Ant-Man and Wasp’s third outing is more about the Multiverse Saga than either of the titular Marvel heroes.
The structure of superhero movie franchises sure has changed, hasn’t it? It’s easy to forget, but pre-2008, these tentpole blockbusters usually capped themselves at a trilogy of movies, whether they wanted to or not. Back then, a trilogy felt like a good number of films; not too little, not too much, and adequately enabling character arcs for both hero and supporting cast. Regardless of actual quality, a trilogy gives the sense of resolution that just doesn’t exist anymore in the age of franchise content.
But trilogies have been something of a tough nut to crack in the genre space for films, especially for Marvel. Even now in this age of cultural reexamination, there are still trilogy closers like Blade Trinity or X-Men: The Last Stand that folks won’t really go to bat for and say they’re better than remembered. Over the course of the Marvel Cinematic Universe’s 15-year history, the mega-franchise has managed to have four separate sub-series cut off at three films: Iron Man, Steve Rogers’ Captain America films, Spider-Man’s “Home” trinity, and Thor (depending on which film you want to pretend doesn’t exist). The newest extension to join that surprisingly slim roster is the recently released Ant-Man and the Wasp: Quantumania.
Quantumania also has the distinction of kicking off the MCU’s slate of 2023-2024 movies and shows (dubbed Phase Five), which means it has to pull double duty as the foundation for an eventual pair of Avengers team-up movies dated for 2025 and 2026. This threequel is more effective at the latter than the former, and even if it wasn’t, the film’s marketing has made it quite clear that Scott Lang and Hope van Dyne’s third adventure is less about them than it is the looming multiverse threat on the horizon. Whatever throughline that was meant to exist across the previous two Ant-Man movies and meet a vague sunset in Quantumania doesn’t really exist.
