The reviews for Marvel Studios’ “Ant-Man and the Wasp: Quantumania” are in and the word is… not good.
With 107 reviews counted, the film sits at 57% (5.9/10) on Rotten Tomatoes which marks the second worst score for a Marvel film ahead of only “Eternals” (47%) and behind “Thor: Love and Thunder” (64%). Including TV, its the fourth worst received Marvel project to date behind “Eternals,” the “Iron Fist” series (37%) and “Inhumans” (11%).
Things are worse over at Metacritic where it sits at a 50/100 – making it the lowest MCU film to date and one of the worst Marvel films made ahead of only “Fantastic Four: Rise of the Silver Surfer” (45), “The New Mutants” (43), “Morbius” (35) and “Punisher: War Zone (30).
Whilst Jonathan Majors’ Kang is scoring praise across the board, not much else about the film has been well received. Below is a sampling of review quotes:
“While it’s not surprising that [Majors’] imposing physicality perfectly suits his iconic villainous character, he also invests his performance with such an arrestingly quiet stillness and ambivalence that you’re on edge every moment he’s onscreen.” – Frank Scheck, Hollywood Reporter
“‘Quantumania’ is fun, as well as bedazzling, relentless and numbing, then fun again just when you think you’ve had enough; all of that gets mashed together” – Owen Gleiberman, Variety
“Quantumania is somehow heavy without feeling substantial, almost desperate in its dourness. Even scattered with occasional wisecracks, it makes Eternals feel positively breezy by comparison.” – David Fear, Rolling Stone
“Majors is certainly chilling and captivating, but Kang seems like a mismatched foe for a standalone Ant-Man film and the result is a Quantumania that is trying to be too many things.” – Lindsey Bahr, Associated Press
“It’s like something a kid threw together for a science fair, hoping that sheer charm would compensate for not having any actual science content. Too bad that, for all its amusing jokes, the world onscreen mostly looks like a Marvel screen-saver.” – Matt Zoller Seitz, RogerEbert.com
“The story is in service of the larger Marvel engine, an increasingly creaky machine that nevertheless keeps grinding away, dropping superstar performers into CGI glop because the show simply must go on.” – David Sims, The Atlantic
“Midway through, as everyone on screen was restating their interest in getting home again, I thought: Same!” – Michael Phillips, Chicago Tribune
Even with the reviews, the film is on track to pull in $95-100 million in North America over the traditional weekend and $110 through President’s Day on Monday. In addition it’s expected to pull in around $160 million overseas, though could go higher as the film is a rare Marvel entry scoring a Chinese release.
