Welcome back, Paul Rudd. Ant-Man movies wouldn’t be the same without you.

Rudd on his own generates so much of the goodwill for the Ant-Man movies, and his charm is working overtime in Ant-Man and the Wasp: Quantumania, which came out this weekend and kicks off Phase 5 of the MCU movie series.

In this film, Marvel officially introduces its next big bad, Kang the Conqueror, played by Jonathan Majors, but viewers of Loki have of course seen him before, or at least an alternate universe-version of this character, who was He Who Remains, the creator of the Time Variance Authority, which monitors the multiverse.

But first, the movie opens with a peek into Scott Lang’s (aka Ant-Man) post-blip, post-Thanos life as a one-time avenger, and it’s pretty good. He’s an author (and you can buy his book for real), he gets to get his picture taken with dogs, and he’s enjoying the laid-back superhero life with Hope van Dyne (Evangeline Lilly), aka the Wasp. The only fly (ha) in the ointment is Scott’s relationship with his daughter, Cassie (now played by Kathryn Newton.)

Cassie is a troublemaker now, but it’s good trouble – she’s been running afoul of the law in an attempt to help the homeless and others in need. But she’s been hiding her brushes with The Man from her dad, and finding that out makes Scott nostalgic for all the years he missed with his little girl.

Cassie, with a little help from grandpa Hank Pym (Michael Douglas) has another hobby, though, and that’s Quantum Electronics. The two of them created a device to contact the Quantum Realm, because, well, why not? This alarms Janet van Dyne (Michelle Pfeiffer), who decides now is the time to mention that she hasn’t been totally forthcoming about her experiences while she was trapped there for 30 of our years.

It’s too late for recriminations, though, as the device malfunctions and sucks everyone into the mysterious Quantum Realm, separating Cassie and Scott from Hope, Hank and Janet. Janet uses her knowledge of the realm, a thriving metropolis, to find out where Scott and Cassie landed. Cassie and Scott, on the other hand, are helping the oppressed residents of the realm prepare for a rebellion against Kang, who has turned their habitat into a war zone.

Cassie has decided to help the group of rebels, which include telepath Quaz (William Jackson Harper) and Jentorra (Katy O’Brian), and cajoles her dad into leading the charge. This sets up a confrontation between Ant-Man and Kang that will drive the rest of the Phase 5 films.

While the movie is certainly fun to watch – the world-building for the Quantum Realm is visually stunning, and there are some great performances in the film, after watching it, viewers might be left feeling a lack of character development and motivation. Even the main characters, like Scott, Cassie and Janet seem to be lacking any depth: Cassie wants to have a purpose, Janet wants to keep her secrets, Hope wants to find them out, and Scott wants to reconnect wtih his daughter. Oh, and Hank likes ants.

Similarly, the denizens of the Realm aren’t very fleshed out either, even Kang, who has destructive ambitions for reasons that aren’t quite made clear. That may be because Marvel is waiting to give character(s) more depth in the upcoming Avengers movies.

Fortunately, the movie clocks in at a brisk (for Marvel) 125 minutes, and it only drags a little before coming to an energetic climax. The movie features the (already spoiled) first MCU appearance of M.O.D.O.K., whose story we won’t spoil, and a new character played by Bill Murray, as well as a fun tertiary Realm characters, especially Veb, voiced by David Dastmalchian.

Ant-Man and the Wasp sacrifices deep, meaningful plotting and characterization in order to make a fun popcorn movie, which isn’t a bad tradeoff for a superhero flick. The movie is in theaters now, and will be followed by the third Guardians of the Galaxy outing, coming in May.