“I couldn’t beat him, he was… too powerful.”

Yeah the dialogue and line delivery is not very good in this one. Also, I watched this movie solely to complete my MCU movie ranking, which is on my Letterboxd. I only have Guardians of the Galaxy Vol. 3 after this.

When it comes to a movie being a mixed bag, Quantumania might honestly be one of the best examples out there. There is pretty much a perfect balance of both good and bad. Of course it was ultimately a pretty big disappointment, as I remember the trailers being really, really good, but it still has its moments of greatness here and there.

I guess I’ll start off with the good. Easily, by far the best thing about this film is Kang. I know Jonathan Majors is a controversial figure, but he plays him absolutely perfectly. There is surprisingly a decent amount of tension all the way up until the characters finally meet him in the present day, and when they do meet him he’s just as intimidating and terrifying as you would expect. In my opinion he is one of the best MCU villains when he is at his peak. The third act is also mostly awesome too. This is where the action and visuals are actually pretty good, and Kang going crazy on everyone is absolutely the best scene of the entire movie. The action is pretty fun to watch as well and full of a lot of energy.

That’s really where my positives end to be honest. I know it may seem weird that those were the only positive things I had to say because I overall gave it a 5/10, but those few things really did carry the movie for me, and during them I was thoroughly entertained. The main problem overall revolves around the entire inciting incident, which is a big problem because it kind of puts a huge bug on you for the rest of the movie, at least for me. The problem with it is that it could have entirely been prevented if one of the characters had just explained more about the quantum realm. I know they do eventually get to explaining why that character didn’t say more about it, but it’s absolutely not an answer that justifies why they didn’t.

Another problem with the movie is that it can be quite a bit too fast paced. The plot kicks off almost immediately, and after that the story never really gives you any time to breathe or get invested in the characters or anything rather. It’s a lot of visual noise to be honest. It’s accompanied by a lot of awful visual effects and comedy that doesn’t land too. M.O.D.O.K., I’m looking at you.

But easily what brings this movie down the most and really tanks my rating on it is two words: wasted potential. I said that Kang at his peak is one of the best villains in the entire MCU, but unfortunately the writing completely lets him down. I mentioned he had a sense of intimidation and suspense leading up to his first encounter, and his introduction was just the same. But after that, the only other moments of tension we get from him are felt only when he is on screen. There is almost no presence of him at all whenever he isn’t on screen.

I also said that most of the third act works really well. The part that doesn’t work at all is the ending. You think it’s going to go a certain way that would have made for an incredibly powerful and compelling finish to the movie, but the way it actually ends is both anticlimactic and dumb, and this was somehow where Kang was even more wasted.

To finish my review, I go back to the two words I said earlier: wasted potential.