New ‘Ant-Man and the Wasp’ trailer brings Kang into focus
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First, the great news: Bill Murray is a character in the new “Ant-Man and the Wasp: Quantumania” film.
This is reason to rejoice, regardless of who he’s playing or the size of his role.
The other great news is that Kang the Conqueror — or one of his many multi-verse variants — figures big in the events of the film, which looks to be taking place mostly in the quantum realm, the “universe beneath our own,” according to Michelle Pfeiffer’s Dr. Janet Van Dyne.
Marvel’s fourth phase of comic-based entertainment has come in for a good deal of criticism, some of it earned, some less so. There are going to be people who don’t like the “She-Hulk” show. And that’s fine. Not all the shows are going to appeal to everyone. One of the many major accomplishments for Kevin Feige and the Marvel folks is reaching a point where new in-universe films and series can explore genres, with superheroes as just another layer of the plot.
The recent “Werewolf By Night” is a great example. It’s a one-hour, self-contained piece of film-making that creates an homage to the classic Lon Chaney Jr. and Bela Lugosi monster movies. But at the same time, for comic-book heads and people paying attention, it also lays some groundwork for the part of the Marvel universe that will produce the upcoming Blade films. Marvel gets to do a cool little piece of black-and-white horror pastiche, and also tell viewers, “Hey, there are also monsters in this world, not just superheroes and people with cool robot suits.”
I think the fourth phase has done an excellent job bringing in the multi-verse elements of the Marvel canon — setting aside the latest “Dr. Strange” film, which was entertaining but pretty unfocused.
Some of the time-traveling hi-jinks in “Avengers: Endgame,” and particularly the time-and-space-based twists and turns of the “Loki” and “What If” series, were a nice crash course in multi-versal possibilities. Ending “Loki” with the introduction of Kang the Conqueror, a universe-hopping, galaxy-conquering menace who’s the Big Bad Guy of the upcoming Marvel fifth phase, worked very well.
“Loki” ended with Asgard’s favorite second son going back to the Time Variance Authority, only to find that in this new reality, it was being run by Kang. One can only hope that “Ant-Man and the Wasp: Quantumania” drops some bread crumbs about how Kang achieved that. Here’s the trailer:
Kang seems to want something in exchange to returning the Langs, Van Dynes and Hank Pym home after they get trapped in the quantum realm. I wonder if he’s going to try and trick them into giving up some Pym particles. Janet Van Dyne has been keeping a secret about the quantum realm from her family. Was Kang trapped there, too? Is this a variant of the Kang we met in “Loki,” one who survived the Kang purge and is out for revenge?
The new poster shows Ant-Man and the Wasp literally at Kang’s fingertips, with scarring on his face that conveniently matches the lines on the comics-accurate suit we eventually see him don toward the end of the trailer.
We’ve only seen flashes of the massively-psychedelic quantum realm, and some of the effects shots in the trailer look a lot like the Planet Ego from the second “Guardians of the Galaxy” movie — and by that I mean, they go a little heavy on the cartoonish trippiness, to the point of distraction.
But Paul Rudd’s snappy comic timing has always fit right in with the now-we’re-joking, now-it’s-tragic whiplash pace of Marvel movies, and if his humor can help keep things moving as we start to see Kang’s long game being set up, I’m here for it.
“Ant-Man and the Wasp: Quantumania” opens Feb. 17 in theaters.