By Pat Gainor, Staff Writer

The Marvel Cinematic Universe (MCU) has recently fallen on tough times. Since Avengers: Endgame, the superhero conglomerate has struggled to captivate audiences like it did in the late 2010s. 

Marvel’s Phase 4 fails to loop audiences into its absurdly complex and ever-growing storyline and leaves former fans wondering if it’s lost its touch. MCU movies have started to feel less like movies with stories to tell and more like direct-to-DVD level sequels that get churned out in a month by overworked CGI artists being lorded over by Disney’s greed. 

Disney has seen this trend hurt its cash cow. They have said they will make amends with Phase 5.

Ant-Man and the Wasp: Quantumania was the start of the MCU’s fifth phase. This was supposed to bring people back into theaters to see its movies and bring in the billions again. But Quantumania wasn’t a great start.

Quantumania is one of 2023’s worst movies. It is awful. Atrocious. Abhorrent. I could go through the entire thesaurus of synonyms for “terrible” and still not have enough words to describe this worthless piece of garbage. I hated pretty much everything about this movie from start to finish, and I feel more disconnected from the MCU than ever.

Let’s start with the plot. Marvel’s plots have suffered since the glorious mystery surrounding Infinity War, but this is some bottom of the barrel crap. 

If you were to watch the trailer and guess  this movie’s plot points, you would be mostly correct. This movie is nearly exactly what you expect it to be. There are no surprises beyond the fact that everything you think is going to happen actually does happen.

That wouldn’t be an issue if it weren’t for the fact that every character in the movie is suffering from poor writing. Paul Rudd is an excellent, funny actor, but the MCU has failed time and time again to write him into a role that actually fits his strengths, and boy, do they misuse Rudd in Quantumania. 

Finally, if you want proof that this movie was rushed through production, look at the CGI world of the Quantum Realm. It is ugly. This movie should be a case study for how Disney and Marvel’s overworking their CGI artists affects the quality of their movies. It’s depressing knowing that, as evidenced in many of the other movies in Phase 4, the artists were forced to do their job under unrealistic expectations and didn’t have time to put any love into the product.

The biggest thing this movie does is continues what Loki started in setting up Kang, played by Jonathan Majors. Majors does well in Quantumania and gave me some relief that I didn’t completely waste my money on a ticket completely — but the ending just takes a machete to all of it. It cuts down the stakes, and makes Kang seem pitiful. If your movie is setting up a Big Bad to lord over the rest of the movies in Phase 5, don’t do it at the end of the movie. It’s awful writing, and it makes the movie absolutely worthless.

The MCU is in freefall. This setup movie for Phase 5 is a colossal failure in every way. The only interest I have left in the MCU is Guardians of the Galaxy Vol. 3, and even then, I don’t know if it’s worth my time if this is the direction the company is taking things.

Don’t see this movie.