Ant-Man And The Wasp: Quantumania Gives Us A Pissed Off Paul Rudd, And We're Here For It

This post contains spoilers for "Ant-Man and The Wasp: Quantumania."

For better or worse, "Ant-Man and The Wasp: Quantumania" evolves this series of silly family-friendly adventures into an essential stepping stone into the Marvel Cinematic Universe's next big story arc: the Multiverse Saga. Ironically, while this story is set in the microscopic Quantum Realm, the stakes have never been bigger for the Ant-Family. This is both the movie's main ambition and its unfortunate fatal flaw. Thankfully, one of the more intimate threads of the film is the relationship between our hero, "World's Greatest Grandma" Scott Lang (Paul Rudd), and his rebellious teenage daughter Cassie (Kathryn Newton). Scott, unfortunately, missed a few of her birthdays as he was stuck in the Quantum Realm during the five-year blip, but now he's working on being as present in her life as possible — even if that means giving up the superhero mantle for a while.

On the other hand, Cassie is ready for action. Through the knowledge of her father and Janet van Dyne (Michelle Pfieffer), she's been researching the intricacies of the Quantum Realm on her own time. After a family dinner, she shows off her latest invention: a satellite communication device that can communicate in both directions. Had she finished it earlier, she could have rescued her father all those years ago. That tender father-daughter moment is quickly interrupted as Janet forcefully turns off the device. She warns that Cassie must not communicate with whatever hides there. Suddenly, a portal opens from the machine, and the entire Ant-Family is sucked into the Quantum Realm.

Trapped in an unfamiliar world with foreign dangers around every corner, Scott has never been more driven (and pissed) than he is in "Quantumania." This time, it's his daughter's life on the line.

That's right, one of the biggest highlights of "Quantumania" is watching Scott Lang shift gears into full Protective Dad Mode, and in pivotal moments of the story, he gets real pissed off at his enemies. All the ex-convict turned hero wants is for Cassie to live a better life than he did, and that means protecting her at all costs. Though she's stirred up some drama in the real world as a light protester, this is her first time on the battlefield.

At first, his fatherly frustrations manifest in a couple of moments of silly banter. Scott clumsily fights a threatening protozoa-like creature, and in one scene, he watches Cassie struggle to effectively use her Pym Particle suit in combat, then he lectures her on how to "jump, then tap," a move that helps him maintain his momentum and strength as Ant-Man. The family that fights together, stays together. Despite a lot of the drama of the film falling flat, Paul Rudd is successful enough as an actor to sell the more emotionally subtle moments through his natural charms.

Unfortunately, it's not long until the father-daughter duo is apprehended by the MCU's new big bad, Kang the Conqueror (Jonathan Majors). He has been ruling over the Quantum Realm in Janet's absence with an iron fist. Majors plays Kang with a Darth Vader-esque level of menace, fitting for a man trying to assert his control over every timeline imaginable. Through flashbacks, we learn about Kang's special connection to Janet — how he manipulated her during her time in the Quantum Realm into re-building his Multiversal Power Core machine, something he was cosmically exiled by time and space for abusing. Using Pym Particles, Janet broke the power core before leaving him in the Quantum Realm alone.

The Multiversal Power Core could be fixed with the right Pym Particles and enough courage to brave the "probability storm," and Scott has the unique smuggling talents to get the job done. One of the more impressive dramatic scenes Rudd delivers is when Kang tortures Cassie in order to get Scott to do his dirty laundry. You can really feel the hurt in Scott's heart at the moment. Sometimes, pushing the jolliest characters to their personal limits can demonstrate so much dramatic weight.

Once the last act kicks in, Kang's failure to keep his word and exchange the fixed Power Core for Cassie's safety sparks an anger in Scott that we've never seen before. As the rebels of the Quantum Realm march on Kang's tower for independence, Scott and Hope (Evangeline Lilly) are fighting right beside them. Not a lot made me feel throughout "Quantumania," but I was quite compelled by how determined Scott was in bringing Kang's defenses down. We've seen Ant-Man fight in high-profile battles to protect the balance of the universe before with the Avengers, and yet, none of that ever felt as personal as this fight against Kang. The anger in Rudd's voice makes it clear, this is a primal response from a parent taking care of their own kin.

One last fight sequence between Kang and Scott in the final moments of the film is brutal, but lasts a little too long and lacks the same kind of urgency as the previous sequence — perhaps because one knows this is a Marvel movie and it will predictably wrap up neatly in the end. And it does for the most part, outside of the post-credit sequel teases.

Ant-Man's eventual progression into a tentpole Phase 5 film feels inevitable, as the MCU continues to stack upon itself and attempt to inflate into something larger than "Avengers: Endgame," but my personal hope is that they will never let go of the personal stakes for these characters. Even when nothing much else was grabbing my attention in "Quantumania," I understood the fatherly love Scott had for Cassie, his daughter stepping into the action for the very first time in her life.

I hope that this franchise still remembers to tap into something human and emotionally honest because that's ultimately when these superhero stories are at their most successful — the rest is just empty spectacle. Thankfully, Paul Rudd's natural charisma as an actor delivered where most of the movie fails.