Ant-Man and the Wasp: Quantumania

image for Ant-Man and the Wasp: Quantumania

Short takes

Not suitable under 11; parental guidance to 13 (violence, scary scenes)

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This topic contains:

  • overall comments and recommendations
  • details of classification and consumer advice lines for Ant-Man and the Wasp: Quantumania
  • a review of Ant-Man and the Wasp: Quantumania completed by the Australian Council on Children and the Media (ACCM) on 21 February 2023.

Overall comments and recommendations

Children under 11 Not suitable due to violence and scary scenes.
Children aged 11-13 Parental guidance recommended due to violence and scary scenes.
Children aged 14 and over Ok for this age group.

About the movie

This section contains details about the movie, including its classification by the Australian Government Classification Board and the associated consumer advice lines. Other classification advice (OC) is provided where the Australian film classification is not available.

Name of movie: Ant-Man and the Wasp: Quantumania
Classification: M
Consumer advice lines: Violence
Length: 124 minutes

ACCM review

This review of the movie contains the following information:

A synopsis of the story

Scott Lang (Paul Rudd) is enjoying life back in San Francisco after defeating Thanos in his role as a superhero. Scott has just published a book and likes the celebrity of being known as an ‘Avenger’, even if people confuse him as Spider-Man rather than Ant-Man. Meanwhile, unbeknown to him, his 18-year-old daughter, Cassie (Kathryn Newton), has been creating a machine with her grandpa, Hank (Michael Douglas), to connect the real world to the Quantum Realm. Unfortunately, things go badly when the machine sucks Cassie, Hank, Scott, his partner Hope (Evangeline Lilly) and her mother Janet (Michelle Pfeiffer) into the Quantum Realm. This is where Janet had been stuck for 30 years and from where she was rescued by Scott and Hope.

The Quantum Realm is a place outside of time and space, filled with all sorts of alien creatures, humans and other forms of life. There is much that Janet hadn’t told anyone about her time down there but it transpires that she had helped a man she found dying, who turned out to be the most fearsome, time-travelling enemy of all, Kang the Conqueror (Jonathan Majors). Kang had been exiled from his home and he is filled with the desire to take revenge by wiping out entire planets and timelines that get in his way. Kang had become emperor of the Quantum Realm and Janet had spent her time trying to destroy him, and his armies, and succeeded in neutralising a component of his travel machine that would allow Kang to escape the Quantum Realm and take his revenge. Janet now seeks out a former friend, Lord Krylar (Bill Murray), to help them find Kang, but Krylar has now joined forces with Kang. It will take all of their combined superhero powers, together with the help of those dispossessed by Kang, to seek out and destroy the most evil of emperors.

Themesinfo

Children and adolescents may react adversely at different ages to themes of crime, suicide, drug and alcohol dependence, death, serious illness, family breakdown, death or separation from a parent, animal distress or cruelty to animals, children as victims, natural disasters and racism. Occasionally reviews may also signal themes that some parents may simply wish to know about.

Heroes and Villains; Superheroes; Science Fiction; Adventure; Fantasy.

Use of violenceinfo

Research shows that children are at risk of learning that violence is an acceptable means of conflict resolution when violence is glamourised, performed by an attractive hero, successful, has few real life consequences, is set in a comic context and / or is mostly perpetrated by male characters with female victims, or by one race against another.

Repeated exposure to violent content can reinforce the message that violence is an acceptable means of conflict resolution. Repeated exposure also increases the risks that children will become desensitised to the use of violence in real life or develop an exaggerated view about the prevalence and likelihood of violence in their own world.

There is a lot of mostly stylised action-violence in this movie, including:

  • Many battles scenes with weapons, such as guns, machine guns, canons, swords, knives, axes and spears.
  • One-on-one fighting that’s quite intense, particularly between Ant-Man and Kang.

Other violence includes:

  • Janet is attacked by large spiders. She shoots at them with a gun.
  • Janet stabs an alien with a knife and the alien repairs itself.
  • Kang has Scott and Cassie imprisoned. He crushes Scott with electrical impulses and throws him against a wall. He does the same to Cassie to persuade Scott to get him the part he needs for his time machine.
  • Kang orders M.O.D.O.K. to kill Cassie.
  • Ant-Man grows enormous and stomps on buildings. He knocks planes and objects out of his way.
  • Aircraft crash into other objects.
  • Cassie grows really big and attacks M.O.D.O.K. – she punches him and throws him around.
  • The final scene is an all-out battle between Kang, his army, Ant-Man, Wasp and Cassie. Hank brings in a horde of giant ants which attack Kang. Ant-Man is shown with a bloodied and scarred face.

Material that may scare or disturb children

Under fiveinfo

Children under five are most likely to be frightened by scary visual images, such as monsters, physical transformations.

In addition to the above-mentioned violent scenes, there are some scenes in this movie that could scare or disturb children under the age of five, including the following:

  • Many of the alien creatures are quite frightening to look at, such as creatures with strange body shapes, bug eyes, lamps for heads, blue lights for eyes, etc.
  • The Quantum Realm is a scary-looking place – quite colourful in parts but also some dark, eerie-looking clouds and shapes, strange objects hanging in space and other imaginary sights.

Aged five to eightinfo

Children aged five to eight will also be frightened by scary visual images and will also be disturbed by depictions of the death of a parent, a child abandoned or separated from parents, children or animals being hurt or threatened and / or natural disasters.

In addition to the above-mentioned violent scenes and scary visual images, there are some scenes in this movie that could scare or disturb children aged five to eight, including the following:

  • When Cassie’s machine explodes, it sends everyone in the room and everything in it flying. Cassie, Hank, Janet, Scott and Hope are all sucked into a vortex. Scott goes crashing through into the Quantum Realm.
  • Ant-Man can change size from small to very large. The Wasp and Cassie can both become very small.
  • Krylar drinks a drink with spider-type creatures floating in it.
  • The character with a lamp for a head sends out fire from it when it attacks.
  • Kang’s army are dressed in black robes and have blue lights for eyes. They disintegrate when attacked.
  • Kang has blue glowing eyes and sends out blue electrical pulses from his hands.

Aged eight to thirteeninfo

Children aged eight to thirteen are most likely to be frightened by realistic threats and dangers, violence or threat of violence and / or stories in which children are hurt or threatened.

In addition to the above-mentioned violent scenes, there are some scenes in this movie that could scare or disturb children aged eight to thirteen, including the following:

  • Janet is confronted by a huge spider which splits in two and then four. One of them collapses on top of her and explodes all over her.
  • Scott comes upon an old friend of his, called Darren, who he thought was dead. Kang had taken Darren’s mutated body and turned him into a ‘Mechanised Organism Designed Only for Killing’ (M.O.D.O.K.). His oversized head is very large and encased in a metallic body with very small legs. He’s quite a scary character.
  • Scott has to go into the core of a fiery tangle of wires to fetch the component that Kang needs for his time machine. He enters the ‘probability zone’ where he splits into two, then four, then into hundreds. The ‘Scotts’ all jostle each other but he eventually uses them to scale a tower to reach what he needs.
  • Darren is seen with his face covered in blood and with gashes all over it. He says at least he will die as an Avenger.

Thirteen and overinfo

Children over the age of thirteen are most likely to be frightened by realistic physical harm or threats, molestation or sexual assault and / or threats from aliens or the occult.

  • Nothing further noted.

Product placement

The following products are displayed or used in this movie:

  • Baskin-Robbins.

Sexual references

There are some sexual references in this movie, including:

  • Krylar says how wild his time was with Janet. In reply, Janet says that she was in the Quantum Realm for 30 years and she had needs. Hank says that he had needs also and dated another woman but, “she wasn’t you baby”.
  • Hope and Scott embrace and kiss.

Nudity and sexual activity

  • None noted.

Use of substances

There is some use of substances in this movie, including:

  • There is drinking at various places.
  • Hank says he wants something he can get drunk on.

Coarse language

There is some coarse language in this movie, including:

  • Arsehole
  • God
  • Oh my God
  • Holy shit
  • What the hell?
  • Goddamn
  • Dick.

In a nutshell

Ant-Man and the Wasp: Quantumania is the latest in the Marvel Cinematic Universal Franchise. It is fast moving, full of strange worlds and creatures, and a lot of stylised violence. The movie conjures up images from Star Wars, colliding with superheroes Ant-Man and Wasp saving the planet(s) from an evil Kang the Conqueror. Aimed at older kids and teens, the movie is not suitable for children under 11 and parental guidance is recommended for 11 to 13-year-olds.

The main messages from this movie are to ‘look out for the little guy’; and to work together for the common good.

Values in this movie that parents may wish to reinforce with their children include:

  • Teamwork
  • Selflessness
  • Courage
  • Bravery
  • Redemption.

This movie could also give parents the opportunity to discuss with their children attitudes and behaviours, and their real-life consequences, such as:

  • Whether there are alternatives to violence to overcome evil.