Some MCU Fans Think The Biggest Villain In Ant-Man 3 Was The Editing
As the official kickoff to Phase 5 of the Marvel Cinematic Universe, "Ant-Man and The Wasp: Quantumania" has more than one big job ahead of it in terms of setting up plot threads for the next few years of superhero entertainment product from Disney and Marvel.
Maybe the most important of those jobs is introducing movie audiences to Kang the Conqueror (Jonathan Majors), the extremely dangerous time-traveling warlord who is set to be Phase 5's primary antagonist a lá Thanos (Josh Brolin). But according to some of the film's earliest audience responses, there's actually an even bigger baddie fighting against Ant-Man (Scott Lang) and his pals within the Quantum Realm: Bad editing.
Editing isn't something a typical film viewer is supposed to notice, and often it's an indication that something is wrong when they do pick up on it. For viewers of "Quantumania," complaints about choppy cutting and disjointed sequences are somewhat rampant online.
Editing seems to be a sticking point even among those who enjoyed the movie
We may never know to what extent "Ant-Man and The Wasp: Quantumania" was subject to reshoots or late re-edits following test screenings, but some fans seem to think that it was butchered in the editing room. "While I generally liked the movie, the editing was god-awful. Scenes felt rushed in the 1st act and did not flow together at all," opined u/Solesky1 on Reddit, adding: "It felt like entire scenes were cut down to mere seconds."
Another viewer, u/Froze55, said that the film's rapid editing clashes with the CGI effects: "I had 0.8 seconds to process a bunch of CG spaghetti flying around before it cut to the next cg pepto bismol looking thing." And Reddit user u/willgrahamcrackr went even further: "I thought I was having a stroke. The editing was terrible."
Over on Twitter, @BlindedBraille had a similar take: "Some of the worst editing (hard scene cuts and rapid action cuts), awful dialogue, and terrible jokes."
"Quantumania" has only just hit theaters, so critical and audience consensus is still being built. But if early responses to the film are any indication, you can expect choppy editing to be among its most commonplace criticisms from viewers.