The first two Ant-Man movies were as joyous as they were because they toyed with our sense of perspective. Big things were small, small things were big, and our fancy was tickled whenever those small and big things interacted with things of a constant size that was known to us. A trip into the quantum realm, which lasts the entirety of Ant-Man and the Wasp: Quantumania, would seem to open up limitless new possibilities in this regard – but only if you’re thinking about it superficially. When everything is minuscule, it may just as well be massive, because we’ve totally lost our frame of reference.

As has this series with respect to what made it fun. When we learn that there’s effectively a whole unexplored universe that’s just really, really tiny, full of weird alien creatures and even space ships, it leaves us with a movie no different from another Star Wars knockoff – and not a very good one at that. Marvel already has several other series devoted to outer space – Guardians of the Galaxy Vol. 3 is just around the corner — and it turns out that inner space is pretty much the same thing.

Remember how we were told that Janet Van Dyne (Michelle Pfeiffer) was stuck for 30 years in a microscopic world, alone except for the floating schools of subatomic mitochondria? And this would feel like an unimaginable eternity to any sane person, who would lose that mental status in a fraction of that time?

Well it turns out it wasn’t quite like that. When the increasingly large number of characters we’re following gets sucked back there at the start of Peyton Reed’s film, it turns out there are millions of other sentient creatures already living there, who have even formed advanced societies. You’ve got one guy who looks like broccoli. You’ve got another guy who is a gelatinous blob. You’ve got one guy who looks human but has a glowing triangle in his forehead that allows him to read thoughts. You’ve even got Bill Murray. Yes, Bill Murray.

Plus you’ve got one guy who’s trying to run the whole place, but ultimately wants to escape to wreak much more macroscopic havoc. He’s spoken about in such hushed tones, so many times before we properly meet him, that we can’t help but be a little disappointed when he’s finally revealed. That’s Kang the Conqueror (Jonathan Majors), the first non-mitochondria Janet met after going subatomic. He passed himself off as a fellow lost traveler, but in reality, he was exiled in this space after leaving a path of devastation through several universes, wiping out whole timelines with his unquenchable thirst for destruction. And why does he have this thirst? Why because he’s a conqueror, of course.

The rebellious yet ingenious daughter Cassie (Kathryn Newton) of Scott Lang (Paul Rudd) has been working on a device that sends signals down into the quantum realm, hoping to explore it. That helps Kang and his minions locate the humans, who had tried to settle down for a bit after Scott, a.k.a. Ant-Man, was arguably the person most responsible for reversing the five-year blip that followed Thanos’ snap. It’s essentially another Thanos on their hands, only smaller, when Scott, Cassie, Janet, Hope Van Dyne (a.k.a. The Wasp, played by Evangeline Lilly) and Hope’s father Hank Pym (Michael Douglas) get effectively lassoed back down to the place each of them have spent some time at some point, except maybe Cassie.

You know who isn’t along on this journey and is sorely missed? That’s Michael Pena’s Luis, the fast-talking, bullshit-slinging, loveable ex-con who was Scott’s partner in his security firm and the primary source of comic relief in the first few movies – the comic relief not provided by Rudd himself, that is. He, T.I. Harris and David Dastmalchian always provided a humorous counterpoint to whatever the superheroes were doing, though only Dastmalchian gets to appear here, as the aforementioned gelatinous blob – so “appear” isn’t quite the word for it. Anyway, Luis in particular was an x-factor this series utilised expertly.

Ostensibly replacing him on the comedic front – no, not Murray, he thankfully disappears after a groan-worthy cameo – is Corey Stoll from the first Ant-Man movie, though he isn’t exactly playing the villainous Darren Cross. That character was banished to the quantum realm and presumed dead, but he appears here as a Humpty Dumpty-like minion for Kang, effectively a large head with shrimpy arms and legs who goes by the acronym M.O.D.O.K. (Mechanised Organism Designed Only for Killing). This character has its origins elsewhere in Marvel comics and has essentially been tossed into this stew for laughs – which, to his credit, he does manage to produce.

He’s about the only one. Try as he might, Paul Rudd can’t push this movie where it needs to go even on the strength of his formidable charisma. But one of the biggest problems is that this is not a funny environment, like the San Francisco of the first two films managed to be. It’s yet another “magical world” full of things we didn’t once imagine possible before computer animation, and now are entirely sick of. It’s also predominantly dark, making it a place of little mirth no matter how many gelatinous blobs they get to say funny things.

One wishes at least Jonathan Majors, who is becoming quite the formidable presence himself, would be able to push this film in a definitive direction toward something interesting. He doesn’t. For every moment he smartly underplays, trying to chill us with his serene detachment, he’s got another that totally undermines him, where he’s little more than the caricature of a supervillain barking orders. I guess there can really only be one Thanos.

We desperately need a respite from all this digital backwash. A sub plot with Luis and his buddies spinning tall tales in San Francisco — not the sunniest city, mind you, but it would seem like it compared to this — and providing their bit of crucial assistance to their miniature friends and colleagues could have been just the ticket. Instead, Ant-Man and the Wasp: Quantumania is a monotone of cheerless franchise maintenance, containing none of the virtues of either the very big or the very small.

 

Ant-Man and the Wasp: Quantumania opens today in cinemas.