I just literally came back from the cinema and I’ve got lots of thoughts in my head about Ant-Man and the Wasp: Quantumania.

To my surprise when I Googled reviews for the movie, it had really low scores. I think it’s about 48% critics’ score on Rotten Tomatoes, while the audience was far more forgiving, which is at 85 the last time I checked.

I’m pretty surprised by that. I mean, it’s not a great-great awesome movie. It’s not in the sense that it didn’t do anything groundbreaking. However, it’s a perfectly adequate popcorn movie for the family. It’s not dark, it has the standard Marvel humor.

Lots of CGI battles and the quantum realm was really pretty. But maybe that’s the problem because it just doesn’t break the MCU mold.

You go, oh, another CGI battle. Oh, yeah. Another CGI alien … it just feels very hollow. And my friend and I were like talking about this. It’s a perfectly good movie – I don’t know why I feel this way. It’s odd that I just feel disappointed although I know it’s an okay movie.

I like Paul Rudd (he plays Scott Lang). I like seeing Michelle Pfeiffer and Michael Douglas together as Janet and Hank Pym. I don’t really like Cassie because I thought she was really an annoying team. But then again, that’s me. I’m crotchety towards teens in movies most of the time.

But it just doesn’t feel like there are any real stakes. We’re supposed to make this really huge, big bad – Kang the Conqueror in this movie, but I didn’t feel much menace from him. Yet, personally, I feel of all the actors in this movie Jonathan Majors is probably the most impressive.

Maybe it’s me. Expecting a little bit more from an adequate popcorn movie is probably not the right thing to do, I guess.

Speaking of CGI battles. A few days ago, I was watching Stargate, a 1990s science fiction movie that kicked off this massive science fiction franchise on television. I was actually marveling at how the CGI still looks so good to this day. I feel as if it’s even better than what we see on any Marvel movie.

And it got me thinking, there’s an overly heavy reliance on CGI special effects these days. And it just doesn’t feel good. Massive CGI battles just feel so impersonal. But remember the battles in The Lord of the Rings movies? They always felt so sweeping and grand, had huge stakes involved and you get swept away by the moment. But battles in MCU movies feel very empty and hollow. I saw this comment on the internet: It’s like watching pixels fight other pixels.

Also, there are just too many things going on on the screen and I can’t process it, and everything is happening so fast. So, I don’t feel anything.

Another thing I would like to complain about – we may be going into spoiler territory here. I try my very best to minimize the spoilers but yeah, I feel as if they didn’t do one character – Madok – any justice. He became a lame joke; they tried to make him into comedic relief and I’m going, why??

And MCU humor really failed in this one. So many serious moments broken by a stupid quip. I groan inwardly when this happens. You know,I know this is a lighthearted movie, but honestly, you can have serious moments without ruining the fun.

How would I rate the movie?

65%.

I think critics are being overly harsh. 48% seems a bit much because I’ve seen worse movies.

I think a lot of people would be perfectly happy with this film. As I said, it’s an adequate popcorn movie. But maybe that’s the problem – it is just doesn’t offer anything beyond that.