It’s with a weary competency that the latest entry in Marvel’s difficult second era fuels one more trudge through the studio’s now gluttonous cinematic universe. Apologies: multiverse. This is Ant-Man and the Wasp: Quantumania. An exposition dump of a film as visually ugly as it is a waste of its A-list talents, who do, at least, bring fine and dandy performances. In further balance, theree is some very funny material to be found within the drudge. After all, Ant-Man always meant breezier fare than the likes of Doctor Strange and the Cap’ in the pre-Endgame days. Those Halcyon days.
Knock on the Cabin has all the markings of a genre almost exclusively monopolised by Netflix in recent years. A familiar cast – check. A limited set – check. A taut, claustrophobic thriller with an easy elevator pitch to sell it to friends and family for word of mouth success – check. It is, in that sense, an old school streamer. Vintage titles kick things off and a neat bow closes the circle. Add to the fold a headliner as director and what’s not to like?
Twelve years have flown since DreamWorks’ Puss in Boots last swashbuckled his way across the multiplex. Sixty-five by cat count. So long a break has killed many a franchise past – whatever happened to TinTin? – but what a difference the hiatus has spawned here. In animation alone, The Last Wish attains frankly astonishing visual superiority. To this a Spider-Versal debt is owed. Then there’s the narrative, which is pitched somewhere between the last of Disney’s Pirates series and, of all things, Wolverine swan song Logan. It’s surprisingly, impressively, mature material for a modern day fairytale.
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