Marvel Comics on Film

[Mr Sausage]

I like Guardians of the Galaxy 1. It's a fun, humorous movie about a bunch of immature, damaged people who happen to become heroes and, in the process, form a dysfunctional family unit. Guardians 2 wasn't as successful. Its main plot was a lot of cliches about fathers and sons, and felt trite. Its B plot, tho', with Gamora and Nebula trying to negotiate their shared trauma and dysfunctional sisterhood was excellent, even moving, and had a maturity that threw the A plot's shallowness into relief. The movie was fine, but not a triumph.

Guardians 3 is the weakest of the bunch. It struggles to find territory the series hasn't already explored, and, seemingly worried at the lack of new material with which to tug at the heartstrings, lays on the sentimentality and manipulation. It's the kind of movie where a character just keeps making stupid, selfish decisions that risk other people's safety, yet at the end is redeemed because they suddenly pull out some convenient skill no one expected them to have (and that, really, they shouldn't have), and then everyone's like, "Oh, I see your value now!" And when the movie really needs to lay on the feelings, cute animals and big eyed children come out in force. It's cheap filmmaking.

The film also fumbles the return of Gamora. Quill spends much of the movie dumping his emotions on her unfairly, demanding that she fulfill a role in his life that she isn't capable of fulfilling, that shouldn't even be asked of her. In the past, Gunn had been clear-sighted about the selfish impositions of Quill's immature but strongly felt emotions, but here it goes unrecognized. Quill dumps his emotions on her, it's played for cheap jokes, but it doesn't go anywhere. Gamora develops a little, coming to understand why the Guardians love each other so much without herself sharing it or wanting to. But Quill just gets sidetracked with some other subplot. The other characters don't have much of a reaction to Gamora; they seem to've moved on. There are no careful negotiations as they try to reconcile the person they loved with the different person in front of them, a person who both is and is not who they remember. That kind of subtle, careful filmmaking is lost in this over-broad movie. Even the Nebula/Gamora pairing, the lifeblood of the previous movie, is frustratingly absent. The two share no meaningful interactions; they just grunt at each other (literally). I'd assumed we'd get more of what we got in Endgame, where there was a role reversal, Nebula becoming the wise and mature one to the still developing Gamora. But, no.

Guardians 3 is a shrug of a movie, showing few of Gunn's strengths (which were much more on display in his The Suicide Squad). It's a shame, because Gunn had built up an affection in me for these characters, and yet I found it hard to care for them here, tho' it's their last adventure as a family.

I did like Chukwudi Iwuji's villain. Rather than going the grand Thanos route, Iwuji played him as hateful and pathetic, someone you could really loathe for their callous self-regard and emotional instability. I don't even remember the villains from the previous movies.

[Finch]

I'm glad that we finally seem to be seeing widespread fatigue with superhero movies as a lot of these are underperforming compared to the MCU heyday but I am surprised at just poorly planned and executed these Phase Four entries have been given how much of a reputation as a safe, stable pair of hands with a clear vision Kevin Feige had enjoyed. Must be that the top creatives and leaders are as burned out as their filmmaking teams and the larger public. Kennedy said something the other day about releasing new SW movies a bit more sparingly and both the MCU and the DC one could/should follow that example. For me, the best superhero movie that is not animated still is Spiderman 2 from 21 (!) years ago. Nothing has come remotely close though the first Guardian was definitely fun (and I also liked the first Doctor Strange), until the finale anyway.

[knives]

Not a Zebraman fan?

[Finch]

I hadn't even heard of that one until you mentioned it!

[knives]

Glad to be of service then. I do think a lot the exhaustion with supes comes from 90% of their perception being these high budgeted serials and more off best films like Gunn’s own Super being more prominent would highlight the many directions these characters could take.

[Matt]

Quantumania is a truly bad movie. Not bad in that it’s incompetently made or anything, but bad in that it feels like a very empty movie that was made by AI (or at least by a committee of underpaid and uninspired staff writers). The script is full of tepid “zingers” that don’t land and feel recycled from other—also mediocre—movies. It’s leaden with long conversations about the characters’ traumatic pasts and long-held secrets, filled with ponderous dramatic pauses that, had they been trimmed, might have reduced the running time by a half-hour.

The entire film takes place in a completely computer-generated “quantum” realm in which nothing is really human-scaled, so heroes whose only superpowers are being able to grow and shrink themselves become useless and meaningless. The other characters—allies and villains—all seem to have big spaceships and laser beam blasters and what not but mostly end up in incomprehensible fistfights and brawls.

The first Ant-Man movie was not great, but it was one of the “good” models of the quippy action comedy scripting Marvel has relied on since. The second had a lot of actually thrilling real-world action sequences that made great use of the heroes’ shrinking/growing powers (small and running along the edge of a knife, shrinking and growing cars during a car chase), but this one just has nothing. It exists only to set up Cassie Lang as a future Young Avenger (so what) and to set up Kang’s plan to eliminate all (or a lot of? or some of?) alternate timelines (which we know will be stopped all our assembled very clever characters from past and future films in a bloated two-film sequence in 2025-2026).

I said in another thread that Jonathan Majors’ role could easily be recast with literally any other actor since his Kang in this film is just one of an almost infinite number of variants, but this movies idiotically reverses the precedent set by the Loki series—that variants can come in any form, including alligators—to make all variants absolutely identical. So all Ant-Man variants are Paul Rudds, and all Kang variants are Majors. They just might wear a different outfit.

I only watched this because I’ve seen all the other movies and somehow feel obligated to continue because of that and since I’m already pay for Disney+. I keep saying I’m going to stop, but they really are a good option for those nights when you just need some mindless, undemanding spectacle. I can’t remember the last one that was actually a pleasure to watch all the way through. Maybe Infinity War, though I recall almost nothing about it.

[SeizureMilk]

I agree that Quantumania is a really bad film, not just because it feels empty like so much of what Marvel is nowadays (though there are exceptions), but because it feels like a waste of time.

The opening surprisingly is decent, it feels nice, re-introduces us into Scott and what it's like to be in his shoes. Doesn't really work but at least they tried, right? The film though then goes into the most mind-numbing situation to show us why we're here, Michelle Pfeiffer's character, Janet in her infinite wisdom doesn't say anything about the Quantumverse because plot needs it not to happen and so when Cassie tries it on, oops too late, pretty sure they also acknowledge this but she just says "it wasn't a good time" or something. And the film once in the Quantumverse, doesn't really do much, I swear the film focused more on ants than Modok's character arc which is little big girl says "Don't be bitch" then Modak is like "I can't", next scene comes around badabing badaboom baby he's sacrificing himself for the greater good, don't think just turn your brain off. Kang is fine but feels like he's too underdeveloped and considering what happened to Majors, doesn't look like we're going to know more unless they do an Iron-Man 1/2, and change the actor. I hated the Bill Murray scene though, the last time he's had any fun was in Zombieland and even then he was very cynical about some of his career chooses, plus it added nothing besides now the bad guy knows we're here and also oh look mysterious backstory, also hated the way he died as it was the most obvious way he could of as soon as he got the octopus and ate it in curious detail. But I truly have nothing else worth saying, it's just bland, truly.

[Matt]

I only watched it a couple of days ago and already forgot that Bill Murray was in it. I have been thinking of making a list of the best actors in the most undignified Marvel roles, but given his willingness to show up in the worst films, I don’t think he’d rank above his castmates Michelle Pfeiffer and Michael Douglas, nor above Glenn Close, Julia Louis-Dreyfus, Rachel Weisz, and Tadanobu Asano.

[Mr Sausage]

Don’t forget Jenny Agutter.

[SeizureMilk]

And Tony Leung too in Shangi-Chi

[beamish14]

Don’t forget Jenny Agutter.

my god am I out of the loop with these dumb things

[Matt]

Oh, yes, forgot about Jenny Agutter’s woefully thankless Marvel role, but I like her rationale for doing it: “When I was asked to do the Marvel film Captain America: The Winter Soldier, I couldn’t think of anything better than stepping out of Call The Midwife to work with a stunt team and beat up Robert Redford. Although admittedly, they wouldn’t let me stunt-punch him. They were worried I’d actually hit him, instead of missing him.”

But who was the person casting the tiny role of Councilwoman Pamela Hawley of the World Security Council who said, “Get me Jenny Agutter!”

As for Tony Leung, he at least did get to play the primary antagonist, and he’s no stranger to action roles. It was not beneath his dignity or an abject embarrassment, but still not an ideal use of his talents.

Tadanobu Asano being absolutely wasted in the Thor movies might rankle me the most. This beautiful man who has been in films by Hou Hsaio-Hsien, Oshima, Kore-eda, Kitano, Kiyoshi Kurosawa, and Miike! I can’t begrudge anyone of these actors a paycheck in this era of movie-making, though.

[ntnon]

I'm glad that we finally seem to be seeing widespread fatigue with superhero movies as a lot of these are underperforming compared to the MCU heyday but I am surprised at just poorly planned and executed these Phase Four entries have been...

The final comment here seems the most relevant - the "fatigue" is being driven by the (relative lack of) quality of the more-recent films.

It's been downhill since Endgame, because of course it has, but even when that's taken into account.. Multiverse of Madness and Quantumania were questionably paced, plotted and executed. Love and Thunder was.. disappointing.

[Drucker]

I'm glad that we finally seem to be seeing widespread fatigue with superhero movies as a lot of these are underperforming compared to the MCU heyday but I am surprised at just poorly planned and executed these Phase Four entries have been...

The final comment here seems the most relevant - the "fatigue" is being driven by the (relative lack of) quality of the more-recent films.

It's been downhill since Endgame, because of course it has, but even when that's taken into account.. Multiverse of Madness and Quantumania were questionably paced, plotted and executed. Love and Thunder was.. disappointing.

I would have to imagine economics come into play here. The low-interest rate boom of the aughts, where studios and media companies were being spendthrift which led to the bloat but many, high quality productions (all of the Netflix premium programming, Irishmen, etc. etc.) is an era that has ended. Now deadlines and budgets are tighter, and I've seen anecdotes on Twitter around studios being cheaper. It's probably impacting the quality of this work.

[tenia]

I'm glad that we finally seem to be seeing widespread fatigue with superhero movies as a lot of these are underperforming compared to the MCU heyday but I am surprised at just poorly planned and executed these Phase Four entries have been...

The final comment here seems the most relevant - the "fatigue" is being driven by the (relative lack of) quality of the more-recent films.
It's been downhill since Endgame, because of course it has, but even when that's taken into account...

As someone who found most of the MCU movies to be mediocre at best, the supposedly lower quality of the most recent movies always left me perplex. Is Ant Man 3 really worse than Thor 2 ? The Eternals that bad compared to the abysmally laughable and neverendingly sluggish Age of Ultron ? Shang Chi or Black Widow more instantly forgettable than Ant Man 1 and 2 ?

It's a bit like when people say that Wonder Woman 84 is that much worse than the 1st movie (it's worse, but it's like a bad movie vs a very bad one), or that the DCEU is that much worse than the MCU (Batman v Superman certainly is on par with Ultron, Civil War or the cashgrab of a duo that are Infinity War / Endgame).

[Mr Sausage]

As someone who found most of the MCU movies to be mediocre at best, the supposedly lower quality of the most recent movies always left me perplex. Is Ant Man 3 really worse than Thor 2 ? The Eternals that bad compared to the abysmally laughable and neverendingly sluggish Age of Ultron ? Shang Chi or Black Widow more instantly forgettable than Ant Man 1 and 2 ?

There's your answer: all the phase 1 - 3 Marvels in your list that you're using as comparisons? They're the the worst ones. Basically all the phase 4 & 5 Marvels are about as good as the bottom tier of the previous phases. The lower quality isn't unprecedented, just consistent now.

[Matt]

Yes, I’d agree with that as well. It’s the overall quality that’s declined. Quantumania and Thor 2 are indeed very similar in quality and craftsmanship, both taking place primarily in wholly CGI worlds and having very undercooked scripts. But Thor 2 was something of an anomaly at the time while every single Phase 4 movie has been pretty bad.

Another factor is Marvel having their own in-house stable of young, relatively inexperienced screenwriters (who will acquiesce to even the most ridiculous studio notes) cranking out these Phase 4 (movie and TV) scripts driven primarily by the demands of serial storytelling and grand multi-year arcs.

And mentioning TV, the storytelling has also had to serve the sprawl not only of the MCU films but of the 8 series launched in the last two years, their follow-up seasons, and the 11 (!) new or spin-off series coming up or in development.

[hearthesilence]

I have to agree with tenia, but I imagine that's because we simply don't like Marvel. I've been dragged to quite a few, and though rudimentary basics may be executed better in some movies than others, what makes them all mediocrities to me is just inherent in how Marvel wants to make them. In some ways the core approach reminds me of network TV dramas, but basically ideas are spelled out in broad strokes, usually through dialogue, stylistically everything's laid on thick, the stakes feel non-existent or at least phony because there's always the feeling that everything can be undone and returned to the status quo at some later date, and the films are packed with these extended fight or battle scenes that remind me of what it's like watching my relatives burn through hours and days playing video games - it's numbing.

I get how Marvel fans think it's just the decline in execution, but I also wonder if people who aren't THAT invested Marvel may be burned out by this kind of entertainment. I say this as a former comic book reader who probably read close to 2000 issues of Marvel Comics over three or four years. (That estimate is based on how many were eventually filed away in boxes somewhere in my relatives' homes.) It was great stuff to get lost in when I had no real interest in anything else in the world, and while other things (like caring about world events, cinema, music) and age played a role in my waning interest, I think the comics themselves didn't help matters - the things that I find boring and dreary about the Marvel movies were right there in the comics, and it got tiresome, even repulsive in some cases. (It's amazing how fantasizing about gruesome deaths for all the major characters has never gone out of style - always in an alternate reality or reversed with some cosmic ability.) But beyond that, I remember thinking if you took away the costumes, the super powers, etc. this wouldn't be that different from the daytime soap operas that used to be on the networks.

[tenia]

As someone who found most of the MCU movies to be mediocre at best, the supposedly lower quality of the most recent movies always left me perplex. Is Ant Man 3 really worse than Thor 2 ? The Eternals that bad compared to the abysmally laughable and neverendingly sluggish Age of Ultron ? Shang Chi or Black Widow more instantly forgettable than Ant Man 1 and 2 ?

There's your answer: all the phase 1 - 3 Marvels in your list that you're using as comparisons? They're the the worst ones. Basically all the phase 4 & 5 Marvels are about as good as the bottom tier of the previous phases. The lower quality isn't unprecedented, just consistent now.

I chose them because I think they're examples more people could relate too (and they might be "the worst of those phases", they're still scoring around 7/10 on RT for instance). But I also think Iron Man 2 and 3 are godawful, Captain America vaguely decent, that Ang Lee did a much better Hull than Leterrier, and that Avengers is a chore to run through past its first viewing. IIRC I scored on average Phase 1 around 5.5/10 and Phase 2 4.5/10. Phase 3 would be around 5.

I don't think it's only of matter of liking MCU movies (overall) or not, but judging the general reception of these movies in France vs the USA, we're clearly less enthusiast about them than you are (or maybe you're too enthusiast, but whatever). When many of them are getting 8/10 on RT from critics, most here hovers between 6 and 7.

People are complaing about how visuals have gone down the drain, but Civil War wasn't very well directed and lit, Black Panther had infamous CGI doubles, No Way Home and Far From Home are both awfull VFX-wise, and Infinity War and Endgame are regularly laughably done for movies with such budgets.

[black&huge]

the one thing that was confusing me post Endgame I sorta came to a conclusion. If we go back to that first decade, Thanos wasn't very smoothly introduced likely because they hadn't decided fully where to go since they were basing that direction on how well the few movies following Iron Man would do. Thanos was the big threat that 11 years of Marvel movies would lead to. Before that? he was only in the first Guardians movie. All other instances he was in a post or mid credits tag. Now this sloppy lead up could be forgiven because this was the big first test. By the end of that first decade they definitley knew better to plan well but they're repeating that same mistake.

They keep trying to have isolated movies with hints of the next decade long villain and of course it's not working. If they wanted Kang they needed to get him in at the start save for a couple films where they could be more or less isolated (No Way Home, the Guardians movies). Now with Jonathan Majors likely being exited they could delay their entire next 10 year plan to better organize something but that's not how the machine works and only proves more it's commerce over art for Marvel Studios since all they're doing is pushing certain things back a year or two and just pasting a new big bad into whatever they already had existing as a gameplan

That being said I have seen every Marvel movie thus far and most of them more than once. They're great as background noise but they're nothing more than shallow blockbusters but I can say that some are much worse than others. The one Marvel movie I will single out at this point as being the absolute worst is Thor Love and Thunder. Whatver the hell that was and I'm confident I wouldn't be able to complete a second viewing.

[Mr Sausage]

I don't think it's only of matter of liking MCU movies (overall) or not, but judging the general reception of these movies in France vs the USA, we're clearly less enthusiast about them than you are (or maybe you're too enthusiast, but whatever). When many of them are getting 8/10 on RT from critics, most here hovers between 6 and 7.

I'm not American. But to be fair, I'm betting Canadians see Marvel about the same as Americans.

[ntnon]

I would have to imagine economics come into play here. The low-interest rate boom of the aughts, where studios and media companies were being spendthrift which led to the bloat but many, high quality productions (all of the Netflix premium programming, Irishmen, etc. etc.) is an era that has ended. Now deadlines and budgets are tighter, and I've seen anecdotes on Twitter around studios being cheaper. It's probably impacting the quality of this work.

Nevermind that the MCU turned many of their lesser-known actors into STARS, and their contracts will give them film-on-film payrises AND there are dozens of cameos from Big Actors. The cast cost added to the other costs - CGI in general, and perpetual drive to go bigger and better - makes these things enormously expensive.

[ntnon]

I'm glad that we finally seem to be seeing widespread fatigue with superhero movies as a lot of these are underperforming compared to the MCU heyday but I am surprised at just poorly planned and executed these Phase Four entries have been...

The final comment here seems the most relevant - the "fatigue" is being driven by the (relative lack of) quality of the more-recent films.
It's been downhill since Endgame, because of course it has, but even when that's taken into account...

As someone who found most of the MCU movies to be mediocre at best, the supposedly lower quality of the most recent movies always left me perplex.

As with the previous comment, I think the highlighted part here is really the crux of the issue! If you never found any of them better than mediocre (and... really? That's interesting, and mildly surprising), then necessarily you are unlikely to notice any shifts in quality either way, because your baseline and - critically - likely enjoyment is different from most others in the (potential] audience pool.

Here's a subjective attempt to be mildly objective about an overview of the MCU (sans TV, unless I forget), spoilered for probable length:

SpoilerShow

How does it go? Hulk/Hulk/Iron Man/Cap/Thor/Iron 2/Avengers? First Hulk was a weird pseudo-artsy attempt at pure comics filmed as ultra-comics, but trying to distance itself from comics. And was fundamentally disappointing. The second attempt was a mild improvement hampered by being a complete cast-change semi-sequel with behind-the-scenes problems and odd-to-terrible CGI. And then Iron Man. And Captain America. And Thor.

Opinions differ - especially on Thor - but (to me) those three films are not just good comics-to-film adaptations, not just great comics-esque stories, not just close to the source material and extremely well-cast, but also Very Good Films in construction, plot and world-building. They set an extraordinarily high bar for the Proper-MCU by taking on Superman, Batman, Spider-man, X-Men and Batman Begins and equalling (or bettering) their highs. The leads are so well-cast. The origin stories make sense and work for both fans and non-fans of the comics. There are stakes, losses, death ('death'), growth, failure and triumph. And very, very little that drags or isn't at least 'good'. That remains rare, but at the time it was a revelation.

Iron Man 2 stumbled a little, but has grown a little better over time, but then AVENGERS managed to pull off the unheard-of feat of doing a superhero team film and balancing it almost perfectly. How many ensemble films before or since (MCU excepted) have had a cast that gelled as well, a plot that was both big - and localised - enough to even require a team.. and it proved there was the audience will for an extended universe.

Guardians was superb and paved the way for second-tier heroes, while Thor 2 roped in Gods, Science and Elves and.. stumbled hard, Iron Man 3 took on PTSD and dug deeper into a world with Super Science and examined those ideas in a flawed but interesting setting, while Ant-man was a hilarious small-stakes caper and Winter Soldier moved Captain America from superb war film to superb spy film. The second Avengers couldn't quite recapture the lightning of the first, but like Iron3 (and Thor2 and Cap2) really started to examine how a world of heroes and geniuses would examine big issues. And now reality is - again - looking hard at AI and its implications...

And then the implications and tensions exploded in Civil War, which allowed for Spider-man and Black Panther to continue the expansion of the universe, while Dr. Strange went sideways and remind us that magic coexists with science. All of these were different, strong, and well-done - Civil War suffered from having a Grand Battle between a dozen people, but even then. Thor 3 decided to be a comedy, but a lot of people liked that angle; Ant-man 2 and Guardians were underwhelming by trying to recapture their original uniqueness, Captain Marvel tried to be different-ish and didn't really know how to do it best, and then the Infinity War peaked in suitably epic fashion.

That's.. twenty-plus films, and less than a quarter are (in most opinions) anything less than Good, with more than half being better than that, and close-to-half being Really Good. That is a very high bar - for most - against which any future films will be judged. And it's also a reasonably-cohesive twenty-part Saga across multiple genres and tones that tell ONE story.

After the Infinity War, there is - as yet - no BIG ARC to which the subsequent films conform. And that was known, and stated and gave many people pause. Downey, Evans and Johansson are essentially absent after Endgame. Thanos and Loki are no longer Big Threats.

The bemoaners started to complain, broadly, with Captain Marvel (a woman!), and the film was not Great enough to quash that criticism, but it's only post-Endgame that "fatigue" is regularly cited - and we've barely had half a dozen films post-Thanos: Widow, Shang-Chi, Eternals, Strange 2, Spider-man 3, Thor 4, Panther 2, Ant-man 3, GotG3.

Of those, Widow was a weird one in every sense - pandemic, behind-the-scenes stories, prequel - while Thor4, Ant3 and GotG3 all leant hard into their versions of style (comedy) with significantly diminishing returns.. largely even to those who enjoyed the previous sequels. Eternals was a grand idea executed very poorly - should have been a series. Shang-Chi was another return to GotG and Ant-man: an oddity genre film set on the periphery of the MCU that worked well. Strange 2 was a sequel to TV shows not everyone had seen, and was more of a notStrange film, which isolated some, and - with Spider3 - lirched hard into the idea of the multiverse with mixed results. Spider-man NWH merged MCU, multiverse and nostalgia with Maguire and Garfield and was exactly what this Phase had been mostly lacking: a balance between comics, heart and epic. Black Panther was thrown for a loop by reality and somehow managed to do a reasonable job of salvaging something.

Is Ant Man 3 really worse than Thor 2 ?

Apples to oranges, and comparing two widely disparaged films, so it's arguably the wrong question... if you compare the "worst" of the earliest films to a bad current one, you aren't 'geting' why people find the recent ones to be lacking.

And yet... the answer is still "yes." The characters in Dark World have motivations and threats that make sense. Their actions seem reasonable. There are stakes and concerns, death and concern. In Quantumania there are gaping plot holes and random acts of stupidity. Malekith is a forgettable villain, but he's supposed to be a low-end threat - Kang is supposed to be a Major Villain, but the two don't seem much different. And Malekith actually attacks the real world; Kang stays stuck smaller than an atom. The in-between world in Thor seems plausible; the Quantum Realm makes no sense. Et cetera.

However, the question should be "Is Ant-man 3 worse than Ant-man?" YES. And while the follow-up - "is it worse than 2?" - may be a closer call, the answer is still Yes. The acting, the pacing, the script, the believability.. all of these have taken a step back. And is Thor 4 worse than 1, 2 or 3? It absolutely is. The comedy is less funny than in Ragnarok (and the villain, oddly, less fearsome), while the Waititi turn has me constantly wonder whether 2 or 3 is the lesser film.. it's close. Dark World is often dull, but Ragnarok is often dumb.

The Eternals that bad compared to the abysmally laughable and neverendingly sluggish Age of Ultron ?

Immeasurably, yes. It's barely followable - which is 'better' than sluggish - and the cast is introduced (barely) and grouped (loosely) far too quickly for there to be much audience empathy. Ultron's Avengers have been together and interacting in part and whole for several films; the lead-up to Ultron's creation makes sense. I can barely even remember what happened in Eternals. It's genuinely terrible.

Shang Chi or Black Widow more instantly forgettable than Ant Man 1 and 2 ?

This is a genuine question! Shang Chi is great and Ant-man is excellent. Black Widow is slight and late, and Ant-man & Wasp was.. forgettable indeed. So on that comparison, the highs of the recent films are higher than the lows of the earlier ones, yes. But the lows are lower. And the mid-point of the 8-or-so post-Endgame is less-than-middling, while the mid-point of the twenty-plus before that is Great.

An audience ranking, a fan ranking, even most casual viwers' rankings - or even by the weird viewers who somehow enjoy the low points! - will surely see the bottom five-of-thirty dominated by recent offerings. That's a notable drop.

It's a bit like when people say that Wonder Woman 84 is that much worse than the 1st movie (it's worse, but it's like a bad movie vs a very bad one)

I'm willing to say that some of the praise for WW was greater because the previous couple of DC films had been so embarrassing that it was nice to see something that wasn't abjectly terrible, but even then... WW is better than "bad" (maybe even "good", if hamstrung by appearing to ape Captain America), and WW84 is just awful. Even if you ignore the plotholes, stupidities and implications of key moments.

or that the DCEU is that much worse than the MCU (Batman v Superman certainly is on par with Ultron, Civil War or the cashgrab of a duo that are Infinity War / Endgame).

Comparing.. less than a dozen films (MoS, BvS, WW, JL, WW84, A, and I suppose Shazam and Adam make 8) to more than thirty (not including the integrated-well TV shows) is a mildly unfair comparison, but however you slice it the MCU is miles better than the DCEU. It's not even close. One is a coherent extended universe with many, many good-great films; the other is a barely-coherent mess with maybe... three? four? tolerable-to-good outings.

Batman vs Superman looked like it was written to be a DC version of Civil War, but without the grounding or in-universe logic. Terrible, terrible script and motivations and embarrassingly derivitive and inconsequential. The Justice League never really looked like a team, and the filmmakers could never decide on a villain. (And all that's ignoring the unComics characterisation of Superman and his cast from MoS that hamstrung the universe into featuring dark and dumb iterations of the DC characters.)

I would urge you to re-watch BvS to cross-compare with the others you list, but I try not to recommend rewatching anything I found so painfully awful.

Opinions differ, of course. Disagreement encouraged and welcome!

[ntnon]

...all the phase 1 - 3 Marvels in your list that you're using as comparisons? They're the the worst ones. Basically all the phase 4 & 5 Marvels are about as good as the bottom tier of the previous phases. The lower quality isn't unprecedented, just consistent now.

I chose them because I think they're examples more people could relate too (and they might be "the worst of those phases", they're still scoring around 7/10 on RT for instance).

I'm getting curious now about how they're all scored, to see if it's noticable from 'Proper Reviewers' or not.. I will check after this reply.

But I also think Iron Man 2 and 3 are godawful,

That was my memory from the time; rewatching has raised them a little in my estimation - they aren't as good (i.e. novel) as Iron Man, and their worth as standalones has as much to do with how they treat the emotional growth of the characters and their mental states as the on-screen superheroics. I actually now think IM2 and IM3 are quite daring and deeper than they had any need to be. PTSD, several varieties of terrorism and revenge sagas mixed with corporate competition and a subtext of romantic growth...

Captain America vaguely decent, that Ang Lee did a much better Hull than Leterrier, and that Avengers is a chore to run through past its first viewing.

Captain America is a fantastic film. It's a great war film masquerading as a superhero film, and there are some absolutely phenomenal moments threaded through it. Chris Evans and Hayley Atwell do a particularly fantastic job, and the rest of the cast is great too. It's hard for me to co.pare Hulks because I have struggled to get through either when trying to rewatch them. Both were disappointing at the cinema - though the second one with it's curious SFX may have been slightly worse - and I forget which had the scene with him throwing tanks. A cinema-full of fans couldn't contain their sarcastic laughter at that idiocy.

I was underwhelmed by Avengers the first time round. I think reviews and expectations had me expecting too much, but it was disappointing. Rewatching it a few years later, I found it spectacular. And then rewatching it last year.. it was good, but far from great. Better than initially, but worse than the second time through.

IIRC I scored on average Phase 1 around 5.5/10 and Phase 2 4.5/10. Phase 3 would be around 5.

Eek.

I don't think I've ever properly ranked and rated them, but I certainly wouldn't average over an entire phase.. and clearly you do not enjoy them as much as me (or most) - and yet seem to have seen them all! So, good for you being fair in only judging after watching.

I don't think it's only of matter of liking MCU movies (overall) or not, but judging the general reception of these movies in France vs the USA, we're clearly less enthusiast about them than you are (or maybe you're too enthusiast, but whatever). When many of them are getting 8/10 on RT from critics, most here hovers between 6 and 7.

The critics overseas may be harsher - or more accurate - but surely 7/10 is still better than 'most' films these days..?

People are complaing about how visuals have gone down the drain, but Civil War wasn't very well directed and lit, Black Panther had infamous CGI doubles, No Way Home and Far From Home are both awfull VFX-wise, and Infinity War and Endgame are regularly laughably done for movies with such budgets.

I don't agree, BUT I wonder if some of the CGI critiques are retroactive - there have been improvements even in the last few years that might make Panther or Endgame seem less-than-great now, but.. I remember some awkward jumping in Spider and Panther films, but don't recall any egregious issues with IW/E.

[ntnon]

the one thing that was confusing me post Endgame I sorta came to a conclusion. If we go back to that first decade, Thanos wasn't very smoothly introduced likely because they hadn't decided fully where to go since they were basing that direction on how well the few movies following Iron Man would do. Thanos was the big threat that 11 years of Marvel movies would lead to. Before that? he was only in the first Guardians movie. All other instances he was in a post or mid credits tag. Now this sloppy lead up could be forgiven because this was the big first test. By the end of that first decade they definitley knew better to plan well but they're repeating that same mistake.

Quite. There was no expectation that the films would take off as they did, so while there were deliberate attempts to provide a cohesion and some backstory, the hope that everything would lead up to the Infinity War, it was never a given. The first few instead built towards Avengers, and then towards the Civil War.

However, far from a "sloppy" lead up, Thanos' presence - even if some of it was retroactive of plausibly-deniable - was INTENTIONALLY behind-the-scenes. Even when we see him in GotG, he's keeping himself on the sidelines and making others do his work for him. That's why his stinger in Ultron is so brilliant - "Fine. I'll do it myself." and from that point, even though he's essentially only offscreen, he is a permanent looming threat. It's not sloppy, it's quite brilliant. But...

They keep trying to have isolated movies with hints of the next decade long villain and of course it's not working. If they wanted Kang they needed to get him in at the start save for a couple films where they could be more or less isolated (No Way Home, the Guardians movies). Now with Jonathan Majors likely being exited they could delay their entire next 10 year plan to better organize something but that's not how the machine works and only proves more it's commerce over art for Marvel Studios since all they're doing is pushing certain things back a year or two and just pasting a new big bad into whatever they already had existing as a gameplan

..it might not be repeatable. I don't think the multiversal threat is a cinematically viable as the Snap. It's too messy and too big. (There's a painful irony in suggesting that Kang is too big when we saw him first on the small screen and second in the Quantum Realm, but still...) Thanos was inevitable. He was big, he was terrifying and he was relentless. He fought and he won. He had one goal, and he did it. Kang's already been defeated twice - and by second-tier heroes at that. (Which may bode well, since the A-Team has left the universe.) He's not an obvious threat - even with the post-credits scenes reminding us of infinite Kangs.

That being said I have seen every Marvel movie thus far and most of them more than once. They're great as background noise but they're nothing more than shallow blockbusters but I can say that some are much worse than others. The one Marvel movie I will single out at this point as being the absolute worst is Thor Love and Thunder. Whatver the hell that was and I'm confident I wouldn't be able to complete a second viewing.

I disagree, slightly, because I actually think there are deeper messages under the trappings and genuine insights in the plots. The main question Mark Millar (et al.) asked in the Cap v Tony Civil War storyline was how best to balance freedom with protection, and I think that continues to be one of the most pressing questions of the last two decades - post-9/11 and amidst an unprecedented loss of privacy (largely by choice and apathy). Ultron and Vision are interesting meditations (with Skynet and the Matrix and Her, etc.) on the current hot-button topic: A.I. and whether it will inevitably sound a death knoll soon. And then Iron Man deals with accountabilty and warmongering, PTSD and the work/life balance under the less equivocal queries about how much power we cede to billionaire brainboys who are arrogant arses. Et cet.