I WANT MY MONEY BACK
Out of all the MCU movies, the Ant-Man storyline has to be one of my favorites. Now, when I heard the Ant-Man was joining the MCU, I honestly thought it was a bad idea because I thought the Ant-Man was just cheesy. But that opinion changed when I watched the first movie. Paul Rudd really made Scott Lang a likable character. And Scott’s ensemble of no-gooders: Luis, Dave, and Kurt; were also very likable, and essential to the success of Ant-Man. That charming cast returned for Ant-Man and the Wasp, and made the second chapter a good watch. When I heard that the Ant-Man was hitting the theaters for its third volume, I couldn’t wait. I rushed to the theater with popcorn in hand. Now, I have to say this, I want my money back. This movie was clearly one of the worse MCU movies to date. I got ripped off.
WARNING, THIS REVIEW IS LITTERED WITH SPOILERS! SO STOP READING NOW IF YOU DIDN’T SEE THE MOVIE
SO WHAT WENT WRONG?
It’s not the director. Peyton Reed, who directed Quantumania, also directed the first two episodes of Ant-Man, and did a great job. The cast, who are nothing less than historically great actors, also performed beautifully throughout the franchise.
Blame has to be assigned to those at the top.
The best Ant-Man was the first installment, and it had one producer, Kevin Feige. Kevin Feige produced the next two Ant-Man Movies, but he didn’t do it alone. Stephen Broussard helped call the shots. How much influence Stephen had over the last two Ant-Mans, we’ll never know. But, we do know that Broussard’s resume includes Iron Man 3, a movie that emasculated Iron Man’s historical archenemy, the Mandarin, and turned him from a Chinese Warlock, into an aspiring wannabe actor. That movie almost killed the entire MCU. Producers are the big bosses, and they hire the creative team to execute their vision. And it looks as though Stephen Broussard has a history of hiring the wrong screenwriters, or just creating bad movies.
LET’S TALK SCREENWRITERS
It always starts with the script, and in the first Ant-Man, the screenplay was penned by Edgar Wright, Joe Cornish, Adam McKay, and Paul Rudd. Edgar Wright, who directed and wrote a lot of Simon Pegg’s British comedy action flicks, wrote the original draft with Adam McKay, and was actually slated to direct Ant-Man, but ended up backing out of the project due to creative differences. It looks as though when Edgar left the project, Adam brought in Joe, his long-time writing partner. And then, you have Paul Rudd, the actor who played Ant-Man getting a writing credit. By the way, Paul Rudd may be the only MCU actor with a writing credit to this universe. The question is why? And the answer is that Paul Rudd may actually be an extremely good writer.
In the second Ant-Man, an entirely new team of writers was on staff. Chris McKenna, Erik Sommers, Andrew Barrer, Gabriel Ferrari, and Paul Rudd. Chris McKenna’s resume probably stands out the most as he penned all the Spider-Man MCU movies, Jumanji, American Dad, and The Mindy Project. This is one helluva resume. The stories for these projects are flawless. Erick Sommers worked on American Dad, so his relationship with Chris McKenna is easily explained. Good writing partners are hard to find. Andrew Barrer Gabriel Ferrari doesn’t have much of a resume. It doesn’t mean they’re not good. Why are they there, especially when you have Chris McKenna on staff? I don’t know. But again, you have Paul Rudd back again with a writing credit. He must be that good!
Now, onto the third installment of Ant-Man. There wasn’t a team of screenwriters hired to write Quantumania. There was just one writer hired out, Jeff Loveness. That’s really weird. Jeff’s resume is a decorated one, but not in the right way. Jeff wrote for the Onion, and Jimmy Kimmel Live, and wrote jokes for the Emmy and the Oscars. Who thought the jokes at award shows were ever that great? He wrote four episodes of Rick and Morty, but when you write for TV, you’re part of the staff, and it’s really hard to see how good of a screenwriter you actually are. Quantumania was Jeff’s first feature-length script, and well, he’s not that type of a writer. He’s a tv joke writer, who writes lame jokes that actors always have to apologize to the audience for making. Who the hell thought Jimmy Kimmel was ever funny, right? Feature-length screenwriting is a different beast altogether. Ideas that work in the TV and the sitcom universe won’t work in the movies. And feature-length movies have long character arcs, over 3 acts, unlike TV shows, which fast-forwards their audience through situations, in a 7 to 8-act structure designed for commercials. And by the way, Paul Rudd wasn’t brought on board to write either. Why?
Hiring Jeff Loveness to write this movie alone, is equivalent to hiring a handyman to remodel your house. He can get the job done, but there are experts out there who can do a much better job. Why not hire a good writing staff, especially when you’re going to spend 200 million dollars?
SO WHAT WAS WRONG WITH THE SCRIPT?
There’s too much to list, but here are a handful to start.
The main problem – this movie was not propelled forward by character, but by jokes. None of the main characters had to grow, or confront any inner demons, in order to solve their external conflict. I could see the actors grasping at straws to find their motivation in scenes. There was literally nothing for these great actors to work from. Characters literally entered a scene, a joke was made here and there, and it was off to the next scene, kinda like a sitcom. All of the characters were the same. They just kept secrets from each other. That’s it. Were there trust issues to work out, hidden agendas…nope.
A lot of the charm of Ant-Man was eliminated with a stroke of a pen. A big part of what made Ant-Man fun was his minions (Luis, Dave, and Kurt). They were gone from this movie. What happened to their security business? Wouldn’t you like to know? How did they deal with the blip? Also, what happened to Jim Paxton (husband to Maggie) and Maggie (Scott’s ex-wife)? And why did Scott Lang keep asking the audience, “I’m not sure how I got here…” when we have all of these previous movies to explain that?
What made Ant-Man cool was the ludicrous scales it dealt with. Ant-Man had that “Honey I Shrunk The Kids” feel at times, but took it a step further. With Pym tech, heroes were able to scale objects from big to small, with a hi-tech ninja star. That was fun. It’s actually still fun when you go eat the Pym restaurant at California Adventure. But all of that “fun-ness” was gone. Quantumania was literally Star Wars in the MCU. Instead of dealing with oversized toys flying through windows, the audience had to experience talking heads of broccoli. I don’t want to watch a Star Wars movie. I want to watch an Ant-Man Movie!
The argument of the Quantum realm wasn’t believable because it wasn’t explained – at all. Quatumania wants the audience to believe a highly technological society exists, far superior to Wakanda, on a microscopic level. They are just told to believe, and to trust the authors of the movie, and well – that’s it! There’s no explanation, no montage. Hey, when all else fails, just get Morgan Freeman to quickly explain the world, right? There was none of that. Well, what can you expect? This is what our government tells us to do all the time. Just obey and believe, don’t ask question, the debate is over, even though it never started.
Who in the world is Kang, and how did he get his powers? That wasn’t explained well, or at all. He’s a smart fellah, we get it. But does he have superpowers? How did he get all that metal in the quantum world to create a living city? What’s his backstory?
And by the way, didn’t the Ant-Man figure out how to get out of the Quantum Realm? Scott Lang isn’t as smart as Hank Pym, but when he shrank himself and entered the quantum realm, he quickly figured out that by putting a Pym Particle Disc into his regulator, he could exit the world by enlarging himself. He may have forgotten that he did this, but he could still instinctively figure it out again, because he is actually very smart.
There are a lot of holes in this story, and they weren’t filled because there was only one screenwriter here. Featured screenplays are very hard to write. It always helps to have another voice in the room.
This isn’t going to be a good final grade, and it kills me that I’m giving it this.
GRADE: F
Steve Young
