OPINION: Jonathan Majors shines in the third “Ant-Man” film, which does a pretty decent imitation of another movie set in a galaxy far, far away.
Editor’s note: The following article is an op-ed, and the views expressed are the author’s own. Read more opinions on theGrio.
Have you seen “Star Wars” lately? The movies, TV shows, literally any “Star Wars”? If not and you want to see “Star Wars,” then “Ant-Man and the Wasp: Quantumania” is here for you. It has literally everything from the iconic series: a fascist overlord, a Nazi stormtrooper-looking army and Muppet-like space creatures in a bar ripped straight from the cantina scene in 1977’s “A New Hope,” complete with a rebellion against the evil empire.
But if you’re going to crib plot, set design and costuming, might as well keep it in the Disney-owned family.
That said, “Ant-Man and the Wasp: Quantumania” is a good time. With the lovable Paul Rudd as the formerly incarcerated Robin Hood-turned-Avenger Scott Lang at the center, the “Ant-Man” trilogy has always been the most lighthearted fun of the MCU — and, for my abolitionist heart, the one that at least toys with being anti-cop, sometimes. Considering that the vast majority of superhero films are just copaganda, and the vast majority of superheroes are just cops, it’s nice to see Lang’s daughter Cassie (grown up and recast with Kathryn Newton) challenging Lang to fight back against systems of oppression instead of being their agents.
In “Quantumania,” Cassie graduates from merely lying to the cops to get them off her dad’s back as she did in the “Ant-Man & the Wasp” film, to actively fighting against them at a protest in support of unhoused people that lands her in jail for the second time. Using Pym Particles, she shrinks one of their cop cars and gives it back to them as a diminutive, harmless toy. Yes, Cassie, F*ck 12!
Her abolitionist leanings are no doubt rooted in the pain of having her dad…
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