Ever since the start of Marvel Studios’ Phase 4, we have felt as though something has been off. Some teases of what lies across MultiVerse and an introduction to what exists outside and beyond that but the issue is not just the seemingly aimless direction. It’s been the quality of the writing, the pace, the CGI (or lack thereof), and the chosen story. And now it seems that Phase 5’s first film is off to an incredibly disappointing start as Ant-Man and the Wasp: Quantumania is now tied with Eternals for the lowest-scoring film of all time within the MCU at a rotten 47% as of this writing over on Rotten Tomatoes.
Critics Consensus:
Ant-Man and the Wasp: Quantumania mostly lacks the spark of fun that elevated earlier adventures, but Jonathan Majors’ Kang is a thrilling villain poised to alter the course of the MCU. –RT
Note: Rotten Tomatoes scores are aggregated and are representative of how many people liked it. In this case, Ant-Man and the Wasp: Quantumania has a score of 47%, meaning 47% of reviews are in the film’s favor.
Recently, Disney CEO Bob Iger and Marvel Studios president Kevin Feige both expressed concern over the state of the MCU (Iger was more general in his statement, including Lucasfilm and Pixar), and have suggested they will be fine-tuning their approach to the pace at which film and shows release as well as their overall quality. However, if the critics’ reviews of Quantumania are to be viewed as gospel (they shouldn’t), Phase 5 may not be saved by this proposed new commitment by Iger and Feige.
Of course, Phase 5 just started, literally today, but since their words of affirmation came from an earnings call last week, it will be hard to know just when Iger and Feige’s words will be turned to action across the various slate of MCU projects, especially since its clear that Quantumania may be suffering from far too many issues to save it from low review scores.
We would be remiss not to point out that Critics’ scores and Audience scores often greatly differ, as audiences simply want to be entertained while Critics tend to dissect and analyze the various aspects that make a movie and determine which of those many moving parts are up to a high enough standard worthy of a positive score. In the case of Quantumania, the Critics’ score may be sitting low at 47% but the Audience score is much higher at 84% (keep in mind that the sparkly vampire flick Twilight has a 49% score among critics while the audience score is at 72% – take that as you will).
Since today is Quantumania’s theatrical release day, it is worth noting that both critic and audience scores will fluctuate wildly. However, you can’t deny that the MCU has taken a step or two down from its high peak. We just hope that Iger and Feige can course-correct the MCU ship because as of right now, we don’t feel nearly as excited with each new release as we once did.
