New ‘Ant-Man’ movie lacks the heart, magic of earlier Marvel movies

Early on in the first episode of the sitcom “Spaced,” Simon Pegg goes on a rant about how much better the original “Star Wars” movies were than “The Phantom Menace.”

“You so do not understand,” he screams at the object of his ire, a little kid. “You weren’t there at the beginning. You don’t know how good it was. How important.”

When thinking about how the Marvel Cinematic Universe started and its latest chapter, “Ant-Man and the Wasp: Quantumania,” I think I can relate to what Pegg’s character was feeling. Because “Quantumania” really left me cold.

“Quantumania” purports to be the story of Scott Lang/Ant-Man (Paul Rudd) and his family accidentally getting sucked into the quantum realm and fighting to find a way back home. In the course of that story, we get some size-shifting action and massive battle scenes.

But what this movie is really about is setting up the new Avengers-level threat, the time-traveling Kang the Conqueror (Jonathan Majors). Kang is trying to use the movie’s McGuffin to escape the quantum realm and take revenge on the people who exiled him there. Apparently, his definition of revenge involves destroying whole timelines and trillions of lives, so of course, he must be stopped.

That’s really the main problem vexing “Quantumania.” It seems only to exist as a way to set up Kang and the threat that he represents. While he was introduced in the “Loki” Disney+ series, we really get to see what he’s all about in “Quantumania.”

While that might be great for future MCU films, it means the “Quantumania” never truly feels like a movie in its own right. If you removed Kang from the equation, would this movie have a reason to exist? I’m not sure it would.

This also affects the characters. Because so much of the screen time is dedicated to getting Kang up and running, the other important characters feel sidelined. Wasp (Evangeline Lilly) shares the title with Ant-Man but she gets most of her screen time in group scenes or when she shows up to save Ant-Man’s butt. It just feels like she gets a raw deal in service of setting up future Marvel movies.

On the plus side, Majors kills it as Kang. He carries himself with a calmness and confidence of a man who knows exactly how everything would play out. His arrogance is off-putting, which is perfect for the character. When it’s time for Kang to rage, Majors pulls it off in a way that carries a full load of menace. He gonna be fun to watch as the MCU continues to unspool.

“Quantumania” also introduces one of my favorite Marvel villains and gives him a personal connection to Scott. I don’t want to say much more than that because I don’t want to spoil anything. But it made me smile.

Visually, this flick is also one of the most interesting of the Marvel movies. It mixes the shiny futurism of science fiction with bizarre, monstrous creatures and dream-like landscapes in a way that would make legendary Marvel artist Jack Kirby proud.

Overall, “Ant-Man and the Wasp: Quantumania” didn’t make me mad or sad. For the most part, I sat there in the dark and felt nothing. I wonder if in the rush to create a massive, fully interconnected movie multiverse, the folks at Marvel have lost sight of what made their earlier movies work so well: creating compelling characters. “Quantumania” has reality-altering stakes but Ant-Man worked a lot better as the lead in a smaller, more intimate heist movie, like the original “Ant-Man”.

The words of master bluesman B.B. King are fitting with regard to this movie and the larger MCU these days: the thrill is gone. I hope Kevin Feige and the other people running the MCU figure out how to bring it back.

2 ½ Indy Fedoras out of 5

MPAA Rating: PG-13