“Ant-Man and the Wasp: Quantumania,” directed by Peyton Reed, released on Friday, Feb. 17 to mark the third and final movie in the Ant-Man trilogy. Opening up to $225 million worldwide, this third film has received mixed reactions from both critics and fans.

The plot revolves around the Quantum realm, a mysterious universe that exists outside of time and space. When Cassie, played by Kathryn Newton, accidentally opens a portal to it, the main cast gets trapped, and must find their way out. Paul Rudd and Evangeline Lily return as Ant-Man and Wasp respectively, while newcomers like Johnathan Majors as Kang the Conqueror steal the show.

The Ant-Man films have always done a rest job at developing their characters, and this one mostly keeps that up. Johnathan Major’s performance was very menacing, and shows just how much of a villain Kang is. Kathryn Newton’s role as Cassie, Scott Lang’s daughter, was very convincing when it comes to playing the daughter of Ant-man, replicating Paul Rudd’s humor.

Unfortunately, that’s it for good writing and performances. Michelle Pfeiffer’s performance as Janet Van Dyne was flat and the writing for her development was cliche. Meanwhile, many of the new side characters, like Lord Krylar, had rushed stories that even the likes of Bill Murray couldn’t save, only exuding or appearing for plot convenience.

The overall plot played it very safe, which gave the unfortunate outcome of being predictable and low stakes. Since the film spends a majority of its time in the Quantum Realm, not much is given on Kang’s rise to power or how there are societies within the realm, nor are most of the details on M.O.D.O.K’s story.

Without discussing spoilers, the rest of the film was very fun to watch, and there were even some references to the deepest corners of Marvel’s history. The ending fight scene was one of the better ones, showing how brutal Kang can be, and conveys to the viewers too that he’s a legitimate threat. While it may not have been mind blowing, the ending did a good job of wrapping things up while still teasing for more to come.

A common criticism of films on the Marvel Cinematic Universe (MCU) is that they rely too much on humor, even during serious scenes. Fortunately, this film manages to avoid that problem, having a good balance of serious scenes and humorous scenes. Paul Rudd is great at making jokes fit within a scene, and he delivers some pretty good jokes throughout.

Another highlight of the film is just how amazing the visuals were. Each different area of the quantum realm was distinct and looked extremely realistic. They were colorful and the aesthetics of both the worlds and the citizens of the quantum realm show just how much care was put into making everything seem very alien-like.

Overall, Quantumania is an enjoyable experience that’s full of Easter eggs and references, but falls short due to a predictable story and lackluster writing, and I’d rate it three out of five stars.