The Ant-Man and the Wasp: Quantumania reviews are out, audiences have started to see the movie, and the overwhelming sense is one of “meh.” But writer Jeff Loveness has compared it, and just let this breathe for a second, to The Lord of the Rings. Yep, totally.
Quantumania is not quite the return to form many had hoped for from the Marvel Cinematic Universe following several very average entries since Avengers: Endgame. Overcluttered and often a bit dull, the reviews have not been particularly kind to it. Sitting at 48 percent on Rotten Tomatoes, it’s the second-worst-reviewed film in the MCU.
But Loveness, who has spent years on this film, is celebrating the release of his film but chose possibly the worst possible film to compare Quantumania to in JRR Tolkien’s fine trilogy. There’s plugging your own work, then there’s likening it to what is widely considered one of the best trilogies of all time. Ballsy move.
Particularly strange is comparing Ant-Man to anything other than pulpy 50s sci-fi or, well, comic books. Visually, absolutely nothing is similar to The Lord of the Rings. Plot-wise, it’s a pretty big stretch apart from the fact people are walking around a bit and there’s a very evil bad guy who ends to end the world.
While undoubtedly it’d be a lot of fun to write characters like M.O.D.O.K. and Kang, boy it’s hard to even put either of those in the same sentence as Middle-earth. If you’re a CGI pedant, you might also say Peter Jackson’s film trilogy also looks significantly better than anything in Quantumania.
Some people did respond to his tweet questioning how it’s even remotely similar, but we’ll likely never know why Loveness believes it. If he even does.
Ant-Man and the Wasp: Quantumania is currently in cinemas.