If there’s one thing you can always rely on when it comes to the Marvel Cinematic Universe fandom, it’s mountains being made out of molehills. Or in this case an anthill, with Peyton Reed’s upcoming Ant-Man and the Wasp: Quantumania coming under fire for being too short.
We should certainly make a note of pointing out that not only has the threequel not even been released yet, or held its world premiere, but reshoots were still ongoing as of last Friday. As close to the line as that may be, it’s a stretch to criticize a movie nobody’s even seen for not running long enough.
It’s a recurring problem across the MCU’s output, though, with many of the franchise’s installments being blasted for being too lengthy, or not substantial enough. Somewhere out there is a feature we can all agree exists happily in the middle and takes the exact amount of time to regale us with a beginning, middle, and end, but Quantumania wouldn’t appear to be it.
125 minutes is plenty of time to tell a barn-burner of a story that dives deep into the Quantum Realm, gives Paul Rudd and Evangeline Lilly’s title heroes their most intense and serious assignment yet, all while igniting the build to both Phase Five and the Avengers double-header of The Kang Dynasty and Secret Wars, without forgetting the ominous presence of Jonathan Majors lurking in the background.
Not every comic book adaptation needs to be a butt-number, and it goes without saying that judgement should be reserved until Quantumania has actually been released.