Quantumania gets the job done
Ant-Man and the Wasp: Quantumania is two films in one, one much worse than the other. The first is a meandering, world-building enterprise, the details of which could have been dispensed with in 30 minutes, not the listless hour we’re subjected to. The second is a somber, rip-roaring adventure, far different in tone than the previous two entries in this franchise that successfully raises the stakes for the entire Marvel Universe with the introduction of a formidable villain.
As always, Paul Rudd has charm to spare as Scott Lang, who is coasting on his fame, a bit directionless after helping the Avengers defeat Thanos and restore half of the Earth’s population. However, he’s forced to suit up and play hero once more when his wife Hope (Evangeline Lilly), Hank and Janet Pym (Michael Douglas and Michelle Pfeiffer), and his daughter Cassie (Kathryn Newton) accidentally get sucked into the microscopic Quantum realm, an incredibly large micro-universe ruled by the villainous Kang the Conqueror (Jonathan Majors).
There’s more than a bit of Star Wars at play here as the viewer is introduced to an odd new world with a myriad of aliens, each species begging for a backstory to be written about them. Director Peyton Reed and screenwriter Jeff Loveness spend far too much time immersing the viewer and characters into their Dali-inspired micro-environment, while their insistence on holding back vital information regarding a connection between Janet and Kang is maddening.
However, once the Big Bad shows up, the movie aggressively shifts gears, Majors dominating the screen with a dynamic performance as the conflicted time traveler. The requisite big-action finale is imaginatively done and the personal stakes between the characters are much more dire than in previous entries, the film benefiting from taking a more serious turn. To be sure, this isn’t first-rate Marvel, but it’s better than most of the Phase Four entries and serves as a sound launching pad for the next franchise-spanning epic that will eventually involve all the company’s heroes. In theaters.
Logic holds in convoluted Sharper
If you are prone to whiplash or have any back or neck problems, I would advise you to skip Benjamin Caron’s Sharper, a crime drama that has more twists and turns than San Francisco’s Lombard Street. However, if you’re looking for a reasonably diverting crime drama aspiring to be a David Mamet-like con movie, then you could do worse. The less you know about what happens, the better off you’ll be as the pleasure of the film comes from discovering the surprises it contains. That being said, if the movie has a fault, it’s that it works a bit too hard and isn’t nearly as clever as it thinks it is.
The cast of characters includes Tom (Justice Smith), who owns a tony New York City bookstore; Sandra (Briana Middleton), a woman struggling with her troubled past; Max (Sebastian Stan), a smooth operator whose slick appearance belies his corrupt heart; and Madeline (Julianne Moore) a recent bride who is not quite used to the Central Park digs she shares with her billionaire husband, Richard Hobbes (John Lithgow).
How these characters’ paths cross and who gets taken by who is for you to discover. For the most part, the foundation of Gatewood and Tanaka’s story is grounded by logic that lends a sense of realism to the peculiar events that play out. Granted, they push the bounds of credibility in the third act, which takes a violent turn. Still, the final twist is not only well-earned but holds water, which is all that matters. In the end, Sharper doesn’t insult the viewer’s intelligence, and that may be its most impressive trick.
This article appears in Wedding.
