This week at the Morris Theater, the latest MCU film, Antman and the Wasp: Quantumania, debuted in its first week, and the obvious NFL advertisement, 80 For Brady, debuted two weeks after its release. My thoughts below.
In talking about these movies, I want to use the analogy of fast food because they both fit the term of a “fast-food movie,” in that they hold no artistic value and only exist to advertise future products. In the first case, we have 80 For Brady, which is a blatant product that advertises the NFL, as well as other not-so-subtly shown products. I think that this movie is like McDonald’s. It gets a bad rap, justifiably so because of the problems with football, but it ends up being surprisingly palatable when you actually consume it.
The film is directed by Kyle Marvin; it is his directorial debut, and it stars Lily Tomlin, Rita Moreno, Jane Fonda, and Sally Field as a group of women in their 80s, and 70s, who love the Patriots, specifically Tom Brady. On a whim, they decide to go to the 2017 Superbowl, it being the Patriots against the Falcons, as a means to do something exciting before they become too old. I was expecting this film to be awful, but with the reviews after its release being surprisingly positive, I was cautiously optimistic. I definitely enjoyed this more than I was expecting to, especially given that I despise football, and, in particular, Tom Brady and his child-smooching and money laundering ways. This movie is absolutely hilarious, much more than it has any right to be. It embraces the stupidity of the narrative and really makes it something special.
The emotional core of the story, despite being so tied to football and Tom Brady, was successful at evoking some surprising amounts of emotion in me. It was only brought down because of the inclusion of Tom Brady in key emotional moments. In maintaining the fast-food analogy, the emotional hook would be the french fries, whereas the comedy is the real meat of the story, the burger in this case. These combined very well, as burgers and fries tend to do. The film does not take itself seriously at all, with jokes littered throughout, and surprisingly good ones at that. The film has a much more raunchy sense of humor than I was expecting it to have, especially considering its target audience. I really enjoyed the scene of the women pretending to be backup dancers for Lady Gaga, and it totally represented the absurdist sense of humor the film was going for.
There really is not much else to say about this movie. I definitely enjoyed it, and I would honestly recommend it to most people, as long as you can look past the blatant product placement and obsession with football. The direction, cinematography, editing, and music were all painfully dull, but the sense of humor the film has absolutely carries it, as do the performances from the four main characters. If this seems like something you would like, you should definitely check it out, and I will give 80 For Brady a 6/10.
On the other side of the spectrum, Ant-Man and the Wasp: Quantumania was not like a surprisingly palatable McDonald’s meal. Instead, it was like ordering something from a fast-food place, receiving your order wrong, and having a hair in your food. This is not to target fast-food employees at all; I have worked in the food industry, and I understand the struggle. I think the employees in a fast-food joint are comparable to the special effects artists who worked on this film: They are underpaid and overworked, and the product being bad had nothing to do with their work. That being said, this movie was genuinely awful, and I think it is probably my least favorite MCU movie.
Like its predecessors, Ant-Man 3 is directed by Peyton Reed and stars Paul Rudd as Ant-Man and Evangeline Lily as the Wasp. Jonathan Majors fills the role as the antagonist, Kang, who is being setup to be the primary antagonist for the next saga of the MCU. Alongside them are Michelle Pfeiffer, Kathryn Newton, and Michael Douglas. The film follows our heroes as they are sucked into the Quantum realm through some narrative doohickey, and they have to defeat Kang in order to find their way back. I am so sick of the MCU movies being disappointing; each time I get excited and am optimistic about how they will turn out, and then I am disappointed each time. I really enjoy their TV shows on Disney+, even ones like She-Hulk which no one seems to like. I think that is a much better way to tell the story, and it works better with their worldbuilding purpose.
My main issue with this film is that it feels rushed in every capacity. The script is painfully weak and was clearly not given the time needed to marinate and be adjusted to work better on its own or in the grander scheme of the MCU. The whole thing is rushed and was genuinely confusing at certain points, specifically the end-credits scene. Also, as a result of the rushed narrative, the character moments are few and far between and consistently undermined by the fact that our heroes are separated. The film constantly switches between the Pym family and Ant-Man and his daughter, with seemingly no thematic connective tissue or thought behind it. The story is so bare bones and rushes along without stopping to let anything sink in; it moved through any moment or setting that could have been interesting and seemed as eager to end as I was. The script was also bland and not engaging, with horrendous moments of forced levity that detracted immensely from the overall plot. Also, the ending is a total cop-out.
As well as this, the film looked awful. This genuinely has some of the worst CGI I have seen in a major release in years and is inexcusable for a release from the biggest franchise in history. I thought that Thor: Love and Thunder had bad CGI and environments, but this takes the cake. LITERALLY every scene feels like it takes place on a soundstage and is painfully artificial. This is even more noticeable after the release of Avatar: The Way of Water, a movie I did not even like, but the special effects were incredible and everything looked real 100% of the time. These films come from the same parent company, Disney, and the disparity between the quality of the CGI is unreal. This is not a problem with the employees, as I said before, but with a rushed production that prioritizes marketing future projects instead of making a good movie. The editing was also horrendous in this film, ruining action and emotional scenes alike; there were some genuinely laughable moments.
I have a lot more thoughts about this film: It has the worst acting of any MCU film; what it sets up is boring and predictable; the ending is genuinely one of the worst I have ever seen; and I was painfully bored throughout the entire movie. But I have so little energy or interest in talking about this movie that I really do not care. That being said, with the recent change in leadership at Disney, there should be some positive changes that will allow for better films in the MCU. This was terrible. I know that other people seem to like it, so if you are invested in the MCU, I would definitely check it out, but I hate it. I will give Ant-Man and the Wasp: Quantumania a 2/10.
Thank you for reading!
The Review Mirror 