State of the MCU

So the latest Marvel blockbuster looks set to bomb at the box office, while the rumblings of discontent about Marvel Studios’ output grow ever more ominous. Seems like a good time to take stock of the MCU.

The Marvels: not bad 😐

Re The Marvels itself:

• Character overload? The MCU has so many characters now that this is no surprise. Brie Larson may well have been miffed to be sharing top billing, but when you choose to make a character so powerful, how else are you going to create jeopardy other than giving them weaker companions to look after? It’s more or less the whole premise of Doctor Who.
  
  
• Production troubles? Director Nia DaCosta has played down rumours of friction, maintaining that the movie was designed to last 105 minutes (super-brisk for a modern blockbuster). But a definite lack of coherence and skimpy character motivations suggest that several scenes have been cut. It was hardly worth Samuel L Jackson turning up.
  
  
• But: despite all this, it’s still enjoyable enough. If Marvel’s strict template arguably stifles creativity – the film’s rare inspired scenes (cats! singing!) cast the rest into sharp relief – it guarantees a baseline of competent fun… for the movies at least. Secret Invasion is what a proper trainwreck looks like.

Few would disagree that the first three MCU phases up to and including Endgame were an artistic triumph, bar the obvious asterisks (Iron Man 2, Thor 2). Here’s the full slate of movies since:

• Black Widow – Florence Pugh great, ScarJo on autopilot, shonky Russian Ray Winstone. Raises more questions than it answers. 
  
  
• Shang Chi – Other than the preposterous giant dragon stuff, good diverse fun.
  
  
• Eternals – Low expectations worked to its advantage. Ironically, given how most of the TV shows are undernourished, here’s the one property that blatantly had enough material for a series.
  
  
• No Way Home – Relies a little too heavily on the Maguire/Garfield reveals, but watching with a cinema-full of fist-pumping teenagers was a blast.
  
  
• Multiverse of Madness – I liked this. Unfortunately, its release overlapped with the wildly inventive Everything Everywhere All At Once, which showed what a multiverse film could do outside of Marvel’s restrictive template. Oops.
  
  
• Thor: Love and Thunder – So disappointing it made me question whether Ragnarok was really any good, and is Taika Waititi just a chancer who got lucky (Jojo Rabbit was a dumpster fire too, but that’s another story).
  
  
• Wakanda Forever – Hardly Marvel’s fault, but at its heart is an aching Chadwick Boseman-shaped void. Plus it goes on forever.
  
  
  

  

  Quantumania: weirdly dull 😞

  
  
• Quantumania – Well-documented flaws: over-reliance on weird/ropey CGI and nonsensical character behaviour (just TELL THEM, Janet), supposedly badass villain who gets dispatched far too easily. Plus, smart-arse Cassie Lang is the first MCU hero(ine) I’ve genuinely loathed.*
  
  
• Guardians 3 – James Gunn is great. Why don’t Disney get him to make more movies… oh.

Besides their individual issues, these movies lack a connecting thread. The first three phases introduced a set of main players, then brought them together before breaking them apart, while sprinkling in some spicier side characters. The Infinity Stones were a simple concept to bind the disparate stories together. Thanos not appearing until late on didn’t matter because everything built towards him (you could say he was . . . inevitable).

The Phase 4 movies don’t really build to anything, and of course since 2020 we’ve been bombarded with a splurge of Disney+ series of varying quality. The spin-offs starring secondary characters from the movies serve to confirm that those guys are secondary for a reason (hi Sam and Bucky!). Other shows introduce a whole bunch of new superheroes to the mix, leading to God knows how many caped folks knocking around in what’s now an infinite number of parallel realities thanks to the multiverse concept. This unwieldy mish-mash of content has given rise to a vast suite of problems:

• TV aaaargh: As said, Marvel’s baseline of competence does not extend to its TV output. Recent articles have discussed the reasons in depth – Kevin Feige and co have shunned the showrunner model and attempted to fix any script issues in post-production. They’ve belatedly realised it’s not ideal to shoot long-form TV without a guiding hand - Feige can only spread himself so thin, and all that short-notice tinkering seems to have pissed off CGI artists the world over.
  
  

Secret Invasion: yikes 😬

• Lack of momentum: If there’s so much content, why's it moving so slowly? Mid-credit stings used to tee up the next movie a few months down the line. Now they set up stuff that doesn’t even have a release date. Eternals (2021) has a Blade tease. God knows if or when we’re ever going to see that film.
  
  
• Multiverse mess: My wife constantly complains that infinite universes means zero stakes, as dead characters can just be resurrected from elsewhere. And she doesn’t care that Dr Strange 2 sets explicit rules – ie if you dick about with multiversal travel, whole universes could go tits up. Many people feel like nothing matters.
  
  
• Cape fatigue: It’s not Marvel’s fault that every other studio is leaping on the bandwagon and making (for the most part) inferior superhero product, or launching their own half-arsed shared universe. But the casual punters are getting bored, and your cineastes are echoing Scorsese and holding Marvel directly responsible for the death of Proper Cinema. Not an ideal combo.
  
  
• On a related note, for the fans who are still invested (NB not the Release the Snyder Cut wackos), James Gunn is now in charge of a new DC extended universe, which can only improve their output. Competition is about to get stiffer.
  
  
• Force majeure: Not Marvel’s fault either, obvs, but still worrisome. Although not solely responsible for the crazy streaming bubble, Covid supercharged it. The recent strikes could still be a good thing if, by postponing release dates, they’ve given Feige time to reassess and change direction. Similarly, the unfortunate Jonathan Majors assault allegations might also represent a get of out jail free card for Feige and Marvel, if not for Jonathan (lol).

Hang on, my sitcom cost $225 MILLION?

What can Big Kev do to fix this mess? Some suggestions:

• Stick with the multiverse plan, with some tweaks. Recast Kang, or replace him with Doctor Doom if you fancy. Quietly bin the superfluous and underperforming characters, and focus on a hardcore crew of fan favourites. You could call them, I dunno, The Avengers?
  
  
• Total reboot. Ditch the multiverse altogether. Start again by centering everything around the X-Men and Fantastic Four, who everyone wanted to see yesterday. Maybe keep some fun guys and gals like Peter and Kamala around. Bosh.
  
  
• Artistic freedom. Find more auteurs like Gunn and give them carte blanche. Much guff has been written about how Marvel steals away talented young filmmakers and crushes their independent spirit in its sausage machine. Newsflash: directors like Chloe Zhao want to make Marvel movies because they love the source material. But they’re never going to produce something as stark or singular as Nomadland within this rigid template. Offer them more leeway! Sure, they might fuck it up. But if the current output is failing anyway, what have you got to lose?

You can’t blame Feige and Disney for overplaying a great hand. It happens with any successful franchise. The nuclear option would be just to retire the MCU gracefully, with the hope of rebooting in a few years when cape fatigue has died down. It wouldn’t be the worst idea. Too much of a good thing is no fun at all. Whatever the case, we should look back on those first three phases with fondness. I always remember one Reddit contributor saying if you hopped 30 years back in time and told folks that, in the 21st century, a movie about Iron Man and Captain America fighting each other would make more money than one about Superman and Batman fighting each other, their tiny minds would be blown. The MCU's place in cinematic history is assured.

Cheers Kev.

*  As a sidenote, there's now a surfeit of cocky MCU child-genii. RiRi Williams as a replacement Iron Man was also super-annoying. At least some of the smart kids like Peter Parker and Kamala Khan are winningly goofy. Yes, some of the grown-ups are also too-clever-by-half (hi Tony), but (a) their arrogance gets used as an Achilles heel-style plot point, and (b) you have super-charismatic performers like Downey who can pull that tightrope walk off.