly. Except, I would say, I would want them to go with that idea of small more, because eventually it just starts feeling like they're walking around those eyes late, you know, or course. Yeah, like it stops

It feels like and it's a once the Kang influence dude He's got his own boring house style. He loves he loves Star Wars I mean and I think that's the thing is there's a just as the personalities the characters are not particularly distinctive The image like the world the rain doesn't feel particularly distinctive. The image, like the world they're in doesn't feel particularly distinctive. It's not like I'm like, even the fact like you think about the Star Wars planets and it's like Endor feels distinctive to you and it's just a fucking forest, you know, it's just woods. But it's so different from the other stuff you've seen Star Wars and it feels like you're

in the woods, you know. And as a, and here I was like, if you asked me to imagine the quantum zone, I'd be like, it's real glowy, like it's real glowy and kind of amorphous and just can't get in and just kind of walking around. But there's no, I don't have a sense of it, you know. It looks like a tech death album cover or something. Yeah. It doesn't have that distinctive iconic thing about it where I'm like, oh, that's what the quantum zone feels like to me.

As opposed to like, I'm trying to think of a modern movie that does it really well. But even like, you look at like everything of a modern movie that doesn't really well. But even like, you look at like everything everywhere at once and like each of the different worlds she's in, feels different from the other worlds that she's in. And I can I can picture those in my mind because maybe because there's something simple about each of them, you know, I don't know. Or maybe if like Tarsam had directed the Columbus. If only I would I Tarsam has not been absorbed into the Marvel universe and there's I'm not a huge fan normally of of directors that I that have a distinctive look or or feel to movies being absorbed into IP but I would love to see Tarsam do a do a Marvel movie.

Oh man, that would be amazing. But the biggest thing I wanted to say though is like this feels to me like the most expensive green screen movie ever made because there's something about expensive green screen movie ever made. Because there's something about the lighting on the characters versus the lighting in the background. It never quite matches. There's a scene where they're like flying, you know, like they're like writing a flying man to Ray. And they're all like moving like,

whoa, like they're in the Star Trek bridge, but they're all like moving in different directions. Like it doesn't feel like they're interacting with. Well, it's because that man array is angelating underneath their feet. Yeah. Yeah. This is what Stuart puts in the incorrectly regarded as goof section of MTV. Have you looked like the manorade's body is unjulating differently on different surface

areas? Yeah. No, but I think there's a, like overall, it feels like a movie that had to be done by a certain time. And so a lot of things are being done without that extra special moment of thought, which I know is hard to do when you're working on the third Ant-Man movie. And it's got to be done by a certain time. It's a bigger scale and more effects than usually in those movies. You've got more actors to juggle. You're supposed to set up Kang, even though he's

already been set up by a season of a television show. It also felt weird, it also felt weird being like, they're kind of hiding Kang. And it's like, I don't know, do you want me to watch all this shit? Or do you not want me to watch it? Because if you don't want to watch it, I know who fucking Kang is. But if you don't want me to watch it, then don't put out so much. I don't know. Don't act like I'm supposed to be happy about it. At the theater, arguing with the ashurers, like, that's what he wants me to believe

that I don't know who Kang is already. I know Kang. I know Kang. I know Kang. I saw him in the show. Anyway, it's, so, back to the plot. Scott and Cassidy attacked by glowing tentacle monster or me but or something, but they get saved by a bunch of sci-fi weirdos.

And we're going to get to know these sci-fi weirdos. They're the rebels. And Janet, we know. You got laser face. You got a, no, I mean, there's a character with a laser for a face, and he's not laser face. And got a no, I mean, there's a character with a laser for a face. He's not laser face. Okay. And I'm sure some of these are characters from the comics, but I did not recognize any of them. You know,

and if you don't recognize any of them, Joe six pack average American, there's no idea. I'm starting to get the feeling I had when I got off a train when the Green Lantern movie came out. I got off a train in Grand Central Station. And I saw a poster that just had a picture of Obin Sore from the Green Lantern movie and it just said Obin Sore underneath. And I'm like, if my mom gets off a train, is she supposed to look at that and be like, oh cool, Obin Sore? I can't wait to see that movie. No, they're introducing you to Obin Sore. They're like, hey, this guy, you see him?

You see what he looks like? That's Obin Sore. And so when you encounter him later, you can tell by the later, you don't confuse him with Gennort or whatever. Yeah, I mean, how can you confuse anyone with Gennort? He's hilarious. Here's, and just that brings me back to one of the things I want to say before I go back to the plot, which is that, so I just saw Guardians of the Galaxy 3, which I enjoyed a lot. There are things that I didn't love about it, but I enjoyed a lot. And it just reminded me like, oh, that was a movie that was introducing new characters for most people. Most people were not familiar with those characters, but they all had like distinct personality quirks. I mean, over time, their

voices have gotten a little similar, which happens to all characters who share stories together. But like, that's what I'm missing from some of these, from some of these movies. Yeah. It's like distinct character voices. Well, and distinct looks. Also, this reminds me, I'm glad you brought up Guardians 3 because I wanted to say, like, to me, like, those are the polls, maybe of this latest phase, like, with Quantum Media at the, towards the bottom, and Guardians 3 at the top.

And like, think about Guardians of the Galaxy Volume 3,. Like sure, there's kind of a little bit of a cosmic repercussion for like stuff that's going on, but the main like through line that you are following is this character that we know and love is in danger, and it is a personal issue that they have to save him. You're talking about Adam Warlock. Yeah, that better be where you're talking about. I mean, I would admit that. I know, I think you're right. There's a personal state to it, yeah.

Yeah, I felt so much more engagement is what I'm saying about what's happening and emotionally caring about them, like getting through their mission, then this movie where I'm just like, I mean, to be fair, honestly, this movie makes a joke at the end. One of my favorite parts about like, was this a good thing that we did,

but we'll get there. But also, it's not totally clear. I mean, I guess their goal is to go home, but even that doesn't seem like they're that worried about it. But I will admit with Guardians, I was glad that every now and then they'd be like, remember, we gotta do this for Rocket, because I'd be like, oh yeah, that, right,

that's why you're doing this. I kind of forgot with all the hub of like, what the, what the line of the movie is. But it was interesting. It is interesting that like in the first two Ant-Man movies, the worst thing that could happen is you could go to the Quantum Realm because there's no coming back from that. And then in this one, they're like,

I were here, let's fuck around. I'm going to go with this. Yeah, there's never a sense of like, Oh no, we're trapped here. We're here forever. Because they around. Yeah. There's never a sense of like, Oh, no, we're trapped here. We're here forever because they got Michelle Fifer out. So I guess they know it's not a one way trip. But at the same time, the level of danger feels incredibly minimal, you know, what about the level of danger fields? Also incredibly minimal. Everyone in the movie gets respect. So, uh, well, Modoc gets respect. And we'll talk about that.

My issues with the portrayal of Modoc. And if they had cast Modoc in the 80s, or I need danger failed with a minute, he would have been an amazing Modoc. That would have been great. Or, what's his name of Lenny and Squiggy fame, not Michael McKean, the other. I have no idea. Yeah. Well, the list there's no home talking about. Anyway, so Janet, what's going on?

And she's like, I don't wanna talk about it. And it's like, well, we're in the quantum realm. Can you explain some stuff, but she refuses to. And she just tells them that it's a whole universe of worlds within worlds, which is the least helpful thing she could say. Doesn't really seem to be true. I mean, they have nothing but time to tell the story now.

Like walking, they have to walk huge long paths and deal with the natives. And they've got a bunch of, she can tell the story what happened. I don't know why she puts it off so long. You know who also would have made a great modok is Gilbert Godfried. He would have been a fantastic. Oh man. Oh yeah. So meanwhile, Scott and Cassie end up at this, the alien weirdos take them to this village

and they make them drink this this translation ooze, which allows them to understand everybody. And the vandaians run into like some Tuscan raider types. And Janet goes through a knife fighting ritual with one of them and turns out their friends of hers. And they give them a flying man to ray to ride. And the aliens are like goofy aliens. They meet one of them is Quas, a telepath who's played by its Cheaty from the good place, right? And it's one of those, and like Scott, and he's a telepath and he keeps hearing Scott saying embarrassing things in his mind. It's a very like one joke. This telepathic character is only used for a comic relief, the whole movie, and it's

the same joke over and over again. You scoffed at the seven holes thing or the holes thing, but I, or like how many holes do you have in your body? But I do like then that like, cheedy, I'm sorry, I would love to call him by his real name, but I, I don't know. No, just his character name. Remember the character, he shows up and is like, he has seven holes and I like, you know, Paul Riddell.

William Jackson Harper. William Jackson Harper. That's right. He was a three name name. I can only remember two names at a time. and I like your Paul Riddler. William Jackson Harper. William Jackson. That's right. I can only remember two names at a time. Paul Riddler has this like look at his face. He's like checking the math. I think that's right.

I think that's pretty solid as a joke. I don't know. Yeah, I mean, it is. It's just one of those things were like, then if that alien character went on to do anything other than talk about holes. Yes. It's just every character, it's like an SNL sketch. Every character has one game that they play forever.

I didn't like, there's like this sort of barbarian woman character which feels like a joke on the idea of like what people like executives think a strong female character is where it's just like, well, it's literally just make her the strongest and then give her nothing else. I feel like the recent Dungeons & Dragons movie, Michelle Rodriguez plays the character and it's good because she has a full character in personality. And here's just like, I don't know, she's strong. But I mean, nobody gets that much personality in the movie, but I agree. It's doubly annoying for that reason.

And she's like, and she's like, you come from the same world as the conqueror. You'll do anything to find you. I don't know why she would jump to that conclusion. The Kang, I don't think it's never shown any interest otherwise. And also like, no, and they go through so many circumlocutions throughout the movie to avoid saying Kang until like the last minute when they have to. It's always he or him or the conqueror and it's something that they do in comic books a lot too.

But it's always bugged me where it's like, you will know when the time is right. Well, tell me now, like it's, it can't hurt me to have information right now. One of these days, one of these days though, it's going to be Dr. Doom and you're going to be so excited. I would like to turn around and be like, ah, no, except they're going to, except they're going to like, they're going to tease it so much. I, no, except they're gonna, except they're gonna, like, they're gonna tease it so much. I mean, that was the exciting thing about Thanos was there was almost no teasing.

It was just, master, they court death. And you knew it was Thanos because he's in love with death even though they didn't go with that in the character eventually. And they turned down, I was like, Thanos, but at this point also, no Marvel character, I think,

appearing in a movie would surprise me as much as Thanos did in that moment. Where I was like, this is a character I never expected to see in a movie because he has no mainstream public knowledge at that point. But now every Marvel character is that when the arrow is star-fogs. Yeah, when you have, when it's just taken for granted, the audience is going to be going to love hearing the X-Men theme song from the 90s as Patrick Stewart rolls out in a yellow

hover chair. Then there's nothing. There's nothing I can't, more the dead teenagers gonna show up at some point, you know, like Night Nurse is gonna show up or maybe she has already probably. That's right. And it stops, at a certain point, it stops being, can you believe we're getting all these characters

into these movies and it becomes more IP, scrape the bottom of the barrel, get more IP, where's the slapstick movie, where's the movie about, where's the great likes of adventures? Yeah, where's the great? I mean, I would love to write a great lakes of engines movie. I've written them in the comics, but the yeah, there's no, there's no character that isn't IPable. So anyway, hurt. So what? He said, Kurt Vodakett slap. Yeah Yeah, Kurt Vodaket's slap is extarring the Marvel characters. So the, so the, the pims, they end up in a corsant, most Iosly looking place full of aliens.

And I, I, I just, like this, this sequence so clearly wants to be the cantina sequence of this movie. Yes, they literally go to a bar. Yeah, movie. And I know that it's impossible for anything to have that impact again, really, but I was thinking about Star Wars and that is like, it takes so long to see any aliens in Star Wars, really. And when we see a new one, we spend time with it, like we like the java show up, and then

we spend a little time with the javas and then like, you know, we see the skater's. The Justin Raiders. And then all of the sudden, like halfway through the movie is like, yeah, and here's an explosion of aliens. You know, and there's a lot of, like, I'm not amazed by this cantina scene if we have already been through so much like, goop and glob. But. I feel like, yeah, right.

It's the movie keeps, there are a lot of scenes where it just shows a bunch aliens and that the impact is is dulled. But having seen them many, but also like we've saw this in a famous movie Star Wars and then Star Wars did it a couple more times in the sequels and it's like just come up with a new place for them to meet. Like maybe don't have the meat at a bar. Maybe I don't know. I think bars are pretty cool guys. Bar is all cool. But even like, especially since I think it's supposed to be kind of a clandestine meeting that they're going to, like, I know there's a pod racing stores, but like show them going to an athletic game or something like that. Like show them going to, I would love to see them going to an alien opera or something like that. Like, and they're like, they can make jokes about that, how inexplicable it is. And halfway through

the opera, the characters are vomiting on each other or something. And another alien is crying because it's so sad. They get to learn about some kind of fifth element. Yeah, well, it's not just one alien, that was one alien thing. Yeah. With an amazing range, Freddie Mercury, eat your heart out. This lady is amazing. Can you get out of here?

You've been deposed. Mike Patton, pack it up, buddy. Rob Halford, there's a new Judas Priesthood town. So the, anyway, but who shows up, but an old friend of Janet's old lover as it's hinted and it's played by Bill Murray. Hey, guys, remember when you were excited by Mill Murray showing up in movies when you didn't expect it? How many years ago was that zombie land?

Was that the last time? Well, also like I it's hard to not expect it wins in the trailer again. We talked about this recently on the show. Not the film. When we were done. If you're gonna make it a fun surprise, make it a fun surprise. You know, don't give it away in the actual trailer. I would say it is a I would say I mean, and Bill Murray's performance in this, I actually like a lot. I think he does a lot with, not very little, but it does a lot with very little. But the, but like, if you really want it

to be a fun surprise, find somebody who's not Bill Murray to do it with. Like at this point, I've seen him show up in cameos and so many movies. I'm kind of done with him. I'm bored with him. Like find someone that, find someone, when he showed up in like Zambi land,

I remember it was genuinely like, oh, we haven't seen Bill Murray in things the long time. It's a funny idea that he would be showing up in this world, and especially that he has a mansion with his initials on the gates, and stuff like that, and he's been pretending to be a zombie for years in order to get by, like find someone that, instead of just repeating the same person,

find someone else who would create a similar effect in us now. And I don't know who that, I mean, outside of like, and this is a little too similar, because he's also from Ghostbusters, like, if Rick Moranis had shown up in this part, I would have been like, you got Rick Moranis in your movie? Like that's amazing. Like, get someone who, the same way that when Bill Murray showed up in Rushmore, it was like, you got Bill Murray in this little movie, like that's, you know, it's, you know, it's, you know, it's.

Yeah, man. And honestly, I'm just, now I'm so excited about this Rick Moran's idea, because if he was like playing it, the same character, like you're seeing Bill Murray be like sort of the loose like confident in his own. The kind of lounge loser. A heel. Yeah, like guy. I mean, like Rick Rance, we haven't seen him do that since like SETV. Yeah. And he's been murdered. He's known for shrinking his own children.

Mm-hmm. Yeah, he has known for that. And, but also, Honey, also wants to look a baby and once he shrunk ourselves. Yeah, it's true. But what if he shrunk himself so small that he entered the quantum realm? I mean, I would love it if it turned out he was the same character from the honey. We should have the kid. I know I should have the kids movies.

When I was, when I was telling my wife and I was like, I was like, oh, yeah, they turn on a device and it accidentally sucks them in. She goes, is this honey I should have the kids? And so it turns, so he's like an old freedom fighter buddy, but now he's thrown in with the bad guy who we still don't know the name. I mean, his name is Krylar and it turns out it's a trap. He's, it's a setup.

And the, and Gentord, the warrior lady, she talks to Cassie and Scott about how the, the conqueror, they still name him, destroy their homes and Cassie's like, we got to help. And, and A.M. is like, this isn't our fight. Let's just get out of here. And it turns, they mentioned Janet and they go, Janet Van Dyne, they've heard of her.

Anyway, Krylar is like a lot of people died because of you, Janet. And that's when Kang's troops show up. And then the, and then, are they really cool or anything? They are not. They're not cool. For a movie that otherwise is full of weirdo aliens, they're just like guys in armor with like, glowing bubble helmets. Okay.

Like, a lot of Missourios and they're not particularly tough. They're not particularly. Mysterio, one of the coolest character designs of all time though. It's an amazing impractical character design. He has a huge fish bowl on his head. He wears green checked pajamas. He has like eyes on his cape clasp. The biggest cape man, good wear.

His gloves have these weird kind of like sharp curlicues coming off the school, the answer them. Oh, just, you can't, walking around in that costume, must be incredibly uncomfortable and hard to do. Okay, so they show up and also, but they've also sent the ultimate weapon. He is sent the ultimate weapon. He threw him at him and I'm like,

you cannot have two characters that you're referring to only by their pronouns and not naming them because they're trying to hang and also Modoc. That's right. Modoc showing up. And the heroes fight Kang's troops and some aliens and then they run off in Krylar's organic ship and Mike Douglas has to stick his hands in some goop to make it fly and so forth. And so the alien refugee village gets attacked by Kang's troops, lasers, aliens, there's electrolassos. Cassie

runs in, she's got her own Ant-Man suit and Scott saves her and tries to teach her his trip, trick where you suddenly get very big and punch someone in the chin. And they're Ant-Man suits. This is all digital at this point, right? They don't actually have, yeah. I don't like this anything else. I feel like as a movie or two, they had like actual physical helmets that they put on their heads. I mean, they might sometimes, they might occasionally, but it's mostly all digital, yeah. Now, I, yeah, we're about to talk about Modox, so this better be important, Dan.

You've put too much weight on it. It's not important at all because I just like continue to have trouble with the premise of Ant-Man and his powers because like part of it is like, I guess you have the same proportional strength when you're ant-sized. So what is the virtue of suddenly popping huge before punching? Surprise, Dan. It's called surprise. They can't stop from getting punched in the face. Yeah, but you don't, you can surprise them by being an ant-sized man who is punching them. Like I don't, you know, that's actually a good point. But how you get up to their chin, you can't jump that high. You don't have proportional jumping

powers. Oh, yeah. What? So you're doing, is your like, you're not, he's not flea man. Flea man like a base for the red hunchie leap effort. Okay, so you got to become big just so you can jump enough to then pop into small and then punch. Yes. That's the strategy. Something like that.

I don't know if your description is exactly accurate. Well, I mean, we'll also look. I mean, there's a move list on the. Let's take a couple. Let's just say to any. To civil war, ant man is like juggling a plane around when you still supposed to have goddam

proportional strength i don't understand now you're saying when he gets super big you would only have normal he would have anything would be weaker because the molecules is but your further away well okay damn let's well let's say one that because

of the weird cube law if he got bigger his body would be unable to support himself and he would collapse and die instantly. Yeah. So let's not worry or his life. No, it would make for a very good movie. It would not make for a good movie.

So let's just get science out of the way in that one. Physics would, if he turned big, his knees are exploding and he is falling to the ground. No, I think so. I think he can make himself bigger without having to get like calf extension surgery. Have you seen these guys that get this on the air? Where is it? How do I do that? I don't think you'd like it because do you really want to be taller but with little

short arms? Do you want to be a human tyrannosaurus? Yeah, do you want to be a human tyrannosaurus? I actually like this my dream. Yeah, of course. To make it clear, I don't mind about, I don't mind any of this. I just think it's funny. No, so let's get the science straight.

Okay, so according to you, when he gets really big, he should be super weak like a giant kid. Yeah. And but when he's, because he has proportional human strength at all times. Okay, now let's look at him. The guy's had a hard time. He's the next con, hard to get a job. His daughter is not happy with him.

Now you're going to bring physics to bear against physics, the most implacable obstacle of all. I thought you were going to. We'd be able to travel through time and fast on the speed of light for wasn't for physics. Physics is the ultimate buzzkill. That's true. You ever wish you could fly too bad you can't. Physics says you can't. Physics is a big jerk. So you know, I'm going to say I'm going to take a, I'm going to take a proud anti-physics stand. I think I stand, I speak for the flop house when I say physics, get out of here. We don't need you. We don't want you anymore. And this is not a Harry in the Henderson's. I'm telling you, we don't want you because we love you. We're trying to save you type of thing. This is sincere. This is honest. Physics, you're burnt.

This is what you say until we start floating up into the air because a stirring rubber video isn't working anymore. Yeah. I thought you were going to go somewhere else though, like when you're like talking about how what a bad life you're going to be like, so that's why the Avengers all got together. And they constructed this balsa wood plane. So he could fight it. They were like, look, it's that hard time.

I know we're all fighting the super real civil war, but can we do a solid for Ant-Man and just make a fake plan? So we think it's strong. And it's a little more confident. You know what, let's make the plan a cake. He'll pick it up and he'll be like, I'm so strong and then he'll see a delicious cake and I'll be so. And the end game when he punches that giant floating space lizard, that thing was fake

too. And he was really punching. He was just falling. Yeah, Thanos is in on it. Thanos is like, I want to destroy the half of the universe. But Ant-Man, we got to keep this ruse up because I would hate to see him cry. Oh, yeah. Make my titan's heartbreak.

Thanos has a sense of fair play. He's all about balance. And he thinks Scott Lang deserves a little balance in his life. He's had so much bad stuff in his life. Time to balance it with some goods to. So Thanos is using the Infinity Gauntlet's like make a lottery scratcher that is guaranteed to win if Scott not to win too much. You can't over balance this. You can't retire, but it win like $5,000. And when somebody shows up the lunch order they're like, and it looks like somebody ordered a black and white cookie, half black,

half white, up Thanos. Thanos, of course. It's the most balanced dessert. Yeah, we're aware. We're aware you feel that way. It's the serialest part of this balanced breakfast. You can only say that because you're having a grapefruit with it and some lean protein. I never guess my favorite gymnastics routine, the balance theme. Thanos, we know it's the balance theme. We know it is. Yeah, it's your favorite scene from Final Destination is the one with the balance theme. Now to put on my sneakers, you'll never guess what brand new balance. We know it's new balance, Thanos. You wear new balance sneakers.

We know it. Mm, you know my favorite, my favorite choreographer, balance sheet, because it sounds kind of like balance. And ballet dancers have to keep their balance pretty well. No, he's got a good point. He's ready to paint us. He's ready to paint us. Yeah. Uh-huh. No, he's got a good point. Yeah. Lairs. Lairs. Yeah. Uh-huh. Okay. Well, anyways, so some, so some Modak attacks. Let's

talk about Modak. I feel like a ran out of juice though. So, so Modak, he's a, he's in the comics. You know, he's a big giant head who floats around with a little arm, little legs. He's got mental powers. He's the mental organism designed only for killing. They change that here. I think to what mechanical organism or something like that are mobile organisms designed only for killing. And there's a big reveal that Modok knows them. It's actually their old archfowl Darren from. Corey stall.

Yeah. Corey stall yellow jacket from man man. Was he an ant man too? No. And he was in the quadriple. As far as we knew, he had died in the first day. from Nant Manning. Was he an Ant-Man too? No. And you said the Quantum Zone? We knew he had died in the first century. Yes, but instead he got sucked into the Quantum Zone and Cain turned him into Modok.

And I have to say, I am not a huge fan of the way they have shoe-horned Modok into this mythos. Okay, well, because I was going to ask, Ellie, here's the thing. For me, a man who has no particular history with Modoc, other than I could, you know, I could, you know, if you showed me a picture of Modoc, I could say that's Modoc. You could pick him out on a lineup, a lineup of giant heads. You could pick him out of his life. You could also be strung on about Modoc. You could pick up Modoc. Yeah.

You could also pick him out of the lineup and Marvelous Capcom threw you the video game because he's one of the playable game Who else would be on that big head lineup like Bach from from from from the video games and Sam the eagle Maybe maybe like the boss baby would be on there boss baby definitely yeah the most baby would be on there. Boss baby definitely. Yeah, mega mind. So, dude, you don't have-

My point is, as a man with no particular, I have affection for Modok in the sense that, like, as the sort of person I am, the idea of a floating head of a mechanical body that killed people is cool. But on the next- You've ended up- You've ended up-

You've ended up- You've ended up- You've ended up- I've ended up- I've ended up- I've ended up- cool, but I guess it's not so much that he has a huge head with mechanical arms. Those are his arms and legs, but his head is so enormous that it's become his most of his body. Right, right. But okay, because if you make it to the head, you're dead. For me, that person, this was a fun use of a previous character I was not going to expect. I think that's to, and you know what, there's something to be said for tying up a loose end and not

introducing yet another human who has fallen through the quantum zone. I think my preferred version of this would be to have a different character than M O D O K. But that's me. I'm being a comics snob, I guess. To me, M O D O K is a Captain America bad guy. He's created by advanced idea mechanics and one of the things that I like about Modoc is in his original origin. He is like the janitor. He's someone of lower intelligence that they use as a test subject. And it makes him so powerful that he takes over the whole place. And I love the turnabout of the guy that they use as a guinea pig becoming their boss. But and of course, we don't have to get into Modem, the female version of Modoc, who showed up many years later. But there was something about, does she have like a little pink bow?

No, she does have lipstick though. She does wear lipstick, but she does not wear a bow. She is an enormous lipstick, the size of a howitzer shell that she, I guess, has someone else applied to her. Go to Be a militia. She's a large. Put XXX behind it when you hear her. Modam. the ex ex behind it when you do your church. Mo Damned.

And I think the more it was this like, I think that they've done a lot with the Marvel movies, which is fine, but that where they take a character that I think there's more opportunity with and they kind of use them as a joke character. And part of it is also that like I just didn't love the way that the head stretching effect looked. It just looked so silly to me, which is okay if it's a comedy character I guess. I can't wait. I like this one.

Yeah, she's, yeah, she's got something. Oh, damn. Oh, don't even try. You're not ready for it. She'll destroy you. You can't handle it. I think it is a comedy effect. And thus I don't mind it.

Like, he's a comedy character. He just looked so much like it was just his head on a screen rather than like a rather than a three-dimensional giant face. It was kind of like when I went to see the Jean Paul Gautier exhibit at the Brooklyn Museum and they displayed all the clothes on mannequins that had blank faces and they projected video footage of models faces onto those, the bat-blank canvas. That's kind of what it looked like. That's what it looks like. He's like a haunted mansion type thing, where you're projecting a face on a head.

That's a great way to describe it. And Modok, he's explained how he became Modok and that Kang found him and turned him into Modok. And now he's the ultimate weapon, but he's still kind of a joke. Nobody takes him seriously. And it turns out he's the one who pulled them in. He got Cassie's signal and pulled them into the quondiverse. How he turned a like a probe that emits a signal into like a portal that sucks things in

science. It's comic science. He's a floating head with two little legs that shoot stuff like a laser buzz saw that comes out of him. It's okay. And anyway, and meanwhile, Janet still will not tell her family who the fucking villain of the movie is. Yeah, let me just speak of that.

Let me check the clock. Still have an, he hasn't even shown up yet. No, it's an hour into this podcast. Okay. And so, and so an hour into the movie or more. And so now we finally get the flashback. She talks about meeting Kang. He was stranded in the multiverse. They became roommates and best buddies and they fix his

his time ship that can travel through the multiverse. And when the ship is fixed, because it runs on mental energy, when she touches it, she sees his past psychically, which again, comic book science, who cares, it's fine. Don't worry about it. And she learns that Kang was a conqueror and that he was deliberately exiled to the quantum verse, although she does know by who or why. And so instead of letting him take the ship home, she destroys the energy core with her pin particles by making it enormous, trapping them both in the quantum realm. Why is she never thought of using those particles to make herself super big and maybe get out of the quantum zone that way? I don't know. It just it never seems to be anybody. And Kang, but now Kang has

his suit again. I guess while they were building his ship, he also gave himself a new suit instead of Armory found it in the closet. He couldn't get it before. And now it looks like Kang suit from the comics. Oh, for sure. I mean, it looks the suit there. I thought the design they worked with with this looks great. It looks really good. It looks like the comics. He still has that kind of purple clown face that I that is both chilling and I'm so hilarious. Like a hard-to-couple gesture, yeah. Yeah, yeah, exactly. I find one of those times where you're like, Jack Kirby, I don't know what you were thinking with this design, but I'm all over it, yeah.

I want to say I found the performance of Kang to be more intriguing and sort of like to be more intriguing and sort of like, even though we don't know, we don't know, in quotes, he's bad at that point, quietly menacing, when he was playing nice and thoughtful, then later on when he just becomes kind of a guy, he walks around saying hushed whispers of dramatic things. Yeah, it feels like he's building to be more of a real character

than he is. And it becomes kind of one note after a while. I felt that way too. That when he was playing a mental game, it was interesting to me, but then when he's just a guy who walks from going, tell me again, how many Avengers have I killed? I said, I liked it. And I just got bored of it after a while. I liked it more than when he was in Loki.

I felt like he was, there's something off about it. That, he was a little bit more manic in Loki. Like he's jumping on desks and things like that. Yeah. I missed a little bit of that because here his, his two modes are either hushed quiet or just screaming while he shoots lasers at people. Yeah. And it's kind of nothing in between.

But anyway, Kang, he takes over the quantum verse, Janet fought him until she got rescued and brought home. And now the vandyne's they've out to save the others, but keep Kang trapped in the quantum verse because he's a danger to the multiverse. Kang introduced himself to Ant-Man and Cassie and he's like, Ant-Man, go get the energy core for me because an army of Kang's is coming. I don't actually, I don't know if he says who's coming, but he says something bad is coming and you need me for that. And Scott's like, no, so Kang threatens Cassie and so Scott to save his daughter. He jumps into the

the core holder, that big thing that got big to get the core for Kang. He's got to get the Kang core. They're like, if you want to save Cassie, get the Kang core. And he's like, core, core, Kang? No, the Kang core for Kang, the core Kang for core, core, core, and why did you hear? You're now, you're, you know, the Kang core, catcher keeper. Now, Kang's like a super genius, right? And he's like an inventor and everything. Like a wild E coyote. Yeah. What? Yeah. Yeahcoyote. Yeah, why did he just fix this shit himself? Because Stewart, then it wouldn't have a reason for it to be an Ant-Man movie. What if?

Oh, okay. That makes me think. Because this villain and this hero do not really match each other. Because one, as we've said, is a low stakes shrinks or gets bigger, small scale guy. And the other is a time traveling conqueror with God-like technology. And otherwise, there's no reason for them to even know that they exist each other. It annoyed me so much when he goes, he's like, which Avenger are you? I forget you all mixed up because I've killed you so many times.

So you the one with the hammer and then later calls him Ant-Man and it's like, dude, were you just pretending that you didn't recognize him? That is not cool. Maybe he was just trying to, yeah, he was fucking with him. That is a, that's a, that's a, that's a dorky move. To be, oh, which one are you again? The one, are you the one with the shield? You can tell I'm a shrinking guy.

You know who I am. You're a genius, right? Anyway, so he jumps in. Uh-oh, he starts splitting into a million people. Turns out he's in a probability storm. Here's a cool idea they don't do too much with. It's a, Rick and Morty bit. He splits up into a million different ant men

and one Scott Lang who is dressed as if he's still worked at the ice cream store that he got fired from. And it's like, to be, there was an episode of Duck Man years ago where he breaks the time space continuum and he's every move he makes, I'll be watching him because it was a great show. But every move he makes, he's being confronted by the possible result of that, like he goes into one room and he finds out he's going to be eaten by a lion. So eventually, so he goes into another room and he finds out he's gonna be eaten by a lion. So eventually, so he goes into another room and he finds us in bed there.

And I felt like that episode did such a better job of like showing multiple variations of a person's future than this one were there. It's like in every universe you are Ant-Man, except for one where you work at the ice cream place. And that's it. In the infinite variations of the multiverse, the same way that in Dr. Strange, they're like in the multiverse, there are infinite variations. Like in this world, red means go, and green means stop.

Ooh, devilishly different. Yeah, that would fuck you up. Well, I also... It would, you'd get used to it eventually. Look, far be it for me to be like a cinema sense science cop, but also the problem I had with this, and again, I realize it's mostly just here to provide a cool visual.

It is kind of me. Yeah, it looks cool that lots of ant men. Yeah. Yeah, but like if each of them represents what a possible Scott, then I don't understand how they're all able to work together. Like if they're all just like possible futures, I don't understand how they all work together

to raise him up. Like, that doesn't seem to make sense to me. Well, I know that, I mean, they all become, they're all possible physical beings, I guess, you know, in this probability storm. I guess that's true. But that's true. But that's true. Because in order to save Cassie, they helped the true Scott's got prime to get up to

the core and Janet Hope arrives and saves him when he's about to fall. The cancord. The cancord. Yeah, when he grabs a cancord, so, so, yeah, yeah, he grabs the cancord and yeah, yeah, he's very painful and do not look just don't get salt in it, okay? Very painful. And Janet starts briefly turning into alternate Janet's and then I guess through the power of sheer will, she just doesn't allow that to happen. And they take it back to Kang and Kang takes it

and it beats up everybody and he decides to take Janet with him and that's when Modok attacks, Hank, because there has to be, every character has to fight every other character in different combinations. And Kang explains the origin to Janet that we already know if we watch the Loki show, it's like again, there's a, there were all these Kangs and when they travel, they create multiple universes and they fight each other and it makes a big civil war throughout space

and time. And so he's trying to avoid that. And Scott and Hope wake up to find that Hank has a bunch of ant farm ants that were they sucked in at the beginning of the movie. They were sucked in at another time. No, they were sucked in with. We saw them. Yeah, they had an ant farm.

And they saw an accident. And the ants have had all this time in the quantum verse and they've developed super technology. They've evolved amazingly. And am I going to say this is a rip off of the book city by Clifford Simack? Yes, it very much is. Because then that one also ants develop into a super advanced technological civilization. Do they wrestle and eat up on a gang? No, they don't. Instead their entire culture is about commemorating and getting revenge for the time that a man kicked over their ant hill. It's what causes the dogs of the world

to leave and find their own new world because it's being overrun by ants. Anyway, Cassie frees the warrior woman whose name I've already forgotten from jail and they team up and Kang starts addressing his troops via hologram, but Cassie interrupts the feed and gives a rousing rebellion speech, which rouses all the alien weirdos to start fighting. And we see that in the limitless quantum verse, there's like 60 people, like there's like 60 dudes and then there's like like 200 troops. Like it's not, it's a small, small scale world. No, nobody attended.

Uh, and uh, Maudak shows up and he's fighting and he's about to kill Cassie when Scott arrives as very giant man and calls out Kang and Kang sends a fleet of little spaceships after him and then the rebel forces come in. That'll battle. Giant man in the quantum realm. Still pretty small. Still microscope. Yeah.

Yeah. It's all relative. Yeah. That's what Dan. So Dan, you're the arbiter of this. Yeah. What level of strength does he have at this point? Because he's giant for them, but he's still microstopic for us.

And you've appointed yourself judge, jury and psychcution for himself. I would say he's extra strong because he's just so compact, man, at this point, those particles are tight. Yeah, he's tight. He really, he's just a part of the world. He's a part of the world. He's a part of the world. He's a part of the world. He's a part of the world.

He's a part of the world. He's a part of the world. He's a part of the world. He's a part of the world. He's a part of the world. He's a part of the world. He's a part of the world. He's a part of the world. He's a part of the world. He's a part of the world. running, which I found dorky. And I'm not sure if you're supposed to find it dorky or not. Because I think it's a dorky alien character. It says anyway, battle battle battle aliens versus

troops, Cassie versus Modok, Antman versus Kang's time ships and the force field thingy around the Kang ship or whatever. And Cassie gets giant and beats up Modok and tells him to stop being a dick and says, there's always this, you can always stop being a dick. And he's like, but I'm such a dick because he can always stop. And that's his arc is he decides to stop being a dick. And it dies as an Avenger. I think guys, I don't know. He hasn't died yet. He hasn't died yet. I don't know, man. 2023, I think a pretty good motto is, remember, you can always stop being a dick. That's true. It's not the moral that we want, it's the moral that we need.

Or not even more we deserve, yeah, the moral we need. And Kang tries to launch his ship, but Wassup and the Ant-Man stop it, and Cassie and Scott are reunited, and Kang zaps people with lasers, and the Rebels run away, the Rousing speech has worn off.

Is lasers or fucking nuts, man? It like, he dusts the people, he shoots at them like they're fucking vampires in a blade movie. Yeah, yeah, they're purpled as all of her type things. Our heroes are fighting with Kang, the Super Ant Army shows up, and they overrun Kang's troops,

and Darren attacks Kang, and I guess Breaks Kang's force field or something, he gets through it, and Kang is swept away by ants, and Modok dies, saying, at least I died in Avenger, and they're all like, yeah, I guess you were. Yeah, because even someone dying right in front of them, someone they know cannot stop the quips. Not a keymaker, Joe. And I was like, and I know it's like a silly movie.

It's an Ant-Man movie. He's Modok, whatever. But the fact that they're literally like, he's dying in front of you. Has Cassie ever seen a man die right in front of her? And yet they're all still like, oh yeah, sure, man, like they still not taking this seriously. It's super screwed up. I loved the Paul Wright after Bodeck dies. He's delivery like a lot of stuff happened today. It's a very funny, it's a very funny delivery of a joke that instantly removes me from any emotional connection to any character in the movie.

Because it's again, even if this was a villain of yours, it's someone you knew, someone you've known for years, and they're dead, right in front of you. I don't know. I can't take this version of Modox seriously enough to... I don't know. Now, I'm going to question you guys. I'm asking you as the audience to care whether he becomes, feels like he's had a redemption arc, you know. When with with Kang in his lasers, he just shoot anyone and turn him into dust immediately

because probably I mean, he could do that super easy multiple times. Well, that's it's like so superhero rules function kind of like ninja rules where as everyone knows, ninja math is that if one ninja is fighting you, they are incredibly unstoppable. They're a killing machine. But for each additional Ninja that fights you, each Ninja becomes proportionally less powerful and weaker. And if you're attacked by 20 ninjas, you can just knock them over with a glass of water. They disappear into dust back to the handheld where the beast lies to eat to their

other souls. But so with this, I think it's similar where it's like the superhero characters have like mega plot protection. And so all those other people, they can easily get zapped, but the superheroes are like, they're protected by the, by their superhero main character ness, you know, by the lasers. He's like, oh, if only I brought the lasers that kill main characters, not just the kill. Yeah, you got to change the setting. Now, this, this, the, the casualness towards death here did not bother me as much as in Guardians Three when Star Lord goes, okay, Groot, kill them all. And they're just murdering everyone who works for a, for a high evolutionary.

And at the end when they have the chance to kill the high evolutionary, they're like, no, because we're heroes. But it's a little of my exploding spaceship. And it's like, oh, so it's okay to kill labor, but not management. Thanks, Guardians. So if I take a paycheck, because I have to maybe, and work for someone who is not the best, it's okay to murder me, but the guy at the top making the decisions, he's untouchable. That's okay.

He's sped up. That's a harsh rebuke for James Gunn's writing, a man who has not written anything in support of the WGA so far. That I don't know about. Is that true? I think so. Yeah. Interesting. Well, okay.

Looks like James has got a gun to quote Aerosmith in a way that doesn't make sense here. So keep Kang from going through his portal and Kang, but everyone else goes home. So Janet opens a portal home. Everyone gets there except for Scott and Kang stops him from leaving and then Scott fights Kang to keep him from leaving the portal. And Kang really beats the shit out of Ant-Man. He's just like destroying him. As frankly with their power sets, he should. He should, although Ant-Man, for at this point, decides, Ant-Man doesn't use his powers

at all in this fight, right? Like has he run out of particles? Maybe I don't know. Yeah, I don't know, I don't know. But it's like Kang was holding back before Antman's holding back now until Wasp returns and bless Kang into a machine that then turns into a different portal. It's a way of, I guess, not sitting in him instead of having him making it so he can come back later.

And every machine can turn into a portal in this movie. If it's a machine, watch out when you put your toast in your toaster. You're red, don't put toast in your toaster to begin with. You put bread. If it's already toasted, I mean, let's do a toast to some more. Super toast. What's your call? Super toast. In a way, a toaster is a portal to toast. That's a good one. Good way. It's a time machine because you put bread in and then in a minute that ran into the and no,

it's been transformed into toast. That's not aged. Yeah, rapidly. If you leave bread out, it will naturally turn into toast over a long period of time. But the toaster speeds up that process. Oh, yeah.

What walks on four legs at dawn? I see toast legs at night. Using the power of Pimper Neckle particles, it does that. So anyway, don't touch any machines. Don't touch your phone, it's a portal. Don't touch your car, it's a portal. Don't touch your CPAP machine. You'll always get stuck to a portal while you're sleeping.

But now Scott and hope are trapped in the quantum verse for about three seconds until moments later Cassie opens a new portal and just lets them through it and now we're back where we started San Francisco Scott has a similar monologue to what he started everything's great except he starts worrying wasn't Kang warning them about some kind of big evil thing was it the right thing to get rid of him maybe you you did the wrong thing. I don't know. And he's left in this state of what I guess, I guess John Keats would call negative capability, this ambiguous, ambiguous uncertainty. They have to live in until we get to the mid-credits scene.

Unless Daniel says before we get to the mid-credits. I do not know. I do not know. I do not know. I do not know. I do not know. I do not know. I do not know. I do not know. And I think when we talked about Ant-Man quantum maneuver before, when you hadn't seen it, I like this sort of comic disquiet that this ends on because there are so many of these

superhero movies where people rush in to a world that they're unfamiliar with. Like, what? The world's Russian. Like, Matt and Harry and Sama Hayek. Yeah, they, you know, vanquished someone and maybe they need to be vanquished, but like the details of the bigger picture are unknown. And I like that this movie has him issuing a warning

and then has Scott the end being like, what was all that bad? I don't know. What did I do here? I would like it more if it wasn't so clearly a setup for another movie. If it was really like, oh, now he has to, it's a funny way that he has to live wondering, like, did I do the right thing there? But we know, there's going to for another movie. Yeah. If it was really like, oh, now he has to, it's a funny way that he has to live wondering,

like, did I do the right thing there? But we know there's going to be another movie because mid credit scene, we see three other gangs. One of them I didn't recognize, but the other two are, of course, Ramatut, the Egyptian version of Kang, really the first version of Kang to appear in the comics. And my second favorite Kang, Amortus, the old geyser at the end of time who hates younger Kang and just sits around, you know, with doing whatever the time lords tell him. And the voice that Jonathan Majors chooses for Amortis is hilarious. It

is such a cartoonish old man voice. I felt like, like, yeah, it's pretty great. It sounds so goofy, like, like someone being an old man in a high felt like, like, yeah, it's pretty great. It sounds so goofy, like, like someone being an old man in a high school play or something like that. I'm, we have to do something. Oh, these heroes. Anyway, and they've assembled everyone and all the gangs show up. And as we mentioned earlier in the episode, they're just shouting, not stop. They're not even saying words. They're just shouting, making noise, hollering. It's good to be together. It's like a family reunion. Yeah, now I know.

Imagine you were in a, I'm guessing some kind of weird like, what is that? What is that? Like a big, like they're at like a venue, like they're about to see a show. Yeah, it's like an amphitheater. It doesn't look like an amphitheater. It does look like they're at WrestleMania, and they're all just cheering because something wrestling is going to happen.

You know? But imagine you are at WrestleMania, and everybody in the audience is you I'm shouting too that's and all the wrestlers I mean everyone that shows up is posing the way you Or I would be shouting fear that's gonna the thing that I like is that it would leave it up to the audience Well, I was asking about you personally, but sure you will leave it up to the audience decide. Well, okay. Well, I was asking about you personally, but sure, you will leave it up to the audience. I'm a mystery audience.

You can decide whether Stuart would be shouting with excitement or fear. Yeah, leaving that uncertainty, Stu. And so I hope that they bring in, when they do the Kang stuff, I hope they do bring in the facts that the Kangs don't like each other, that in the comics,

Ramata and Kang and Immortis are the same person at different times in their life, and none of't like each other, that in the comics, that Ramatut and Kang and Immortus are the same person at different times in their life, and none of them like each other, and they're always trying to stop the other one. Even Kang hates that he's going to become Immortus. He thinks Immortus is this kind of like impotent, boring old man who has given up conquering, and I just love the idea that he's like,

ugh, I hate that I'm gonna become you. I don't like this. I'm gonna do whatever I can, I can kill you, so I don't have to be you. And they, I hope that they bring in some aspect of that that the gangs don't like each other. But then we have an end credit scene. Guys, are you ready to see the true face of Kang?

Uh-huh, yep, yep. Because we're in like the 19th century or the early 20th century. It's like a vaudeville type stage and victor timely. Jonathan Maj majors dressed up in old timey clothes is getting a talk about time. And we see in the audience who's there, but Loki and agent Mobius from the Loki TV show. That's right. Owen Wilson and Owen Wilson is like, wow, I thought you said he was like some scary guy and Loki's like, he is. And then the text comes up, Kang will return. And it's like, no shit, dude.

You spent the whole end of the movie building up Kang. Like, of course he's gonna return. But as if he's the hero of the movie now, as if the movie is already like, we're bored of Ant-Man. You notice that all these Ant-Man characters weren't really the stars of the show? It's because we're tired of them. We're all about Kang now.

Kang, Kang, Kang, Kang, Kang, Kang, Kang, that that that that that that that that that that that that that that's all they care about is Kang now. And I want the answer. Question I have for you guys is, with all this this build up can has now been built up in a television show and this movie are you excited about more can. Well, I think this is a I think that's a complicated. I think it's a complicated question.

I feel like there's a little bit too much setup, but maybe not. But I am confused to see, I wonder what marvels going to do. Well, even if you set aside the Jonathan majors, let's explicitly set that aside. Let's say that he has no personal private life legal problems and he is just the same promising young actor that everyone loved in other stuff that he did. The In Lovecraft country, your defy blunts or whatever. I'm somewhat excited. And especially wait, especially the last white dance ever to go where he's great in that,

you know, keeping in mind I don't know how he's as a person. I'm somewhat excited. I'm not really familiar with Kang as a comics character. You know, part of me is like, oh, do we need at this point another like big villain that everything is working towards? Could they like do it as well again? At the same time, I do like the idea of like,

yes, but this villain is several versions of the same character. Like, I, so yeah, sure. I think he's interesting. I think this is a weird Ant-Man movie because it is basically a Kang movie already. Yeah. It does feel like they wanted to make a, the Ant-Man is being kind of, what's the word in wrestling for when they throw someone under the bus to launch another wrestler? I don't know.

I don't know. There's a term for it. Listeners write in. They're not totally doing that with this because Ant-Man doesn't get defeated by Kang. But it feels a little bit like there's, it's setting up Kang and it feels also like they're setting up Cassie as the next generation so that the when the old folks are tired. Yeah, I think I think there's a lot of that and sort of transitional and I mean, I guess,

but I have to say as someone who was excited that when they first said Kang was going to be a bad guy in the movies because I like Kang a lot. I think he has a different way of doing things than the others. I love which is, which is that like he's got. He's got a different attitude. He's got his own stuff. But that that like he's got. He's got it. Different attitude. He's got his own stuff. But that's not sunglasses.

That's not sunglasses glasses. He is a time travel based villain. And so he can travel through time. He can go back into the past and undo things that he's made of mistakes. He can, I feel like I'm not that excited about this, the multiverse aspect of him though. Like they've done so much multiverse stuff though. And I really, really do something that really took advantage of the fact that

like he's someone who can go back and if you defeat him, he could just go back and try it again at earlier time or at a different time. And I hope they take advantage of that. But I'm worried that's just going to be like an army of CGI gangs crawling all over the Avengers. You know, I don't know if they can do that though now because they have constructed a multiverse rather than like a branching universe rather than like one where you can correct your past mistakes.

Like, I'm worried that it's going to be just like another movie full of characters meeting alternate versions of themselves, which we've seen a lot of by now. And we're also seeing in the DC movies that the DC movies have also now embraced a multiverse aspect. Kang's in the DC movies that the DC movies have also now embraced a multiverse aspect. Kang's in the DC movies. Kang's in that that's the surprise is Kang is in that his Michael Keaton is actually playing Kang pretending to be Batman. Oh, that's wild.

He's changed his name to Michael Kang to get the man. You want to get Kang? Let's get Kang, he says. Where does he get those wonderful Kang? Bird Kang. I'm Kang. Anyway, so that's do. That can. This down needs a Kang. Judgment. Is this good bad? I see the extra cis 400 times and it keeps getting Kang here. Every time I see it, this is Michael Keaton. but it's Michael Keaton.

I'm just doing Michael Keaton. Oh, okay. Mr. Kang, come on Kang Ho. He was in Gun Ho, right? Yeah. Kang Aplicity. Um, yeah, sure. That's a let's uh, let's say whether there's a good bad movie, a bad bad movie,

a movie kind of like, I mean, you, Dan, you joke about Kang Aplicity. That is basically what it is. That is the way. So my piece should be playing Kang. He did it already. And that's what it is. That is the other way. So might be he should be playing Kang. He did it already. Can you imagine? What's final judgments? I'll just quickly say, yes, for me, the Marvel films have a somewhat low ceiling with

a couple of exceptions. And I thought you really like that sort of dark world movie, right? I. I mean, you like it. Okay. Dan said the odd thores, not a fan. The even numbered thores he really likes. So Dan loves Thor two and Thor four. The one or three, not a fan.

I would take the war two over Thor four. Interesting. Interesting. Maybe it's because I don't know. Maybe I like the dark elves. Anyway, even though Thor rhymes with four. Interesting. Interesting. Maybe it's because I don't know, maybe I like the dark elves. Anyway, even though Thor rhymes with four. True. In keeping with that, I would say that this is still a movie I kind of liked. Like it's probably within my least favorite five or so MCU movies. And yet I still find enough in it. I don't know whether it's Stockholm syndrome. I enjoy it. But you know, like it's a functional movie a lot of

the time still even. Reves, damn it. Like it's a functional movie a lot of the time. Even while it like, you know, is not the movie I would wish it was. What do you say, Stuart? Yeah, I mean, I think it's, I think this is clearly one of the weaker entries in the, the, the Marvel Cinematic Universe. It feels like a mismatch for the characters. It feels like it doesn't particularly do a service to any of the characters, except for Kang.

And maybe not even him. service to any of the characters, except for Kang, and maybe not even him. I mean, there's still obviously, there's some still stuff that's fun. I like the laser-faced guy. That's a cool design. Some of the angle design, yeah. Yeah, it's not, and like, I mean, if you put movie, like they may as you get some like movie stars in the movie and

I like watching Michael Douglas and Michelle Fyfer do stuff. If that's the bar that you're setting, whether the richest company in Hollywood can manage to get movie stars in their movies. But it highlights one of the things that I think Marvel does has done well and what their brand is built on, which is getting movie stars to play their characters, which is to complicate. Yes, to play completely co-opped all of Hollywood's brightest stars. Well, the interesting thing is that they I feel like there's there's a movement within Marvel

to try and bring in new talent that are not established movie stars, possibly ones that are willing to take a not as strong contracts. And it doesn't work like Robert Downey Jr. his Iron Man, his Tony Stark performance is what built the Marvel movie. Yeah, although that was like a big comeback for him too. I mean, he was already sort of on the, but I see what Stuart's saying. They were playing off of an established actor, which is, which is for him too. I mean, he was already sort of on the... No, but I see what Stuart's saying. They were playing off of an established actor. Yeah, exactly.

Which is, I mean Alfred Hitchcock did the same thing. You cast an actor because they bring with them all the associations that their previous work and who, who what the audience thinks of them. I do think that at this point, they're leaning on it a little too heavily. Like you look at that Krylar character. If that wasn't Bill Murray playing that character, there's no character there. Like and I know he's a minor character in it, but like if it's not Michael Douglas playing Hank Pym, Hank Pym does not have a personality and is not a character, you know.

And if it's not Michelle Fyfe playing Janet Van Dyne, she doesn't have a, she's no character. And so I think they're leaning a little too heavily, especially at a time when Marvel should be feeling like they have a brand and a style that's strong enough that they can start moving away, that they no longer need celebrity support. But I think the opposite is true. I think they're feeling less so sure of themselves because there's so many movies into this thing and they've invested so much money into it. And at this point, it kind of feels like creatively they are not giving themselves the refreshing

time necessary between films to create new things. And so maybe they do feel like they need to rely on big names super hard. I mean, like when you're character, like the big name in the movie should be Ant-Man, and not necessarily that the person playing Ant-Man. But the same way that like the James Bond movies are movies that create stars, rather than rather than using stars for the most part. That being said, I'm gonna apply, I'm gonna say this movie is the opposite of the movie solo to me.

Okay. I think solo is a movie that would have been a better movie if it was not a Star Wars movie. I think people would have liked it more and it would have come off as more of a fun space heist if it didn't have all the Star Wars baggage. This was the opposite for me. I think without the Marvel imprint in names, it doesn't, it's like not even really there. Like there's just not a lot of movie there. And so this is one where, uh, and so I wish

they had given it more of its own self to stand up under its own strength, more backbone, more muscle, more character, more stuff that where you could say like, oh yeah, well this movie, it doesn't have to exist wholly on its own. It's still chapter 30, something of an infinite chapter storyline. But I wish there was more to it that was like, that felt like it was trying to make this movie cool and neat and like interesting, as opposed to just- This movie is the event, not the thing that's setting up.

Exactly. It feels like this movie could easily have been an episode of the Ant Man TV show, but it's been stretched out for a super long length, you know. So you loved it. I call it Ant-Ant. On the scale of Ants to not Ants, I give it Ants. My fellow graduates, for 500 episodes, my podcast, the JV Club with Janet Barney has gathered story after story of all the scandalous things we've done throughout our childhood. Stories like how Jimmila Jimmills survived a horrific house party and she was on crutches. Or how how loved one learned a Shakespearean monologue in his pajamas. Without your love and life tragedies there would be no podcast.

In fact, I have an exclusive look at how Maggie Lawson's mom confronts a tarot after a sneaky basement meetup with her crush. Security! Listen to the JV Club with Janet Barney Thursdays on Maximum Fun! Class of forever! Parentane, it's hard, but don't worry, you're not alone. Belly up to the low bar with one bad mother and let us remind you that fine is good enough. They want to climb on different things.

And how am I supposed to keep them both from dying? There is a right way to do this. And if I can figure out that right way, I'm going to be a good parent. So that is not a thing. So join us each week and let us tell you that you are doing a good job. You can listen to One Bad Mother on Maximum Fun or wherever you get your podcasts. I would like to thank our sponsors for one Squarespace, which is the all-in-one platform for building your brand and growing your business online. Stand out with a beautiful website, engage with your audience and

sell anything, your products, content you create, and even your time. Squarespace has powerful blogging tools to share stories, photos, videos, and updates, categorize, share, and schedule your posts to make your content work for you. How about insights? We all want insight, lashes of insight. What about insights about how well your website with Squarespace is working. You can gain them.

You can figure out who's visiting your site and how they are actually with their content with our in-depth website analytics tools. You don't want to have to analyze things in your own. You want a robot to do it for you. Give me some tools to do that. Yeah, page views, traffic sources, time on site, most red content, audience geography, and more.

And you know what else? Squarespace has the tools you need to get your business off the ground, including e-commerce templates, inventory management, a simple checkout process and secure payments. If you're running a store, you can do it through Squarespace. So why not checkoutsquarespace.com slash flop for a free trial, and when you are ready to launch, use offer code a flop to save 10% off your first purchase of a website or domain.

Now the flop has also sponsored by Smalls and by Smalls I don't mean we're taking another trip to the Quantum Realm. No, I'm talking about Smalls, the company that makes delicious cat food for the feline in your house. That's right, my house is filled with two feisty felines, muscles and meatball Wellington. And the only thing they like more than bedevelling me is chomping on some food. And smalls makes delicious food for them, but I can tell is healthy. It's made by nutritionists and it features ingredients that you can find in your refrigerator. Smalls food looks fresh. It looks like real actual stuff instead of some weird

pre-molded paste. And it smells like food. And my cats like it. And it seems like they are healthier and they're fur is shiny and they love me even more. And their breath smells like like fish and chicken. That's what you want. When they stick their face right, they stick their mouth right in my face to prove that they've eaten. So why don't you head over and get yourself some smalls. Higher quality ingredients mean a healthier and happier life for your kitty. So head to smalls.com slash flop and use promo code flop at checkout for 50% off of your first order plus free shipping. That's the best offer you can find, but you have to use R code flop for 50% off your first order. One last time for everybody in the back seats, that's promo code flop 50% off

of your first order plus free shipping. And you know what? We don't mention our jumbo trons a lot. I just noticed we didn't have any jumbo trons this week. And I'm like, maybe that's because we don't mention them. People don't know how to do it. Go over to maximumfund.org forward slash jumbo tron. If you want to pay a little bit, that's less than like our normal commercial

rates to get either a business message or a personal message on the show. If you have a customer base or a friend that seems like they love the flop house, why not get a Jumbo Tron? And you look like you get something to say. Hey, I mentioned this last week and I'm going to mention it again. I have books that are available to buy and I also have bills that I need to pay. So if you know a child in your life, why not get them one or both of my picture books, horse meat, dog and shark go and hippo. They're available on bookstore shelves or if you know a

not a child, but a horror loving grown up or maybe a really cool teenager, why not pick them up? My comic book, Maniac of New York, there's two collected volumes, Maniac of New York, the death train, and Maniac of New York, the bronces burning, and currently out in comic stores are issues of the third series. Maniac of New York, don't call it a comeback. That series is not finished yet. You can still pick up the back issues and finish it as it happens. The third issue will come out eventually. I don't know when exactly, but it will come out. And if you want to support the writer's strike because as this episode is being recorded, we are still on strike.

Who knows? Maybe we won't be by the time it's over. By the time you get this, maybe we'll be gone, which would be great. Make a donation, please, if you would like, to the Entertainment Community Fund at entertainment community.org, a resource for anyone in the Entertainment Community who finds himself in financial need during this time of striking or striking related unemployment. Thank you for your contribution.

Should you make one? Let's move on to letters from listeners. If you're a listener, maybe this is one of your letters. I mean, most likely if you wrote it, that would be the, yeah, that would be a clue. Yeah. I listen to the episodes, but I didn't write any letters. Yeah. You did write.

Maybe it was one of my letters. Any letters, there's, I would say a close to zero percent chance. This is one of your letters. Okay. Do you enter fugue states often? Yeah. I enter fugue states enough that it's conceivable that I sent us the last week. Now, what do you think of the Takata and Fugue B minor?

I like it. It's like a Takata is a mixture of like tomato and cottage cheese. And that's healthy, right? Yeah, I want me to the 70s. I thought I said anything. Does that mean I feel like there's 70s and 80s. There's this great super DC super heroes, healthy cookbook from the late 70s, early 80s, that have a copy of in every recipe as God is she's in it.

And they just slather it around as if it's the healthiest thing in the world. Miracle bomb. Okay, this is from Blake last name withheld who writes, hey, peaches. So Jason Mimoa and John Cena are apparently teaming up for an action comedy called Killer Vacation, but I have a better idea. Mamoah and Cena and the inevitable remake of Tango and Cash. Thoughts with these two work as Russell and Stallone, is it sacrilege to even suggest a Tango and Cash remake?

Love you guys, Blake Lasting withheld. I, you know, I'm not Jason Mamou and John Cena or John C. Riley. Well, let's start with the asked question, which is John Cena. Okay, okay. And then maybe if we have time, we can start that. I could totally see John Cena in the tango, Ray Tango role. He's the disrespectful, suit-waring one. Obviously. Jason Mamou as cash. He wants the best, the gold suit wearing one. He's from Moa as

he was a cash. He was pretty funny to see the wild man. Yeah, this is, this reminds me of a funny story that I don't think I've told in the podcast yet. Have I wear after I took my kids to see the Super Mario Brothers movie, which course who went to an AMC theater. So they showed us every trailer for every movie that has been made or will ever be made beforehand. One of them was for fast acts or fast hand. I don't know how it's pronounced. I don't care. And weeks later, my younger son, who is four and a half, he's in the car and he goes, remember the movie we saw the commercial for before Super Mario

Brothers with the cars. And I'm like, oh, they have fast and furious movie. Yeah, he goes, who was the guy with the long hair and the sunglasses, a bad guy. And I was like, oh, his name's Jason Mahmoan. He goes, he's cool. And I just, I don't know how long that character has been living in my son's head. But just him being like, that's a cool character. You know what I saw the movie? He's pretty cool. Not a surprise, not a surprise.

Um, yeah. And he's the bad guy. He's the bad guy. By the end of the movie, he shows up with the cookout, right? One assumes that that's the, you know, that's his journey. That's his journey. Coming to an end, that's the last shot. Is he joining them and drinking a beer happily?

I met someone on the strike picket line whose theory is that this is the first of a time travel trilogy that eventually we'll see, we'll see, we'll see, Toretto from now going back in time to the first movie. And he's like, he's like this, I think they're building up to it. I think the series can only get sillier this is what they're building up to. So we'll find out if it's a time travel trilogy or not. It would be amazing. It would be amazing if a bad guy's like,

I have to stop the family and has to go back in time to try and prevent Dom and Ek Toretto from being born. He's born in the backseat of a car, of course. Of course he was. Yeah. Well, I hope that answered your question about, oh no wait. As someone who was pitching a tango and cash animated series not too long ago, I'm fine with the remake of tango and cash.

Let's do it. Let's make it happen. I think those guys will be fun in it. I just want the movie to be as silly as they original. Yeah. I mean, I like, look, I'm in general, I would prefer to see more original properties, but if Remix is where we're at, I think that that would actually be pretty good casting for a tanker and cash remake. Yeah. Oh, this, this reminded me of something that I forgot

to mention earlier. Sorry about this. When we were talking about how the Marvel movies with, with the, now they should lean on their characters more, they've introduced them to people. How the big, the big victory with the Guardians of the Galaxy movie was, oh, we can make a movie that's a hit with characters that people are not familiar with. That's a huge achievement for us. And it was only years later that I realized, oh, but that's what most movies do. And they pull it off easily. Most movies don't expect the audience to walk in knowing the characters and their entire history is already. Yeah, you don't go in, you're like, man, Lydia Tars, that's a good composer. I hope nothing bad comes out of her career. I can't wait to see what Kate Blanchett's take on the famous character of Tars.

This other letter is from Sophie Lasting with Held, who writes, Sophie S. Joyce, the S stands for Stanley. Wow. Deer floppers. While walking through a crowded doctor's office waiting room, your podcast decided to start playing in my pocket. I was able to turn it off quickly, but not before pulling it out and hearing Elliott say very, very clearly masturbation. Thanks. Sophie last name with help. So there you go. So anything you want to say to Sophie, Ellie, maybe apologies. I don't know what one. It's not wasn't my fault. And also it's a natural thing that almost everybody does. And if they're not doing it, they probably should. You're not doing it. Why not? Yeah. Why not? It's great. It's free. That's the main thing is it's free. Yeah. Yeah.

You know, in this world that's increasingly commodified, why don't you do something that's free? Yeah. You know what? If you, so here's my assignment for Flawful House listeners. I want you to find a time when you're alone or if this is something you do with a partner with your partners consent, I want you to masturbate to a fantasy that is completely empty of corporate owned IP characters. Wow. I don't see if it's possible. Just make it just live in a fantasy world that Disney

doesn't have its mouse paws all over. Oh, man, let me think. Okay. Can't to Joe Joe's bizarre. No, no, Dan, no Jessica rabbit. No, no, Debbie from Adam's family values. I mean, that's the thing. Is that family guy characters for some reason? Why? Why do I see so many ads of porn? That all the things that this is outside of my realm now. Now you're talking about it. I get a lot of size nearly anything. Yeah, but the family guy characters, the fact that it's a long one out there. I mean, Dan, when you spend as much time as you do Googling, pet boys, gay, threesome, I think that is you're going to get that kind of stuff.

Like I was finding that that's where how I got there. I don't know why nobody is invented a flashlight with the little in like a Pringles can with the Pringles guys face to use. That seems like, like, that seems like it's printing money. I don't know. I don't have sex with the with a Pringles can or with the Pringles guy. Yeah. And you can call it mustache ride. Yeah. I mean, thank you. Yeah. Perfect. We did this together. We did it. We both did it. No, Dan, I mean, yeah. I was just going to say the, the can is the body of the flesh light toy.

And the top of it is the face of the Pringles. Oh, I see. I see. I misunderstood that. Stu, if you're, if you're fantasizing about Joan Q's act, I think that's, that's okay. If you're fantasizing about her character, it's not okay. That's the problem. Yeah. It's hard to separate it. There's something very special about

Debbie, because she murdered his people. Wait, in which, which, which movie? Adam's Family Values. Okay. All right. The sexy Adam's Family Movie, Dan. Adam's Family Values. Sure. I mean, there's always a low level eroticism between Gomez and Morticia. Okay, let's move on to you. And it's a healthy way to introduce, you're introducing kids to the idea that sex doesn't have to end with marriage. And I think that's a healthy message for all of us to remember, right?

Yeah. Mm-hmm. Maybe the kids don't need to know about it. Look at a dance letterbox. Is that torque? Yeah, that's what we're going to recommend, actually. We'll help you. Thank you for teaming me up. This is where we recommend movies that we actually liked. Torque is a movie that came out in the early 2000s. It was sort of, it was sort of meant

loosely as actually like a fast and the furious parody, which is funny because it's almost indistinguishable from a present day fast and furious movie, Howard Inc. It's still wilder is the thing that I would say to recommend it to you. It still goes further than how far fast movies have gone. But it's played like a, basically like a straight action film with some jokes in it. Yeah, I don't know that it's supposed to be a parody necessarily.

I think they were doing, I think they're verged, they're like, let's do it with bikes and we'll get Xanier. I mean, it could be spin, but I have read stuff that suggests that to some degree is intentionally like a takeoff, but it is also like- I like to take off, I guess, is closer than a parody, because I think that you can be taking something off while still being basically a serious action movie in certain ways. And it really is tongue in cheek, let's say, but the tongue has, you know, shot through the cheek and embedded itself

in a tree next to you. You know, it's just a movie that is a bunch of wild bike and car stunts that are strung together, you know, with a plot that if you actually like pay attention, they put a little more care into the structure of it than I think. There's so much meathead style on top of it that you don't realize like, oh, that's kind of cool that they like establish all these characters and you understand why they're bouncing off of each other the way they are. But it is just, you know, if you poured a bunch of pixie sticks into some code red, that's what that movie is.

And I saw it at a weird Wednesday at the Alvo and the audience ate it. It is a blast with a bunch of people. So that's torque. Okay. I'm going to recommend a movie that I watched for the first time recently with the passing of Tina Turner. I finally got around to watching what's love got got to do with it from 1993 and it's a biopic focusing on and a genre that I normally have no real fondness for.

But the two central performances of Angela Bassett as Tina Turner and Lawrence Fishburn as Ike Turner are incredible. The two of them like it's like Lawrence Fishburn is like an all-time villain. He is so fucking horrible. And yet like a very believable character, a very like, it's a huge performance. And Angela Bass, it's incredible as well. Not to mention the fact that she is the most insanely ripped person I've ever seen in a movie. Like she is so jacked, it's incredible. Yeah, it's, yeah, it's very meaningful and the way that in the end of the movie, they

manage to actually weave in some actual footage of Tina Turner. Normally, I find like when you take a biopic and you mix in footage of the actual person, then it's kind of being a little weird, but there's something very special about it, it feels very triumphant. So if you're looking for a way to celebrate a generational talent like Tina Turner, this is a good way to do it. And I'm going to recommend a movie starring someone who is not particularly popular with people right now, but I'm going to do it anyway, because I don't care whose toes I step on.

Yes, I do. I don't want to step on people's toes. But in this case but I'm gonna do it anyway because I don't care whose toes I step on. Yes, I do. I don't wanna step on people's toes, but in this case, I'm pretending. I'm putting on a false front because I don't want people to get mad at me. And that's a movie called Miami Blues. So this is a movie starring Alec Baldwin and Jennifer Jason Lee and Fred Ward.

I remember when it came out, when I was a kid and I was too young to see it, and I could not really figure out what kind of movie it was supposed to be from the commercials and the trailers. And watching it, I'm like, I don't know that I was too young to see it. And I could not really figure out what kind of movie it was supposed to be from the commercials and the trailers. And watching it, I'm like, I don't know that anyone was gonna be able to figure out exactly what the movie it is because it's a kind of comedy crime movie,

but not a full-on comedy and much more crime. And I think that until the heyday of Tarantino movies that was still kind of a fringe thing for a movie to be, for it to be a more out-and-out crime movie that was still kind of in a fringe thing for a movie to be. For it to be a more out and out crime movie that had a sense of humor. And then, Alex Baldwin is a sociopath, maybe not that different from real life. I don't know, I've never met him,

who is a con artist, but not a particularly brilliant or even effective con artist in a lot of ways. It's, but he is better at figuring out people to prey on than he is at giving a story straight. And he falls in love with Jennifer Jason Lee, who's a very naive young woman in many ways, but there's also a woman who is desperate for a kind of like stability and comfort that she thinks he can give him and that she thinks he can give her. And Fred Ward is a police officer who gets wrapped up with these two and Alec Baldwin in a fit of anger,

beats him up and steals his badge and his dentures and his gun and decides to present himself as a kind of fake police officer in order to rob people and gets into more and more trouble doing this. And it's the kind of movie that like it's not based on it. It's based on a novel by Charles Wilfer, but it feels like an Elmore Leonard type story in a lot of ways. And so. Well, I'm sorry, I just saying that I read the book as well as I've seen this movie and I like a lot too. I read the book because Elmore Leonard cited him as like he's like he's the best crime novelist. So like you definitely a similar type of thing. And it, and it's just like, I really liked it a lot. I like spending time with these characters,

even when they were being, even when Alapalms character is being, you know, like a terrible person. There's still something fascinating about them. And it was written and directed by George Armitage, who also did Gross Point Blank. So it's like a little bit less comical version of Gross Point Blank in a way,

but it's a similar tone. So that's like a little bit less comical version of Gross Point blank in a way, but a similar tone. So that's Miami Blues. If you want to see a performance that I did not think Alec Baldwin was going to be able to pull off the whole movie, but he does really well. And Fred Ward and Jennifer Jason Lee, Jason Lee, but Fred Ward and Jennifer Jason Lee are just like super likeable throughout the whole movie. So that's Miami blues. Well, you know what?

That's the end of the show. Yeah. That's what we did it. We survived the quantum first guys. We made it out alive. We made it back. We trapped the Kang there. What's next, the Kang Dynasty?

The Kang Dynasty when Kang is going to fight himself with big shoulder pads and they roll into a pool. Oh, I love it. Yeah. That would be great. Hey, we haven't said this in a while. If you like the show, maybe get on iTunes, give us a good rating. I think I said in a previous episode, I felt bummed out by some bad ratings that we're

not about the show or about whether the show is funny, but about, you know, right wing trolls. They're nearly about us being taken over by the woke mind virus. Yeah. No, we are. That's crazy. It's too bad. It's weird how when the woke mind virus takes over, you feel better and you're nicer to people. Yeah.

Oh, man. Yeah, you're not just sort of like looking for ways to exclude and put others down. Anyway, yeah, I don't know. If you're inclined to, leave us a nice review on iTunes, tell other folks about us that you might think would like the show, might think would like. I'm now talking like I'm a little live under character. Thank you to our network and maximum fund.

Go to maximumfund.org. If you want to check out other great podcasts on the network, there are a ton of them. Thank you to Alex Smith, who goes by the name, Howell Dottie on various socials for being our producer. He does music, he does videos, he does Twitch streams, check him out, and what he does on his own. But now I say thank you for listening. For the flop house, I have been Dan McCoy. I've been Stewart Wellington. I'm Ellie Kaelin, and as long as we're saying things that we haven't said in a while,

but we should dance to it, I love you. Oh, thanks. Oh, come on. Bye. Who? I am theible into two! Very! And I am the ghost of nine! Add me to something!

Go ahead, I dare you! Bees an easy tip! Act like you're adding tin! But subtract one from the other number! Oh! Multiply me by a number and then add the two digits together of the, of the, of the, of what you get and it becomes a nine again. Oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, and culture. Artists-owned audience supported.