Twofer Two: Marvel Fatigue? “Ant-Man and the Wasp: Quantumania” (2023)/“Black Panther: Wakanda Forever” (2022)

Even Kevin Feige has taken note that people are feeling the weight of the MCU on their shoulders or maybe we’re all just suffering from Marvel Attention Deficit Disorder (MADD…I wonder if that’s still taken?) However, I can’t say that Marvel fatigue or superhero fatigue has hit me yet. This is not to say that I don’t recognize it as a genuine movie-going malady, just that I’m not quite there.

That said, I haven’t been blown away by some of the more recent offerings, including the current Ant-Man outing. But I was blown away by the sequel to the “Black Panther”. I’ll start with “Black Panther: Wakanda Forever” first. It deserves thoughtful consideration and I’ll do my best to provide it.

Right out of the gate, the sense of absence looms large and permeates the film and doesn’t really let up. King T’Challa is dead and knowing that his death is rooted in Chadwick Boseman’s lends a gravitas to a film that supports it while celebrating T’Challa’s legacy, In many ways, “Wakanda Forever” shows how to honor a legacy while managing grief and loss. This is most astutely present in Angela Bassett’s performance as T’Challa’s mother Queen Ramonda. 

No nonsense from the beginning when we first met her years ago, she is fierce warrior and a mother whose loss is inconsolable. Bassett brings a career best performance (in a career full of them) to the film that wrings tears and righteous indignation from you in equal measure. There is a majesty to her portrayal that doesn’t let up.

We also feel the wrenching tragedy for Shuri (Letitia Wright turning in remarkable work) who loses her older brother in the attempt to save him and how T’Challa’s death spreads out across Wakanda like an earthquake.

The film is too rich for a recap, but after the kingdom has lost its king, Wakanda finds itself under diplomatic pressure to share vibranium with the world (well, or at least, the major players on the world stage). Ramonda doesn’t take kindly to being called before the UN and turns the tables when intel operatives are brought in before the convening body as an example of the breach of Wakanda’s sovereignty. 

In the meantime, a CIA and Navy SEALs team has found a vibranium deposit in the Atlantic Ocean and they run into a completely different impediment in the form of Namor (aka the Sub-mariner aka king of the undersea nation of Talokan) and a troop of his people. Namor pays a visit to Ramonda and adds another not so diplomatic pressure to the wound of a grieving mother and her nation by blaming Wakanda for escalating the vibranium race and exposing his kingdom to the land-dwellers. Either she delivers the scientist who build the vibranium detector to him or Talokan will attack Wakanda.

This brings Riri Williams into the MCU. Heralded as the eventual successor to Tony Stark, Riri is an insanely gifted MIT student who’s already developed Stark Industries level tech in her warehouse space. Dominique Thorne embodies this young woman with a rich resourcefulness and a steely will and wit that matches Shuri and you kind of get the idea that they’ll be both rivals and friends over the course of their time in the MCU. I can’t wait. In the meantime, though, Shuri and Okoye (the indomitable Danai Gurira; her heartbreak informs her performance and it’s difficult to not feel the loss - the flip side is that when she goes into full general kick-ass mode, it’s exhilarating) are tasked with finding Riri and bringing her to Wakanda. 

Of course, things don’t go as planned! The FBI and Namor’s warriors are in hot pursuit of Riri (Shuri and Okoye were tipped off by - yay! Everett K. Ross (Martin Freeman!!! I am altogether always happy when Freeman shows up…I still harbor this dream that we’ll get to see a flashback where Phil Coulson and Ross bump into each other and trade notes on how weird superheroes are). The upshot is that Namor’s warriors make off with Shuri and Riri, defeating Okoye who is stripped of her rank as general of the Dora Milaje by an extremely pissed off Queen Ramonda.

Ramonda turns to Nakia, the sharpest intel gatherer ever (Lupita Nygong’o, also standing out in this ridiculously great cast) to find Shuri and Riri, which she does and helps them escape. Let’s pause here and talk a little about Talokan and Namor. 

There’s a theory that dolphins are humans who returned to the ocean. Watching Namor’s origin story as young Mayan who saw his people slaughtered by the Spanish squeezes the heart in the ways art is meant to. Of all the overarching themes of both Black Panther films, the interrogation and critique of colonialism and how to deal with it is writ large and the demolishing of the Mayan civilization as we encounter it here should be a wake-up call that all of us who are descended from European stock have a part in this. (And yes, yes, I know: “well, what about….” I don’t disagree that humans are and have been great about subjugating and murdering vast amounts of one another; but let me be clear that the humans under discussion here are the colonizers of South and Central America and much of the South and Southwest United States.) That Namor has a legitimate axe to grind is clear.

He is born a mutant offspring who can survive on land or in the oceans and it is obvious that Talokan’s inhabitants are of necessity superhuman to survive the pressures of the deep ocean; however, this leads us to another critique of our modern world that the movie presents. To be sure, James Cameron’s “Avatar” films confront the assault on the environment head-on. They are allegories, for sure, but it’s heartening to see the MCU step up and frame the invasive approaches we take to exploiting the oceans for resources more directly. Of course, we’re not likely to run into undersea kingdoms of superhuman populations, but the point is well-taken that there will be payback for encroaching recklessly on the deep sea environment. Particularly when the resource is allegorized as, well, vibranium. If Wakanda’s got issues with the world forcing her hand on the metal, imagine how Namor must feel.

And the visualization of Talokan is truly beautiful. This is a fully realized realm with varying social classes and I’m willing to bet its own set of issues, but it feels real. Namor has the fealty of his people it all rises or falls on Tenoch Huerta’s turn in the role. He acquits himself splendidly. Namor is by turns regal, scary, powerful, bullheaded and kind of a dick. But Huerta gets all these facets and imbues them with sensitivity and pathos. With a lesser cast, it wouldn’t be a stretch to see him walk off scene after scene.

Namor tells Shuri and Riri that Talokan and Wakanda should join forces against the rest of the world. Actually, he proposes that…with an “or else” attached. Threatening your would-be partner is not the best diplomatic move and mitigates a lot of sympathy. Of course, once Shuri and Riri escape with Nakia’s help, he attacks Wakanda anyway during which Ramonda drowns while rescuing Riri. To say this was gutting is way too much of an understatement. First T’Challa, then his mother. Shuri reels from this, as could only be expected, and is able to reconstruct the heart-shaped orb that gives the Black Panthers their power. 

The Wakandan tribes accept her as the new Black Panther which makes sense. But in an interesting turn, M’Baku (shout out to Winston Duke for bringing a greater depth to one of my favorite Wakandans), who is trying to find other ways forward for his tribe who is now coming out of isolation, suggests a path of peace, but Shuri isn’t having it. She had met Killmonger on the Ancestral Plain who urged her to seek revenge. Once again, Michael B. Jordan brings nuance to perhaps the most fully rounded antagonist in the MCU. It’s a brief scene but it makes total sense that given Shuri’s state, he’s who she would encounter in the beyond.

Because this is a Marvel movie, there is the obligation for a massive knock-down drag-out war in the third act. For obvious reasons, given the current narrative, it is perhaps unavoidable. Unlike the standard MCU knockabouts, this folds in more with the narrative, is efficiently directed, doesn’t drag on too long, and serves to underscore character beats and development. Shuri recruits Okoye as the Midnight Angel and Riri suits up in an Iron Man type suit/exoskeleton.

The Wakandans use a vibranium detector to lure Namor and his army to the surface and Shuri is able to isolate Namor, dry him out, and go in for the kill - at which point, Ramonda appears to her and directs Shuri to get Namor to yield and offer a peace agreement whereby Talokan will not be mentioned and will be left alone. Namor agrees (much to the anger of his cousin Namora, who I’m sure we’ll see more of).

The post-war wrap up ensues with Okoye breaking Everett Ross out of jail. Oh, did I forget to mention that he was incarcerated? That his ex-wife had him arrested for collaborating with the Wakandans by sharing state secrets? Oh, and that his wife is Countess Valentina Allegra de Fontaine!!!???? I didn‘t mention that? Well, it was quite the sequence and I never thought I’d see the day when Julia Louis-Dreyfus would be so delightful being so bad! The more I see of the Countess, the more I don’t like her (which is, in itself, delightful; oh, to boo and hiss when the villains shows up!)

Shuri plants more herbs to ensure the continuity of the Black Panther lineage and then heads to Haiti to visit Nakia where they burn Shuri’s funeral robe and can grieve properly for T’Challa. While Shuri is away, M’Baku steps forward to submit his challenge for the throne of Wakanda and at the very end of the film (love those mid-credit scenes), we discover that Nakia and T’Challa had a son named Toussaint, whose Wakandan name is… T’Challa.

As you can no doubt tell, I love this film. It’s not perfect. It’s not told as tightly as the previous entry, but it does do what the MCU does best when it does it; it told a compelling story with real stakes (well, as real as possible for a superhero epic can be) and genuine, heartfelt pathos and drama ably fleshed out by uniformly strong performances. Did it drag? Maybe a little, but that’s not the issue.

The issue is that there was so much information. Necessary perhaps, but one wonders why these films aren’t better served by breaking them up into smaller doses. The first Black Panther film was able to minimize exposition and immerse us in a world already made for exploration. Our follow-up here suffers a bit from the MCU Set-Up Machine because, of course, there are going to be more movies with Ross and the Countess (surely they could have saved Ross’s arrest for a post-credit scene or maybe even in a completely different movie); the internecine strife of Talokan’s rulers signals conflict for a completely different movie that we may not see for years but did we really need it for this one? And yes, Riri Williams is due to be Ironheart, the heir apparent to Stark and while we get that, it adds one more layer of setting up something else to a film and distracting from the work at hand. Therein lies the problem.

The MCU Set-Up Machine (TM)

Increasingly, we are introduced to character upon character and Easter egg upon Easter egg to the point where the introductions feel more and more forced. The reveals of new characters at the end of “Eternals” or the variety of details that pop up incongruously to only point to something that’s going to happen downstream detract and distract from whatever dramatic momentum any given film has developed. 

Few and far between are the moments when I feel completely satisfied, when a Marvel movie feels self-contained. “Thor: Ragnorak”, “Iron Man 3”, “The Avengers” and the Tom Holland Spider-Man films are examples of stories with beginnings, middles, and ends. Sure, there may be post-credit scenes, but for the most part, these films work fine on their own without the wedging in of plot points that may only pay off two or three films later down the line.

The Machine didn’t derail “Black Panther: Wakanda Forever” for me. It was there, it did cause - to my mind - a drag effect and small distraction, but Coogler kept the train running on time and with depth and heart that overcame the Machine.

Peyton Reed’s “Ant-Man and the Wasp: Quantumania” was not able to do that.

Look, I love Paul Rudd. Who doesn’t? And the relationships that have grown up around Scott Lang are lovely and usually provide a break from the bigger, louder films. Reed’s light touch and the ensemble’s work is scaled to a quieter key, a smaller scale, if you will. When Reed announced that this film would be going darker and the ambition was for an Avengers-sized adventure, I had reservations, but was willing to say “let’s see.”

It’s not the worst Marvel film. Rudd, Pfeiffer, Douglas, Lily (who has little to do and is barely a presence in the film and she’s supposed to be the Wasp of the title?), and newcomer to the MCU Kathryn Newton (really good in “Three Billboards Outside Ebbing, Missouri” and as Amy March in Vanessa Caswill’s adaptation of “Little Women” ..and no, I haven’t seen “Big Little Lies” yet) all do swell jobs with what they have. But I felt like so much was half-baked from a writing standpoint. Jonathan Majors’ Kang is the next big bad for Marvel’s Phase Five and while he was a compelling and tragic figure in “Loki” as The One Above All/a Kang variant (I guess? Who knows anymore?), here he is merely a semi-interesting bad guy/obstacle. And it’s here that the Machine kicks into high gear.

Why? Because so much of the movie felt like it was just getting us ready for The Next Thing. There is nothing to fault in the performances. You’d be hard-pressed to find such a cohesive troupe, but they were failed by the writing and the incessant exposition, the immense rip-off of “Star Wars: a New Hope” and even “The Empire Strikes Back” (I am so very much not kidding and I’m not alone) and a lot of moving around that signified very little. 

Easter eggs abounded from the arrival of MODOK (I won’t give that away) to Bill Murray (Lando Calrissian) to a line about “worlds within worlds” harking back to an early Fantastic Four story where the FF shrank down to sub-atomic scale to wage battle in what would later be called the Quantum Realm. So. Much. Stuff.

Nothing landed. The bond between the players feels right, but between the characters, not so much. Nothing felt real because everything (yes, everything) was so underwritten, barely leaving the players anything to really sink their teeth into. Characters are introduced that we should care about but are gone before we can get a read on them (this is an issue because one of the themes is where Scott has become less engaged with the world and others’ problems; so that when the team finds themselves in the thick of a resistance (did I mention Star Wars?)  Scott takes the stance of “it’s not our fight.” This works when it’s Han Solo/Harrison Ford. It doesn’t work when it’s Scott Lang because, duh, as your daughter Cassie says, “you’re an Avenger” and Scott’s turn as a non-hero just doesn’t work or make sense.

I mentioned that Evangeline Lily is barely in the film and she’s the Wasp. In the title. And she’s given nothing to do. Scott is all about finding Cassie and rescuing her from Kang and getting out of the Quantum Realm (does it really matter how they got there? Take my word for it, not really.) When Hope shows up, it feels like an afterthought on the writers’ part. “Shit, I forgot. Scott’s married, right? To Hope, right? The Wasp? Uh, here, have her show up here….” In fact, they keep the family divided into two units; Scott and Cassie in one, Hope, Henry, and Janet in the other. And of course (I wind up saying that a lot here, don’t I?), Janet never told her family about what she had experienced in the Quantum Realm. And how is it that she spent 30 years there but it was “full of nothing” (her recurring phrase for Hope and I guess, Henry)? Surely, there must have been something. How did she not die of boredom? What did she tell him? He’s a scientist, she’s a scientist; wouldn’t Henry have pushed her to explore and develop more theories? Wouldn’t she have been hit up by every major physics department in the world? Or did she just wave her hand and say, “nyah, there’s just a lotta nuthin’”?

I could go on. William Jackson Harper shows up as a telepath. He’s droll, funny, and sort of like Chidi, if Chidi just wasn’t having it. I liked him. I would have liked to see more of him. As well as some of the denizens of the Quantum Realm that were really well designed biomorphic critters. But it just felt like they were just script fodder. Katy M. O’Brian shows up as the leader of the resistance and yes, she is badass. I like her, too. But we barely get a chance to know her and she recedes into the background. I rather get the feeling that somewhere along the way, the MCU is going to have a standalone (as much as that’s possible) series of Quantum Realm movies or maybe, the QR will just be used for callbacks or who knows? Who cares?

And that last is the big problem. Who cares? Why should we care? “Ant-Man and the Wasp: Quantumania” had some handsome sequences and I was glad I saw it in 3-D but when I check out during a film, that’s not a good sign. I checked out during “The Incredible Hulk”, “Iron Man 2”, “Thor: the Dark World”, and yes, parts of better received MCU features, but not to the degree I did here.

Did I like the film? It was okay. Will I watch it again? Not likely. Actually, while I have reprised “Iron Man 2”, I haven’t been able to do the same for the second Thor movie or Lessier and Norton’s Hulk. I don’t see myself revisiting this one anytime soon. Welcome to the Machine.

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