Right. This was weird. But the wrong kind.

Reminder, this was the actual promo trailer for the first Ant-Man.

Ant-Man is one of the most unique Marvel superheroes because a) he doesn’t actually have any powers, b) he’s average at best, and c) is generally naïve about the world in general. An everyman superhero in a world of folks flying around. It feels like he wins through sheer luck.

The first two movies were more heist films than actual superhero films. Sure, there’s a sci-fi part to the larger elements, but they were still grounded in the “real world” with human problems. I will say one of the good things about this film is that you don’t need to watch 85 Marvel movies/tv series to understand what’s going on. Nice.

Ant-Man 3 is not this. Ant-Man 3 spends all of 10 minutes in the real world and then goes 100% green screen in a trippy reality jump that never grounds the people. Ant-Man 3 is not a caper (except for a 10 minute CGI-a-thon that struggles to land). Ant-Man 3 is not a comedy, it’s borderline a war/guerilla movie. Ant-Man 3 lacks villain logic (Loki did this much better). And Ant-Man 3 has made-for-TV CGI.

On this last point, which certainly made the rounds. Rarely have I ever met any artist that was happy with a mediocre result. The artists here had to do almost all the lifting. I can’t fathom the pressure of timelines to get this done. Hats off to what was able to be put out.

Ant-Man 3 ends up being a shining example of the excess of the superhero genre, the tonally deaf response to more spectacle. CGI is not the means AND the ends. Ant-Man 3 is a mediocre because it goes against the first 2 movies and the set up that Paul Rudd put in place. He’s not a superhero, doesn’t want to be. Not sure how that message was lost along the way.