• Marvel Studios

As the stakes in the ever-unfolding Marvel Cinematic Universe have continued to grow—from the fate of the world, to the fate of the universe, to the fate of the multiverse—it has been at least something of a change of pace that director Peyton Reed's Ant-Man films have been so uniquely ... small. They've offered threats on a much more individual level, built around capers and heists, with a goofy sense of fun exemplified by Michael Peña's rambling asides as the buddy/accomplice of Paul Rudd's Scott Lang/Ant-Man. Even the climax of the first film seemed to be a winking acknowledgement of how bombastic these movies tended to be, shrinking the arena for the final battle down to a model train track in a single room. Not every super-hero movie, Ant-Man movies assured us, had to be about The End of All That Is.

So now here we are, as Marvel begins Phase Whatthehellever, launching its latest long-form saga on the backs of Ant-Man, Hope Van Dyne/The Wasp (Evangeline Lilly) and their family. And the sameness of the MCU product has infected this particular corner of the franchise, making it virtually indistinguishable not just from other Marvel movies, but from a bunch of other franchise spectacles.

In theory, it could still have been smaller, thanks to returning us to the super-sub-atomic Quantum Realm from which Wasp's mother, Janet (Michelle Pfeiffer) was rescued in 2018's Ant-Man and the Wasp. After Scott's precocious teen daughter Cassie (Kathryn Newton, taking over from Abby Ryder Fortson) invents a device intended to help study the Quantum Realm, the doohickey instead pulls the whole gang—Scott, Hope, Cassie, Janet and Hank Pym (Michael Douglas)—into the QR instead. There they're faced with the legacy of Janet's years in that place, including her familiarity with a mysterious figure called Kang (Jonathan Majors).

The screenplay by Jeff Loveness—a veteran comedy writer for the likes of Jimmy Kimmel, making his feature debut—initially seems to be aiming for some more personal dynamics, finding Scott adrift and purposeless, with no goals more substantial than promoting his memoir, while Hope and Cassie embrace social activism each in their own way. It would have made a lot of sense to connect this installment's emotional core to Scott's inner uncertainties, particularly his ongoing sense of disconnection from his daughter, between his jail time and his multi-year absence during "The Blip."

Instead, we're thrown immediately into an entire new ecosystem—a kind of micro-Pandora—with a lot of time devoted to showing off the distinctive flora, fauna and (yes, really) floating mountains. Later on, Janet re-connects with an old Quantum Realm acquaintance (played by Bill Murray, taking on a similar "smile at the veteran quirky actor doing what he does best" role as Jeff Goldblum in Thor: Ragnarok) in a setting that feels like an attempt to recreate Star Wars' iconic cantina scene. Everywhere, we're surrounded by signals to make sure it's clear to the audience that, "hey guys, we're in a fantasy blockbuster."

Not surprisingly, that also includes a sense of apocalyptic consequence, as it becomes clear that the native creatures of the Quantum Realm have been fighting a long battle for freedom from the domination of Kang. Majors projects all of the requisite gravitas required of the MCU's next "Big Bad," if perhaps a bit too reminiscent of Thanos in his weary sense of needing to fulfill a great purpose, and he holds the screen whenever he's the focus. Whatever might have been distinctive about Kang and his motivations, however, gets lost in yet another quest for an all-powerful MacGuffin, and a final battle where thousands of faceless protagonists confront thousands of faceless antagonists while energy blasts shoot back and forth between them.

Quantumania manages a few decent gags amidst all the would-be spectacle, and sporadically allows Rudd's particular charms to shine through, most memorably in a sequence where hundreds of him are there at once. But the moments involving actual relationship connections feel like they're attached as afterthoughts rather than fundamental to the story; it's telling that during a late scene where Scott and Hope dramatically embrace, it's practically the first time we would have any sense that there's a romantic involvement between them. That's the kind of thing you should be more committed to when you're telling a story on an intimate scale, and not just setting up the latest threat to the omni-mega-ultraverse.