Recently, I watched both Guardians of the Galaxy Vol. 3 as well as Ant-Man and the Wasp: Quantumania. It should come as no surprise to anyone who has been paying attention to movie reviews (or has actually seen them) that one of these films is great and the other is, to be kind, disappointing.
It’s Ant-Man. Ant-Man is the shitty one.
What’s interesting is how similar the two films actually are, on paper anyway. They’re both the third entry in a previously successful movie series. They both star a popular, charismatic lead actor with a strong supporting cast. They both take place in a strange alien world with lots of odd creatures and bright, colorful environments. They’re both about families trying to stop a megalomaniacal tyrant from causing untold death and destruction.
Ant-Man is a product; Guardians of the Galaxy is telling a story.
But they are not the same. It’s not even close. It’s not as simple as, say, an overabundance of CGI. Both movies utilize a considerable amount of CGI, and it all looks very “Marvel” (Though, only one of them features a freakish floating head man).
The difference, ultimately, is that one feels like a canned product of a giant multinational conglomerate, and the other feels like it was made by people who give a shit. One has real characters with personal arcs and growth; the other has pithy one-liners. One is a droll, monotonous slog that seemingly drains the viewer of any emotion, while the other makes the viewer, you know, feel things.
I know who all these characters are, and so does everybody else.
Ant-Man is a product; Guardians of the Galaxy is telling a story. There’s a big difference between telling a story and selling a product. One is an actual piece of art while the other is nothing more than a commodity whose sole purpose is to make a profit. Art has an intrinsic value regardless of what the market might have to say about it at any particular time. A commodity is only worth what people are willing to pay for it. At best.
When people talk about so-called “superhero fatigue” they don’t realize that this is actually the result of a supply-and-demand problem. Basic economics will tell you that if there’s too much of a thing, then that thing will be worth less. If Marvel poops out dozens of cookie-cutter product-films, their value will continue to decline. Without any inherent artistic merit, there’s nothing else of value contained within them. It’s really easy to get tired of looking at landscape paintings in the hallway at a hotel, but a Vermeer is worth a hell of a lot more than just paint and canvas.
So how did the same studio machinations produce both of these films? What actually makes the difference? What is it that James Gunn did that… whoever made Ant-Man didn’t?
It shouldn’t be unexpected that the difference is largely in the writing. Guardians tells a story about a known troupe of characters who have a personal investment in the plot and go through growth and change throughout the film. Ant-Man uses a bunch of throwaway characters that have no real bearing on the story, and the primary characters have almost nothing to do with the main plot and most certainly do not show any character growth.
The connections between the plot and characters in Guardians are so well put together that I feel it hardly needs to be explained. But let’s do it anyway. The plot gets kicked into gear when the team gets attacked as a direct result of some shenanigans they pulled in the previous movie. Rocket gets injured which leads to the inevitable showdown with The High Evolutionary, the individual responsible for making Rocket who he is.
Throughout the film, all of the characters face personal challenges and experience growth and change. Starlord has to learn to stop only relying on others and do things for himself. Gamora eventually (re)learns the value and meaning of a real family. Mantis slowly becomes more independent. Nebula grudgingly figures out how to live and work with other people. Drax begins to settle into a life that doesn’t revolve around revenge and violence. And Groot is a goddamn tree.
But Ant-Man? The only connection between the main characters and the plot is between Ant-Man’s um… maybe future mother-and-law and Kang. Who are both brand-new characters. The connection is hidden away for half the movie and boils down to little more than “And then I realized he was a bad guy”.
The only other connection is the reveal that M.O.D.O.K. is actually Darren, the main villain from the first Ant-Man movie. There was a chance of turning this into something meaningful, but he is instead used as an ongoing joke. And no, his “learning” to “not be a dick” at the last second doesn’t count. And also, ohmygodwhydoeshelooklikethat?
But I digress…
How did any of the characters change or grow during this film? What did they learn? How did they change? This is demonstrated quite succinctly by the film itself ending almost exactly as it started, with Scott Lang walking down the street and narrating about how he’s an exceptional moron. I think that’s what he was saying. Probably anyway.
Meanwhile, Guardians of the Galaxy Vol 3 ends with every single character going through a significant change. Changes that are real, important, and long-lasting. They are not the same people that they were when the movie started. In short, what happened throughout the movie mattered. Not just to us, the viewer, but to the characters themselves.
Let’s talk about the music for a moment. Sure, music can often be used pretty cheaply to artificially inject emotion into something otherwise lacking in substance, but I think we can all agree that Guardians isn’t doing that. The music is great. It fits, it resonates, it has a purpose, and it makes things flow. Ant-Man’s music has… wait, does Ant-Man have any music? If somebody told me that the entire movie was lacking a soundtrack I’d probably believe them. I’m not saying that Ant-Man should have shoe-horned in a bunch of pop classics from somebody’s favorite decade, but they could have done… something.
The only occurrence of any real significance that happened by the end of Ant-Man was being able to create an excuse to show you an advertisement for more movies to consume.
No thanks, we’re all stocked up on bullshit here.
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