After most entries in Phase 4 passed by without doing much to set up the next big bad in the MCU, I was eagerly anticipating this film given it would be the big screen introduction of Kang. While Majors shines as Kang, the rest of the film and even some of the narrative choices with Kang leave a bit of a "meh" feeling.
As far as positives, Paul Rudd remains as endearing as ever. MODOK is a tad jarring, but I liked the tie-in to Yellowjacket. The visuals are solid and it's a very colorful movie. Majors truly has a magnetic presence on screen and I found his dialogues and conversations to be very compelling.
For negatives, there aren't really any arcs for the characters and Ant-Man himself ends up in literally the same place (on the sidewalk thinking about how good his life is) as the beginning of the film. Scott's cohorts aren't given much to do either. The MCU hallmark of jokes undercutting serious moments unfortunately continues and honestly the comedy really didn't land as well as the first two films. I also got major Rise of Skywalker vibes with the cliche "everyone in the rebellion shows up to fight the space troopers at the end."
However, my big issue with the film is the ending. This movie felt like it should've had some major consequences to establish Kang as an Avengers-level threat. Having Scott and Hope dispatch him while a portal opens up to save them literally seconds after you thought they might get trapped in the Quantum Realm or Kang would escape was eyeroll-inducing. The Council of Kangs scene was also almost more goofy than menacing.
I'm hopeful that Feige can right the ship and get the Multiverse Saga to Infinity Saga levels of hype, but right now I'm just left not feeling much. I never thought I'd say this, but I think I'm currently looking forward more to seeing how The Flash movie resets the DCU than how the MCU multiverse plays out.
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