Learning to trust in the quantum realm

MYRNA BROWN, HOST: Today is Friday, February 17th.

Thank you for turning to WORLD Radio to help start your day.

Good morning. I’m Myrna Brown.

NICK EICHER, HOST: And I’m Nick Eicher. Coming next on The World and Everything in It: the first blockbuster of 2023.

BROWN: That’s right. Here’s Collin Garbarino to talk about the new superhero movie arriving in theaters this weekend.

MUSIC: [“Goodbye Yellow Brick Road” by Elton John]

COLLIN GARBARINO: Marvel Studios launches phase five of its longrunning Avengers franchise this weekend with a new Ant-Man sequel—Ant-Man and the Wasp: Quantumania. Marvel is setting up a massive multiversal war, and this movie gives us a good look at the big baddie, Kang the Conqueror.

Ant-Man and the Wasp: Quantumania begins with Scott Lang, the Ant-Man, settling into his new life after helping save half the universe in Avengers: Endgame. The littlest Avenger has become a minor celebrity in his neighborhood, but he struggles to make up for lost time with his daughter Cassie, who’s become something of an activist.

SCOTT: You know, I promised your mom that you’d only use this stuff when one of us was around. It’s really dangerous tech.

CASSIE: I know it’s dangerous.

SCOTT: What if the cops took it from you? What if you lost it?

CASSIE: I didn’t lose the suit.

SCOTT: You have a suit? Wait. You have a suit?

CASSIE: I know how to take care of myself, OK? Trust me, I’m pretty good at it by now.

SCOTT: Ouch.

CASSIE: I didn’t mean it like that. Sorry.

SCOTT: It’s OK. It’s alright. I get it. I just think you should get to have a normal life.

CASSIE: Dad, a man dressed like a bee tried to kill me in my room when I was six. I’ve never had a normal life.

Besides helping the downtrodden, Scott’s daughter has been studying the quantum realm—a timey-wimey place beneath our universe where members of her family tend to get stuck.

JANET: So you’re studying the quantum realm. Why didn’t you ask me about it?

HOPE: I tried, Mom. A lot. You never wanted to talk about it.

HANK: Cassie’s just been curious, and we gave her some pointers.

JANET: This isn’t exactly ant science, is it, Henry? You know how dangerous the quantum realm is.

HOPE: We all do, Mom. Nobody’s going to the quantum realm.

But of course they’re going to the quantum realm. Science is never safe in a Marvel movie. And what they find down there surprises them.

HANK: There are beings down here. Intelligent beings. I always theorized it was possible, but to be here. A subatomic universe.

The quantum realm feels like a cross between Star Wars and Avatar, and it’s ruled by Kang—an evil conqueror who needs Scott’s help to escape the subatomic universe so he can get back to wreaking havoc in the multiverse.

KANG: You’re an interesting man, Scott Lang.

SCOTT: Um, I don’t know who you are, but you’ve made a big mistake. OK? I’m an Avenger. I’ve called the other Avengers.

KANG: You’re an Avenger? Have I killed you before?

SCOTT: What?

KANG: They all blur together after a while. You’re not the one with the hammer?

SCOTT: That’s Thor. We get confused a lot. Similar body types. Who are you?

KANG: Just a man, who’s lost a lot of time, like you. But we can help each other with that.

Unless you’re a Marvel fanatic who’s seen all 30 movies, you’re probably asking yourself if this one’s worth it. And if it is, how many of those 30 movies do you need to watch for this one to make sense?

Let’s start with that second question. If you’ve seen the first two Ant-Man movies and the Loki series on Disney+, you’re good to go. If you haven’t seen those, it should only take you 10 hours to get caught up.

That other question of whether it’s worth it, is a little trickier. I enjoyed the movie, but I wasn’t wowed. Paul Rudd, Evangline Lilly, Michelle Pfeiffer, and Michael Douglas are back with solid enough performances. But Jonathan Majors as Kang was the highlight.

But Quantumania abandons the heist genre that made the first Ant-Man films different from generic superhero movies. This one is more like a space-opera action comedy. It’s designed to push us further into the multiverse arc rather than offer us an Ant-Man movie. And I really felt the absence of Michael Peña who played a scene-stealing ex-con in the first two Ant-Mans.

But the movie has its moments.

SCOTT: Look. Momentum, right? Jump, tap. Right? One move. Jump, tap.

CASSIE: I know how to do it, Dad.

SCOTT: Do you? Really?

CASSIE: Yes!

SCOTT: It didn’t look like it from my end.

CASSIE: I messed up on the timing.

SCOTT: Jump—ah. [fighting] Like that. See what I did? See what I did?

CASSIE: No. You’re like this small!

SCOTT: I jumped, tapped.

The movie is PG-13 for sci-fi action and a little bad language. Quantumania is a movie about family members who love each other, but need to learn to trust each other. It doesn’t necessarily break any new ground—the plot feels a little formulaic—but I’m always interested in a superhero movie in which the villain has an interesting justification for his villainy. And so far, Kang is a very interesting villain.

KANG: So. What’s it going to be… Ant-Man?

I’m Collin Garbarino.

WORLD Radio transcripts are created on a rush deadline. This text may not be in its final form and may be updated or revised in the future. Accuracy and availability may vary. The authoritative record of WORLD Radio programming is the audio record.