The Reel Rejects - Just Watched ANT-MAN & THE WASP QUANTUMANIA...Reaction & Review

Episode Date: February 14, 2023

Ant-Man And The Wasp Quantumania Movie Review RIGHT OUT OF THEATER for the Kang The Conqueror Marvel Phase 5 Introduction also feat a Mid-Credits Scene, Post-Credits Scene, Cassie Lang, Quantum Realm, Janet,  Hope, & Hank Pym along with a bunch of action. Here's our NON-SPOILER Review!  #antmanandthewaspquantumania #marvel #MCU #KangTheConqueror #Kang #phase5 #marvelphase5 #paulrudd #jonathanmajors    - Become A Super Sexy Reject For Full-Length T.V. & Movie Reactions!  https://www.patreon.com/thereelrejects  - Support The Channel By Checking Out Our Bomb A** Merch:  http://shopzeroedition.com/collections/reel-rejects-merch  - POWERED BY @GFUEL Visit https://gfuel.ly/3wD5Ygo and use code REJECTNATION for 20% off select tubs!!   0:00 Leave A Like! 0:52 Ant-Man And The Wasp Quantumania Review 3:30 Kang The Conqueror 5:51 Mid-Credits Scene Reaction NO SPOILERS 7:10 Post Credits Scene 7:31 Storytelling Problems   9:25 Modok 10:32 Paul Rudd Scott Lang 10:43 Cassie Lang 12:29 No Real Character Arcs 13:23 Father / Daughter Story 13:41 More Storytelling Problems   15:49 Quantum Realm World (VISUAL FX) 17:28 Real Lack Of Struggle 18:18 Hank Pym & Hope   19:31 Janet Michelle Pfeifer 20:37 Humor 21:01 Conclusion --- Support this podcast: https://podcasters.spotify.com/pod/show/the-reel-rejects/support Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

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Well, hello there, citizens of the Reject Nation. Greg here. Hey, John, how are you? I'm good. I'm fantastic. How are you, sir? You're trying to do the ant thing in there? Was that you trying to?

That was when I was trying to. Okay, I saw what you did. I'm Fant Forstick. Hey, ladies and gentlemen, if you could leave a like on this video, that would be very much appreciated. Listen, we tried shooting this at the theater. They wouldn't allow it. We tried shooting outside. It was way too dark.

You just wouldn't be able to see us. We tried shooting in the parking lot at the movie theater. Security guard there. Nice guy wasn't a fan of what we were doing. rush back here, and now we're in the backyard shooting this. When we could be inside, like pros, in the studio. Just a regular video, but we wanted to maintain some of the integrity of we just watched video. So as opposed to seeing it just five minutes ago like we normally do.

Now we've seen it 20 minutes ago. It's not that big of a difference. John, since I know I got a lot to get off my chest here, what's the plot of the movie? You know, it's a few years after Endgame. Scott Lang is now an author. He's capitalizing on his Avengers. fame but his daughter Cassie Lang is a rebellious teenager now she's landing herself in jail which of course is just funny it's not a really big deal no consequences to that so she's doing

great she builds this machine that accidentally gets them all sucked into the quantum realm where Janet's like no I hate it here and I don't want to talk about it I want to tell you anything about it for half the movie I'm going to draw out the suspense for something we already know it's coming and then Kang's here he's going to set up phase five and he needs some McGuffin so he can break out of, you know, the quantum realm and there's shenanigans and stuff, hopes in the background here and there. Hank is along for the right. That's pretty much it. All righty. Look, there's a lot of things that I want to talk about with this movie. A good amount we can't talk about that is non-spoiler. There's a lot that we can't talk about that is very

spoiler-heavy. A lot of those things that I take gripe with with this movie that I imagine you do too, because we didn't talk to each other at all during the movie. No. And what I was surprised by was when the movie was done. I was like, oh, great, this is going to be one of those films where I'm going to be arguing with John and he's going to be telling me what he loves about it and I'm going to be like, oh, no, here's why I don't like this part of the movie, man. Oh, wow, to my surprise, from the brief time we talked about it, I think we're on the same page. We had the same anxiety about this movie. I'm going to be the one who's like, I guess I just didn't click with it. Here's the bottom line opinion about it, all right? The most I can do is

be blunt. Overall, it was fine. And I know normally when you say something like that, people will yell at you going, why don't you just say it's bad? What you want to just say what you really feel? And I will tell you what I really feel. I had a lot of issues with this movie. Would it be a lie for me to say that there weren't parts of this movie that I did really enjoy? I would even say there's a solid 30 minutes of this film that I was very much engaged with. You know the part in the trailers when Ant Man and Kang meet each other? A little bit before that. And, And like 20 minutes after that, there's a specific chunk of the movie where I was like, okay, finally, this movie's really, it's really got me.

I'm, I'm in. I'm really in. And then it started to lose me again. And the finale of this film especially started losing me. I know normally in reviews, you want to like hit all the good points first and then you go into the negatives. It's just going to be a, it's going to be a very straightforward discussion. There's a good three-song run in the middle of the album. It's good.

Well, yeah, the movie's not exactly like a three-act or even a five-act structure. There's like a 10-act structure to this movie. And most of it feels like act two somehow. It's very strange. It's a paradox. It is a paradox of sorts. Okay, so the first thing that people probably want you to talk about, right? King the Conqueror, Jonathan Majors.

How is he? Well, I can tell you that I think Jonathan Majors did an excellent job with the material that he was given. I think he really elevates the material. It's really important for me to emphasize the word elevate. I'm not exactly 100% thrilled about King the Conqueror in total, if that makes sense. Again, a lot of it to really describe it would be very spoilery. I'll just tell you some afterthought opinions. I'm not exactly thrilled at the prospect of Kang being the big baddy of phase five.

Because while this movie really seems to step out of its way to not really be an Ant Man movie a lot of the time, but really set up phase five. It does a great job and setting up phase five. It really does. Because you're like, all right, at least get what phase five is going towards. I can see threads coming together. I can see clarity. Like you mentioned when we came out of the movie, there's some clarity from phase four coming into this. Especially a lot of visual motifs and some lines of dialogue where I'm like, oh, I'm even seeing some of phase four actually clicking together.

So they must have heard all the complaints people were having. Or like, make sure this shit is clear. Pay live service to interconnectivity. The Catman and the Wasp and the King movie make it clear. While I think he brings a lot of gravitas to it, the way they execute the character and what they give him to do in this film, I didn't find him scary. I thought a lot of what they chose to do with his movie really undercuts him as a threat. I really think Scarlet Witch could whip. I think if you watch this movie,

I don't feel like there's a question in your mind that you'd be like, Scarlet Witch could whip this guy's ass. Yeah. So why would I be excited about, like, The Avengers having to deal with this guy? Because this movie also goes out of its way a lot to be like, he's hyper-intelligent. He's so smart.

He's so threatening. He's unspeakably ill. But the movie never really shows you, despite the fact that when he is talking and it's the most engaging, yet the movie never really gives you an insight as to how. And then the way the movie progresses,

I'm like, this guy? This is the dude you've been building up for so long who's also going to have his own dynasty later on. Yeah, and that's probably going to be the most unpopular opinion out there because I'm sure everyone's raving. Because again, he does a great job.

No, it's the rest of the movie, the writing and the direction doesn't necessarily bolster. It doesn't help his performance more than he's helping out everything else around him. And on top of that, that creates this sort of teetering between what could be a real formidable villain who presents a harrowing set of stakes versus something that starts to feel a bit like

a costume party that's turned angry. The mid-credit scene. I bet if we go online right now, there's a lot of people hyping up this mid-credits. Yes, there are. There are you looked? I've seen a few responses,

and I've seen people be like, oh, man, that mid-credit scenes. I thought the mid-credit scene was a joke. It feels quite silly. If I were to tell you what it is, contextually, you'd be like, awesome.

That's what I was hoping for. Yeah, contextually. The way it's executed was like an S&L sketch to me meets the ending of the Planet of the Apes movie with Mark Wahlberg. It's not

like that ending, but it has that vibe of that ending. Like it thinks it's real cool. We're supposed to be like really cool and serious and setting something up, but I'm like, this is just so, so silly. And people were laughing in this screening where we're at. I bet not at the movie premiere they weren't laughing, but at the screen we were at people were laughing at it.

You couldn't hear any of the dialogue to know over the cheering. I can't wait to talk about it. because that was a really cringy credit scene. Yes, that's a good way to put that. Yeah, it does feel like they rented out a warehouse for an afternoon and tacked something on. Well, that's supposed to be the major punctuation on this movie. And yeah, it feels very much like, must have something to do with Spider-Man. Like, it does give you that sort of stilted vibe.

I mean, the post-credit scene is good. Yes, it is. We'll ruin it, but it was obviously paid and reading it and do it. It's a bit detached from the immediate proceedings. That was what elicited the most from the audience. In a lot of ways, it is one of the most interesting moments. The entire movie gives you is at the very end of the credits. With this film, there's no real struggle.

And I don't mean that just emotionally, there's no real conflict. The most engaging way for most movies is if there's an external struggle and they have to, like, go through it and then they change as a person. Like, how does this experience of going toe to toe with the villain change them as an individual? What do they have to overcome? There's none of that in this movie. It's a movie that on surface might be like, this is the weirdest MECU movie ever. It's about as old Marvel generic as you can get.

There's not a lot of stakes in this movie. It feels like they really prioritized plot over everything else and setups over everything else in a way that makes it feel like there's a ton going on. There's lots of stuff happening and yet not much is really achieving any kind of momentum. They keep shifting the plot around. There's like 10 acts in this movie. I never really had time to get invested in something enough to worry about it, to fear for it, to be concerned about it.

And then when they finally set up a plot that you see kind of teased in the trailer, I'm like, okay, well, we're now we're at the end of the movie. It really feels like Peyton Reed's desire not to be the pallet cleanser movie and to instead be the Avengers level movie has really worked against it. Because on the one hand, I feel like that could equate to some interesting strides for the Ant Man trilogy. and it doesn't, funny enough, feel like the third installment in the Ant Man trilogy, really at all, making it this Avengers-level set of stakes kind of took a lot of the personality and a lot of the actual scope and scale. Like, if you look back on the previous Ant-Man movies, this doesn't need to be that, but it's tempered by the real world and the changing of size of familiar objects.

And this almost does none of that, and it also pairs down the humor. And I feel like you could have made an Avengers-level movie with that level of impact out of Ant-Man and use that as an opportunity to hoist a, a more B-level or a less successful character into the main spotlight. This is the most I've felt like the VFX team did just direct the movie based off the notes that whatever the interconnectivityness is like required. And Modoc. Modoc is the thing that I feel will be really hated.

I don't hate Modoc in this movie. I think I kind of enjoyed him. He's one of the things I like more and is actually a bit weird about the movie. It's weird. It's like when it first is presented, you're like, that is an awful. That's a weird looking. They play into it in the script and the actual reactions from the...

Like, they react more to Modoc than they do to anything else in this point out. They react more to him because he is weird. He's got the dead eye effect. Old CGI and I'm like, but maybe that's intentional. I don't know. He's not threatening. He's not scary whatsoever. He is just a joke.

But he had two moments in this movie, two specific lines of dialogue I could think of. Those were some of the funniest I laughed in the whole film. Absolutely. As much as I know, this character will definitely upset people. He made me laugh that was one of the most intentional things about this movie was to not take him seriously and they didn't take him seriously. And then they leaned into that.

I know there's going to be a lot of people who don't like it and will think it's one of the worst things Marvel's ever done. But screw it. At least something intentional they went for was like, yeah, at least I laughed at that, you know. Paul Rudd is good, as always. He's good. He's Paul Rudd. He gets more dramatic work to do here than he did in any of the other films we've seen him do.

and I thought he was believable in those moments. Cassie Lang. I like Catherine Newton, the actress, quite a bit. And I'm not going to lie. I imagine there'll be a lot of people with her. Again, it's one of these situations where I'm like, I enjoy Catherine Newton. There's so much about the execution in the writing,

the storytelling of this character. Wow, what a convenient experience. This movie is so filled with visual effects, but there's no sense of awe or wonder. Okay, let's look at Hank Pim. I get if he's seen some shit and he's not like exactly, entirely thrown off base, but he should be at least a little fascinated by what's going on.

So should wasp, but especially Cassie Lang, there should at least be some sense of a horror wonder. Never glimpsed even as a smidge of what this world could be beyond our own, yeah, yeah, yeah. Beyond just having yellow jacket come into a room and then five-year discipline. Because the quantum realm's nothing like. That's a whole different thing.

Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. You just got sucked through a vortex into the atoms beneath atoms. You should at least have a reaction to that. And beyond that, neither John or I are a fan of this phrase. I'm going to have to say it, though, because I can't really think of anything more efficiently to describe it at this moment in time. There is the Mary Sue effect that people often say where I normally don't agree with its application of that word. I'm like, yeah, it's reasons like this, why this word exists. Yeah, because the truth of the matter for me is, it's not even like I got annoyed.

It was like I could feel the movie removing opportunities for itself to have impactful character moments with Cassie and with Scott together. her growth as a character because too it's the first time we're seeing cassie in this capacity as a potential young avenger and stuff like that and it's the first time that we're getting to witness her you know experiencing all this stuff and yet the movie maneuvers her into a place where everything's just cool and she's just kind of got this and no matter what conflict comes her way everyone around her's like nah you're fine it's fine you're good even scott with his minor disciplinary dad dude just is a cool you know the trailers really made it seem like that It was something about, I really want time with my daughter back.

King's giving me an offer. That's the way the trailers pitched it. Yeah. That's not the movie. They set you up like Cassie and Scott must have like a strained messed up relationship or something. He's been gone and she's falling on the wrong path, man. Oh. You're like, not really.

You've been going along pretty well. So with that, there's no character arc in this movie at all. It's pretty much Scott has not been doing heroic stuff lately. Now he's doing something heroic again. Yeah. It's been a while since the last. Avengers level threat. Now Scott has a new Avengers level threat. Janet, they're setting her up for, she's got to confront the demons from her past, but that kind of just gets lost. No, she needs to hold on to exposition until it's time to give it out. It just gets completely lost in the mix. They lose a lot of opportunities for multiple characters to have actual emotional beats and arcs. And it's funny because I've seen a lot of people respond to this thing. It's such a heartwarming father-daughter story. And that's all I was hoping for. It was a surface cute level. Like I said, Everything went to the fine level.

Like, you just don't know what to care about. You get thrust into the quantum realm. And you see that in the trailer, they got all this, like, civilization of people and stuff. They just keep saying shit, like, Kang's bad. Right? He did stuff to our people. And I think there's, like, a line in there that says what he did. The movie never lets you get to actually know these people.

And a big part of it is wanting to start an uprising in a revolution. So you don't feel for it. Why would I care? They even have this setup in here. where Scott is like, we just got to get out of here, but Cassie's like, no, dad, we got to help these people. And you never get a moment. The slightest spoiler I'm going to give you is you never get a moment

where you see Scott being like, you know, right, we got to help these people. It never becomes about that. But it becomes a focus of the film, but I'm like, I never got to know these people. I don't know why I should care about this. The movie just shows you a lot of weird designs at the quantum realm, but you don't really get to know the quantum realm.

And they keep seeing kings and like this oppressive thing. When you go around the city, it looks like you guys are living a regular, normal lives. Like the worst the king's got are these security guard androids, which suck, by the way. They are ineffective. How is this the master level scientist guy when he builds the weakest henchman? Because he has no formidable challengers in this realm. That's why he's revered as this crazy warlord is because there's no competition. They don't show you the occupation and they don't really give you any taste of what life is like down here under this oppression.

Or what the oppression even looks like or extends to. I know that this is the cliche. You have a big, Baddy, got a bunch of henchmen who you just kick and punch. I know that's a cliche, but this is the guy who they've been saying is this highest level intellect genius, but I'm like Ultron did better in a day than you did it. All this time you've been here. Vanished out here for

decades upon decades. It's not difficult to keep up with. I really feel like the movie just needed like an extra 30 minutes. Just so we could have some much needed scenes to help these emotional moments lamber. Otherwise, it's just another movie where a lot of people walk away from going like, yeah, cool action.

and it sets up phase five well. Really, I think a lot of the best Marvel movies are always setting up the future of Marvel, but that's only a percentage of the film where this seemed like its main intent was to set up the future. I wasn't personally like, yeah. People often complain about green screen heavy movies,

but this really stood out to me because as impressive as the visual effects are, there are scenes, especially when they first go into the quantum realm. One thing I'll get paid and read credit for was I love the choice of when to use music and when to not use music, because a lot of the times these movies

can be quite bomb back, with music to really try to enhance the experience. But a lot of the time, there was no music, and I thought that was better, and it made a lot of the sound design, zeroed in a lot better for a lot of these key sequences, because all the visual effects are great. That scene where you see multiple Ant-Man and stuff,

what a cool sequence. It was a fantastic sequence. It was amazing. Occasionally a few wonky moments of what movie would not have some wonky VFX once in a while. As great as visuals can be, that stuff can wear thin after a while,

because it just starts becoming like a lot of noise. The thing that I felt the most that this movie was was like I was standing in line for an Avengers ride and then they had these like special clips to watch while you're waiting in line and I had the feeling like oh cool they got the actors to show up for this but you know when the actors show up for that shit they're not giving it they're like they're all yeah they don't feel like they're truly in whatever world there be like everything feels a little more green screeny in one of those ride videos in here even it feels like everyone's just kind of in a big warehouse with a bunch of animation around them and even the way that it shot is

kind of that like, ah, we didn't really have that much time, so just keep it into basic coverage and some basic wide shots, and that's about it. As cool as everything looks, it seems to like, again, I keep using the word wonder. It's easy to just say style over substance, but that's really what it is. The style is the people who created the visuals and created the makeup and stuff. That's the style. Somehow this movie does not make you feel lived in. It does not feel immersive.

There's no emotional struggle, and there's no physical struggle. And that's a big problem, I think, with Peyton Reed directing the actor. or just not knowing what to do. For example, if you're running through chaos and everyone's just running like they've been told to run, they got like a straight face, like just, like you don't look like you're in the middle of a battle. Or in the finale, no spoilers,

these are just humans and they're zipping around town, freaking fighting left and right, running, running, running, running, running. And then by the end of the fight, when the storms calm down, you know, helmets come off or whatever, they just look like super clean, no breathing heavy, not a single sweat, they're just like super polished, and yeah, we're standing in front of a green screen, doing our scene.

There's no weight, either emotionally, or physically. The hand-to-hand fight that you see in the trailer with King and, and that's the most physical struggle. That takes obviously a long time to get there. It finally gets bloodied up, and that does look intense and painful. It's too little too late.

But the big thing, though, is this is the first Ant-Man movie with this cast that you're bringing over and paid and redirecting that is primarily in front of a green screen. A big part of why, especially there were no stakes, and this was something I did not expect to say about this film. I felt there was no stakes or no sense of urgency. Really came down to some of the, performances in this film. Michael Douglas as Hank Pim is not the same Hank Pim at all.

Like it feels like some random old guy who was told all his lines before they said action. There was so much of the time where it was clearly obvious that they didn't know how to direct people like Evangeline Lilly and Michael Douglas because they clearly had no clue what they were looking at. Yeah. And a lot of even the continuity character-wise from the previous movies doesn't fully carry over. It feels like Hank Pim got like a Xanax prescription and chilled way out between movies or something like that. And yeah, Evangely and Lily, her job is mainly just to be flustered a lot of the time and maybe deal a punch. Kind of. It's called Ant Man in the Wall, so and I'm like, you should just call this Ant Man and King. She's called it

Aunt Cassie and King. Is what you should call this movie. Of all the aunt family, hope does feel the most tacked on and the least sort of spotlighted. Like Michael Douglas was, I was kind of astounded by how he was just walking through the film because I really felt like what was going on. The performer who got more screen time this time around, and thought, did a great job, and was the one who actually brought intensity, who actually seemed comfortable working in this environment, was Michelle Pfeiffer as Janet. Obviously, she had been in the quantum realm for quite some time, and her character set up in a way where she's very much traumatized from her experiences there, so she doesn't want

anyone exploring the quantum realm. But I did have a thought when I was watching this, because she's so much like, you shouldn't be looking in there. Shouldn't even be thinking about the quantum realm. Like, put your-quintry in my presence, and like, don't even come near it. But then I was going, I thought in the post-credit scene for Ampherson, man in the wasp, she was totally sending Scott laying in there. Going into the quantum room to collect energy to help ghost stabilize herself through the

quantum tunnel. Continuity-wise, this doesn't even line up with the last time I saw this woman. This doesn't even make any sense right now. But let's ignore that for a moment. It sets up her character in this way to like overcome and see like what really went down here. I actually really like the flashbacks that you get to see with Janet. I thought they were really strong and very engaging. That was part of the 30-minute chunk that I was talking about where you do really get to explore some of that. And I thought that was really engrossing. There is humor in it.

Like, there were times I really laughed. But a lot of times the humor feels like they're afraid to commit to the overall seriousness of a particular moment. So they're trying to inject some humor. Sometimes it's genuinely funny. A lot of the time, it does have that clear-cut effect of they felt like they needed to infuse a joke in here when they didn't need to infuse a joke. They're going to run. There are some moments where I was like, that was hilarious. I had a couple of moments where I thought were really, really funny.

Yeah, it's fine. It's another fine entry. It would be, I would not call this movie terrible. It's definitely not a glowing review for me. But the fineness does make you especially frustrated, I think. I think it's one of those where it's pretty okay in a way that leaves you really kind of aggravated by all the potential that was very visibly missed. Yeah, because I think part of the burnout that some people probably feel after phase four is like a lot of phase four, I think for the most part, a lot of it isn't terrible. It's just a lot of it is kind of like, I kind of suffer thinking about it once it.

And I was like, this movie should not be doing that. At least, and you know what, we're pretty big marbles. So, this is the prime movie, especially for me as a viewer. This is the prime movie where I want to go in and just have fun with it and look past any whatever flaws to the things I love about an Ant-Man movie and the excitement for Kang to come. And it fumbled that. So I was especially taken it back because I was like,

this should have been an easy slam dunk on me as a viewer. Same here. I really thought that this would have easily been. Yeah, I got some flaws. We'll go into them, but mainly here's everything. I thought it was going to be like the easiest thing to talk about. But I was like, this really surprised me in just how middle-winged it was. It's reasonably enjoyable throughout.

This is the best I could give it. With some moments that really, truly shine. But anyway, all right. Well, we're done. We'll see you guys. Thanks for being here.