YouTuber The Critical Drinker took Marvel Studios’ latest entry Ant-Man and the Wasp: Quantumania to task describing it as “everything that most of us have come to despise about Marvel.”
Ant-Man and the Wasp: Quantumania was being marketed by Marvel Studios as the launching point for Phase 5 and the first big leap into their Multiverse Saga.
In Production Notes for the film, Marvel Studios touted the film saying, “Kicking off Phase 5 of the Marvel Cinematic Universe, the fast-paced, big-screen adventure features all of the heart and humor fans of the MCU expect.”
Director Peyton Reed highlighted this assessment saying, “The Ant-Man movies have always been about family. In Quantumania, we’re deepening and complicating the family dynamic while painting on a much larger canvas. We dipped our toe in the Quantum Realm in the first couple of movies, and this time, we wanted to give the movie an entirely different look: It’s an epic experience.”
Marvel Studios would go on to make it clear this film would be integral to the Marvel Cinematic Universe moving forward, implying one would need to see it to keep up with the ongoing story. They stated, “The stakes are high, adds Reed—Ant-Man and The Wasp: Quantumania sets the stage for several films to follow.”
Given this hype, one would have expected the film to blow critics and audiences away. However, that was not the case. The film was panned by critics with a 48% Tomatometer rating. However, the Audience Score does sit at 84%.
It’s likely that Audience Score on Rotten Tomatoes is significantly inflated as IMDb users only gave the film a 6.6 out of 10.
On Metacritic the User Score sits at 5.9.
Given the Critical Drinker’s review, seen below, he’d probably believe even these scores are too high.
The YouTuber eviscerated the film saying, “[Ant-Man and the Wasp: Quantumania] basically sums up everything the MCU has become. A plot so entirely predictable and generic that it feels like it was written by an overworked A.I. Basically, consistent of a series of tired and played out tropes that have been done a million times before.”
He continued, “Lame attempts at quippy jokes and visual gags that are jarringly at odds with what’s actually happening. Headache inducing visuals that are so obnoxiously overdone that you can barely even process what you’re seeing. And an ending that effectively puts everything back exactly as it was before so that there’s absolutely no weight or consequence to anything that you just saw.”
He didn’t stop there. “It’s two hours of trite, bland, corporatized, predictable, pointless, soul-destroying nothingness. It’s the absolute antithesis of artistic endeavor that has nothing interesting to say or do. And exists for no other reason than because the studio had a release slot to fill.”
“Watching this movie is like eating a Big Mac for the 500th time in your life. Just another iteration of the same formula that’s exactly what you expect from start to finish and leaves you feeling vaguely dirty and disappointed in yourself afterwards,” he added.
Later in the video, The Critical Drinker notes, “Ultimately, the Marvel Cinematic Universe feels like some old rock band playing their greatest hits at gig after gig. They’re basically on autopilot now. Nobody’s hearts are really in it anymore. They all know the routine off by heart and what the audience expects. And it’s really just a case of getting off the set so they can move to the next gig forever.”
He then reiterated, “It’s just the same crap regurgitated once more.”
It looks like audiences might have figured this out before they even went to theaters. Ant-Man and the Wasp: Quanutmania grossed $106.1 million at the domestic box office in its opening weekend. It’s grossed a total of $120.3 million domestically so far with another $157.6 million from international theaters for a worldwide total of $278 million.
The movie is currently vastly underperforming the most recent Marvel Studios releases in Black Panther: Wakanda Forever, Thor: Love and Thunder, and Doctor Strange in the Multiverse of Madness.
Black Panther: Wakanda Forever had an opening weekend of $181.3 million. Thor: Love and Thunder grossed $144.1 million and Doctor Strange in the Multiverse of Madness grossed $187.4 million.
What do you make of The Critical Drinker’s takedown of Ant-Man and the Wasp: Quantumania?