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Into gung-ho battle with goofy heroes and villains
Damon Smith reviews the latest new releases to watch in the cinema
ANT-MAN AND THE WASP: QUANTUMANIA (12A)
High expectations and rational thought are seldom the best of friends.
After the battle cries and expertly choreographed death rattles of phase three of the Marvel Cinematic Universe, resolving the Thanos character arc that took root in the end credits of 2012’s Marvel Avengers Assemble, phase four of the MCU was always going to be an anti-climax.
The resulting tumble through a spectacularly realised multiverse after the Blip felt disjointed and lacked a clear narrative through line to hint how ripples from each superpowered action might overlap and build into a tidal wave of unstoppable dramatic momentum.
There were undeniable highlights: Simu Liu’s spectacular mastery of the 10 rings, the eagerly anticipated spandex tag team of Spider-Man: No Way Home, and an elegiac farewell to Chadwick Boseman from the grief-stricken nation of Wakanda.
However, every triumph in phase four felt neatly self-contained.
Ant-Man And The Wasp: Quantumania forcefully and noisily kick-starts phase five by introducing a multifaceted villain to rival Thanos, whose insidious presence has existed in a world within a world beneath our own universe for many years.
This genocidal time traveller – whose name isn’t uttered on screen for the best part of an hour – is embodied with palpable menace by Jonathan Majors, casting a long shadow over every frame including two teases buried in the end credits that expand the unstoppable threat beyond wise-cracking Scott Lang (Paul Rudd) and his clan.
Screenwriter Jeff Loveness adopts a Greatest Hits Of Marvel approach to storytelling in his gung-ho gallivant, echoing tender exchanges, droll comic relief and rallying cries from earlier films without losing sight of the emotional bonds between a supersized family powered by Pym particles.
Scott (Rudd) and Hope Van Dyne (Evangeline Lilly) aka Ant-Man and Wasp are sucked into the Quantum Realm by a “sub-atomic Hubble telescope” designed by Scott’s spunky 18-year-old daughter Cassie (Kathryn Newton).
The teenager and Hope’s parents Hank (Michael Douglas) and Janet (Michelle Pfeiffer) are also wrenched from our reality into a fantastical hidden universe where drinking viscous red goo allows spies to speak the same language, buildings move on giant legs and Kang the Conqueror (Majors) patiently awaits the return of a duplicitous old friend. Battle lines are drawn and Scott, Hope and the gang align with ballsy freedom fighter Jentorra (Katy O’Brian), telepath Quaz (William Jackson Harper) and an orificeobsessed entity named Veb (David Dastmalchian).
Anchored by Rudd’s goofy and optimistic intergalactic hero (“It’s a pretty good world. I’m glad we saved it!”), Ant-Man And The Wasp: Quantumania shoehorns copious backstory and world-building into two frenetic hours laden with digital effects. Pfeiffer merrily scenesteals, spearheading a menagerie of determined, proactive female characters who proclaim, “just because it’s not happening to you doesn’t mean it’s not happening”.
Returning director Peyton Reed sustains the irreverence of previous instalments with a bonkers call back to a character from the first Ant-Man who has definitely let power go to their head.
7/10
THE SON (15)
Divorced parents are ill-prepared to navigate their teenage son’s mental health crisis in Florian Zeller’s emotionally wrought drama, adapted by the director and Christopher Hampton from Zeller’s 2018 stage play. The co-screenwriters received golden Oscar statuettes in 2021 for their elegant adaptation of Zeller’s stage work The Father, in which Sir Anthony Hopkins delivers a mesmerising performance as a discombobulated 80-something grappling with dementia.
The Welsh actor chews scenery in The Son, portraying an ageing political beast with strong ties to the White House, who does not flinch at the prospect of taking on the role of a monster in the eyes of his 50-year-old son (Hugh Jackman).
Sins are revisited on subsequent generations in Zeller and Hampton’s script, which is handcuffed to its stage origins as a series of heated conversations in living rooms and offices to attribute blame and suffering.
7/10
MARCEL THE SHELL WITH SHOES ON (PG)
Expanded from a series of stopmotion animated short films, this is the glorious, life-affirming odyssey of a one-inch-tall, googly-eyed talking shell, voiced to perfection by Jenny Slate. Not since Forrest Gump has an unlikely big screen hero plied unabashed sweetness and childlike naivete to such winning effect.
A script co-written by director Dean Fleischer Camp, Slate and Nick Paley elicits endless empathetic awwws and guffaws, shifting perspective on the modern world to Marcel’s uncynical vantage point as he races around the living room inside a tennis ball.
A faux documentary format allows the eponymous casing to narrate thoughts and emotions directly to camera without irony or the intrusion of self-criticism.
We would all do well to embrace Marcel’s uncluttered, self-affirming philosophy.