Tiny Flash Gordon

The problem with Marvel trying to widen the scope after the universe effecting events of Thanos and his technicolour dream glove is that the more you explore "different" realms the more obvious it becomes that everything is basically the same. The multiverse of "madness" turned out to be the universe of "quite similar but the traffic lights are upside down" and here the unknowable quantum realm, where physics and time don't exist in any way we understand, is just another alien world.

To be fair, the alien world is a pretty cool one. There are funky creatures and weird characters, giving things a 50's B movie or Flash Gordon vibe, complete with appropriate wacky visuals. Sadly all this stuff is rushed, not really giving the chance to take in the view or enjoy fun moments, including a cameo everyone would surely love to have seen more of. You get the feeling an earlier phase of the MCU would have leaned into the "Lost in Space" of it all a bit more but here we have to move quickly on to the Super High Stakes. These involve Jonathon Major's Kang, played in a reserved style that makes him menacing but a little out of sync with the rest of the movie. Given he is from another dimension that may be the point. Kang's sidekick MODOK is a fun take on a ridiculous villian but the departure may divide comic book fans.

On the hero front its good to see Michelle Pfeiffer given a substantial role and it looks as if a grown up Cassie Lang is intented to be a fixture going forward but Evangeline Lilly has such a reduced role it seems pointless keeping "The Wasp" as part of the title. Micheal Douglas is enjoyable when on screen but kept mostly to the periphery of proceedings and while he is having fun you can tell he isn't exactly massively invested in whats going on. Leading man Paul Rudd is, well, Paul Rudd. He brings the charm and liability to Scott Lang you've come to expect. He manages this despite being stuck with a pretty stupid character arc where he begins the film suddenly averse to helping people for no well defined reason.

This is symptomatic of some fairly lazy writting in parts, with some of the most by the numbers dialogue yet seen in a Marvel movie. Fortunately there is enough visual and stylistic creativity on display to make the film more than watchable, if certainly no Giant Man of the genre.

7 hyper intelligent insects out of 10 ants.

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