Ant Man 3 and the Future of the MCU

Ant Man and The Wasp: Quantumania was produced essentially so that audiences could have a broader introduction to Kang and who he is. Why it was decided that Ant-Man was the best medium through which to achieve this, will always be a mystery. Everybody likes Ant-Man but he is traditionally a more “realistic” (for lack of a better word) character than the others, dealing with less world-threatening issues. Yes, he helped in the battle against Thanos, but so did everybody else. His solo films however have been action-comedy films in which AntMan is usually pitted against a small-scale enemy with, comparatively to other MCU films, small scale goals. So it’s a little weird that Ant-Man is now being pitted against an antagonist who is essentially the next Thanos. As such, I went into Ant Man 3 not expecting anything that great, and I was kind of right and kind of wrong.

Ant-Man 3 is by no means the worst Marvel film (by a long shot), and it’s able to be entertaining. However, that doesn’t necessarily make it good. It was fun to see in the theater, but I’m not sure that I will ever want to see it again. In fact, I think the theater experience actually made the film a lot more enjoyable. I suspect that if I had watched it at home, I may have been a little less interested. There is something about the big screen that pulls you in more.

It’s that time of year and Formula 1 is back and better than ever! The 10 teams and 20 drivers we all know and love are returning for another season sure to be filled with suprises controversy. After an offseason that saw many notable moves, including Sebastian Vettels retirement, Fernando Alonso replacing him, and rookie drivers Oscar Piastri, Logan Sargeant, and Nyck De Vries all joining the grid, everyone was excited to see how the season would go. Preseason testing gave us a sneak peek into the season, and Aston Martin looked surprisingly quick, and McLaren looked uncharacteristically slow. Heading into the first race however, nobody quite new what was going to happen, as many times before, weak teams in testing show much better speed when the season starts. The first race was held at the Bahrain International Circuit in Bahrain, in front of a sold out crows of 210,000. In qualifying on Saturday, Aston Martin surprised everyone, when Fernando Alonso qualified 5th on the grid, in a car that only managed to finish 7th last year. McLaren fans were dealt a blow when highly anticipated Australian rookie Oscar Piasstri struggled, and only managed to qualify in 18.

by William Achtmeyer ‘26

So the film is entertaining, but it’s not strictly speaking “good.” Ant Man 3 is torn between being a poignant tale about family, with characters being pitted against a ruthless, genocide commiting conquerer, and being a comedy film. These two contrasting emotional goals give the movie a weird feel. There are some scenes that could be interesting, with characters that could be intimidating, but they are always interrupted by that Marvel humor we all know and “love.” Sarcastic jokes and quips will be made during the heat of battle. It’s almost like Disney is utterly afraid of doing anything that holds any weight anymore. In the Infinity Saga, the films were a little more serious, they felt like they had more purpose because their events held more weight. Modern Marvel is like a sitcom, with almost every movie returning to the same status-quo by the end, with its characters having suffered no consequences and not having changed in the slightest. New, modern Marvel characters (I’m not talking about Ant-Man anymore) all start out as perfect, flawless people and end their character arcs as perfect, flawless people. The only exception to this rule so far has been Moon-Knight, but every other new character that has been introduced since endgame doesn’t really follow a character arc. As such, their stories are very hard to get engaged with and the viewer is left uninterested. At one point, big CGI fights become boring, as is the case with everything you see too much. At the beginning of Marvel, it may have been ok to have a bland character, because the viewer was so blown away by the action. Now we’ve essentially seen the same action sequence a hundred times in a hundred movies.