Current Events > My superhero take: Even at its peak, MCU movies varied a lot in quality

(+) Yeah! (+)

I mean, you have stuff like Iron Man 2, the borefest that were the two Thor movies, the Hulk movie that doesn't even fit with all the rest.
Cap 1, Iron Man 3 and two Ant-Man movies that were, well, Ant-Man movies.

Agreed

It really seems like a lot of people who say the MCU has a lot of bad movies post-Infinity War are forgetting how many bad movies there were earlier than that

Part of my problem with the current slate is we don't know why some of these characters are even here.

For phase 1, we needed Hawkeye, Widow, Thor, Cap, Iron Man, Hulk, and so on. For phase 2 we needed the Guardians Wanda, and Ant-Man. For phase 3 we needed Spider-Man, Black Panther, Doctor Strange, and Captain Marvel.

We still don't know why we needed Shang Chi, the Eternals (probably exposition dump, which is fine), a new Black Widow, the Young Avengers, Iron Heart, New Black Panther, She-Hulk, Agatha, Echo, Daredevil, Moon Knight, Blade, Deadpool, or even the Marvels. What purpose will they be necessary for? We won't know until things wrap up, but for now, we're halfway through phase 5 already, heading towards phase 6 and a lot of these questions haven't been answered or even teased yet. You can point to why many of those characters were important to the plots of the MCU as a whole, but all these new phase 4 and on characters, I'm truly unsure what their goal is here. Are they just making films to make films, or is there a bigger picture here. If there's not a bigger picture, then why?

I don't want to be too edgy, but I actually didn't think the first Avengers movie was even that good.

My hot take would be its literally amazing that the mcu was able to put out so many 7/10 or 8/10+ movies in a row, and the only other studio that has ever come close was Pixar.

honestly, these days, the mcu doesnt get enough credit

Accept being one of 8 people who thinks Iron Man 3 was good, but Ant-Man 1 is a very solid film also.

Forty_Niners posted...

Part of my problem with the current slate is we don't know why some of these characters are even here.

For phase 1, we needed Hawkeye, Widow, Thor, Cap, Iron Man, Hulk, and so on. For phase 2 we needed the Guardians Wanda, and Ant-Man. For phase 3 we needed Spider-Man, Black Panther, Doctor Strange, and Captain Marvel.

We still don't know why we needed Shang Chi, the Eternals (probably exposition dump, which is fine), a new Black Widow, the Young Avengers, Iron Heart, New Black Panther, She-Hulk, Agatha, Echo, Daredevil, Moon Knight, Blade, Deadpool, or even the Marvels. What purpose will they be necessary for? We won't know until things wrap up, but for now, we're halfway through phase 5 already, heading towards phase 6 and a lot of these questions haven't been answered or even teased yet. You can point to why many of those characters were important to the plots of the MCU as a whole, but all these new phase 4 and on characters, I'm truly unsure what their goal is here. Are they just making films to make films, or is there a bigger picture here. If there's not a bigger picture, then why?

Define "need"

specialkid8 posted...

Define "need"

Because hes already seen how the story played out so he can decide if he needed them or not

stupid post

It aleays did but they nailed the mey movies but yes quality has always fluctuated

Theres a lot of bad films in the MCU and many of them come from before Endgame.

The difference, I think, is that apart from Guardians, nothing after Endgame has been good. When you consider all the shows and the number of films, thats a really bad stretch.

Though there have been some weak movies before Endgame, I wouldn't even call them "bad". They're mediocre and still somewhat dumb fun at best.
The Eternals and Love & Thunder are actual dogshit that makes Cap 1 and Iron Man 2 look like Civil War tier MCU films.

What a controversial opinion.

But yeah, I think most people recognize that Iron Man 2 and 3, Thor 2, and a few others along the way are just "okay" at the best.

Kitt posted...

Though there have been some weak movies before Endgame, I wouldn't even call them "bad". They're mediocre and still somewhat dumb fun at best.
The Eternals and Love & Thunder are actual dogshit that makes Cap 1 and Iron Man 2 look like Civil War tier MCU films.

This post really confuses me because every film youve listed is dogshit tier IMO.

Glob posted...

This post really confuses me because every film youve listed is dogshit tier IMO.

I'd throw the first Avengers movie in that tier too, but CE ain't ready for that discussion.

Iron Man 3 is so underrated

Quality wasn't the only thing back then though. People looked forward to not only the further off conclusion, but the near term team ups. Less characters meant more utilization.

We're 18 movies and shows in and where are we really heading? A million Kangs are gonna come and start beating up all the heroes? Which itself is still 4 years away?

Kitt posted...

I'd throw the first Avengers movie in that tier too, but CE ain't ready for that discussion.

I respectfully disagree. The first Avengers movie might not be the best film in the franchise but its one of the better ones. Its also arguably the most important.

HornyLevel posted...

We're 18 movies and shows in and where are we really heading? A million Kangs are gonna come and start beating up all the heroes? Which itself is still 4 years away?

2018: We're 25 movies and shows in and where are we really heading? Thanos is gonna get some rocks and start beating up all the heroes?

Why are people acting like this saga is so seat of its pants when we had literally no characterization for Thanos until he showed up in Infinity War? We had vague promises of a threat and a few stones scattered hither and yon. The whole thing only congeals in hindsight.

specialkid8 posted...

2018: We're 25 movies and shows in and where are we really heading? Thanos is gonna get some rocks and start beating up all the heroes?

Why are people acting like this saga is so seat of its pants when we had literally no characterization for Thanos until he showed up in Infinity War? We had vague promises of a threat and a few stones scattered hither and yon. The whole thing only congeals in hindsight.

People only say this because they don't want to admit the MCU lacks cohesion,

i liked iron man 2. its one of my go to fun movies. its kind of filler but sam rockwell is great. ive watched it way more times than any of the avenger movies. not that those movies are bad but by the end 30 minutes of sensory cg overload huge battle sequence after huge battle sequence i always tune out (except civil war, very good one too imo) while iron man 2 i stay entertained from start to end. im not sure why people hate it so much. it has personality to it. i find thor 2 unwatchable though. like i try to watch it and for some reason my eyes glaze over and i lose consciousness

specialkid8 posted...

2018: We're 25 movies and shows in and where are we really heading? Thanos is gonna get some rocks and start beating up all the heroes?

Why are people acting like this saga is so seat of its pants when we had literally no characterization for Thanos until he showed up in Infinity War? We had vague promises of a threat and a few stones scattered hither and yon. The whole thing only congeals in hindsight.

Ignoring of course Guardians 1 and 2.

dave_is_slick posted...

People only say this because they don't want to admit the MCU lacks cohesion,

And the real issue is people act like it needs total cohesion to begin with. Iron Man vol 1 issue 36 doesn't tie into Incredible Hulk Vol 1 issue 138 which doesn't tie into Avengers Vol 1 issue 87. Comics weave in and out of each other and so do the movies. Some touch, most stand alone. Always have.

Phase 3 was mostly consistently great. Phases 4 and 5 are comparable to 1 and 2 though. I think Phase 3 is what set the bar so high, both in terms of box office and quality.

Glob posted...

The difference, I think, is that apart from Guardians, nothing after Endgame has been good. When you consider all the shows and the number of films, thats a really bad stretch.

No Way Home and Shang-Chi were very good. And yes, Guardians v3.

I think the biggest issue is that the infinity saga was relatively straightforward and every new piece of the saga was a movie with something new to offer.

Now that we've reached this level of saturation in terms of yearly output as well as the total number of characters/teams/subplots/etc. it's hard to follow it all, and it's hard to really pick out the "must see" content from the rest.

The current MCU has reached a point where it has the same problem as modern comics have had for decades. Too many series, too many characters, and not enough new and exciting ideas to keep people on the edge of their seat.

I also think it was a huge mistake to go all-in on multiverse stuff. That concept multiplies all those saturation issues exponentially.

specialkid8 posted...

2018: We're 25 movies and shows in and where are we really heading? Thanos is gonna get some rocks and start beating up all the heroes?

Why are people acting like this saga is so seat of its pants when we had literally no characterization for Thanos until he showed up in Infinity War? We had vague promises of a threat and a few stones scattered hither and yon. The whole thing only congeals in hindsight.

It was 18 movies over a decade since the shows were not really related and were being kept separate by a different wing of Marvel.

We're at 18 related things in in under 3 years that Feige said will be all necessary. I didn't even count What If or Werewolf by Night.

The stones and Thanos were a very well known storyline, so we had an idea and slow build up of him collecting them and our heroes encountering them throughout in all sorts of places. They were EXTREMELY powerful things and we knew shit was gonna go down if he collected all of them. Again, this also ignores that there were 5 crossover movies in 7 years.

I'm not even sure what the point of making these excuses for where we currently are is. People are all starting to agree it sucks.

bsp77 posted...

Phase 3 was mostly consistently great. Phases 4 and 5 are comparable to 1 and 2 though. I think Phase 3 is what set the bar so high, both in terms of box office and quality.

No Way Home and Shang-Chi were very good. And yes, Guardians v3.

No Way Home is pretty awful. It has a couple of redeeming moments but not enough to carry the rest of the mess. Shang-Chi started well but really loses its way around half way through.

Glob posted...

No Way Home is pretty awful. It has a couple of redeeming moments but not enough to carry the rest of the mess. Shang-Chi started well but really loses its way around half way through.

Almost everyone disagrees with you about No Way Home.

The final act of Shang-Chi was admittedly not up to par with the rest of it. Too much of the typical big MCU ending. Still quite good though.

I think another big problem is when the movies were first coming out, the fact that Marvel was a big shared universe had never been done before in movies, and the novelty is what people bought into. The quality of the movies were second to what the movies were doing.

Now shared universes are the norm and milked to death, which just leaves a bunch of bog standard movies.

No MCU film had actually been bad. "Bad" is something like "Cool As Ice."

The worst MCU movies have still been 7/10 in comparison with the average action/adventure film.

Phases 4 & 5 are only "bad" compared to Phase 3. Nothing in them have been as bad as Thor: TDW.

lolife67 posted...

No MCU film had actually been bad. "Bad" is something like "Cool As Ice."

The worst MCU movies have still been 7/10 in comparison with the average action/adventure film.

Phases 4 & 5 are only "bad" compared to Phase 3. Nothing in them have been as bad as Thor: TDW.

I'd rather watch a genuinely bad movie over a decent chunk of MCU movies tbh. My issue with MCU's lesser outings is that they're just boring lol. At least with a bad movie I can have fun taking the piss.

bsp77 posted...

Almost everyone disagrees with you about No Way Home.

The final act of Shang-Chi was admittedly not up to par with the rest of it. Too much of the typical big MCU ending. Still quite good though.

The only reason anybody likes No Way Home is the nostalgia bait. Its fine to still enjoy it, but claiming that its good beyond the nostalgia is a genuinely fucking ridiculous take.

I guess it depends on "peak" - I don't think of Iron Man 2 as the MCU peak.

Kim_Seong-a posted...

I'd rather watch a genuinely bad movie over a decent chunk of MCU movies tbh. My issue with MCU's lesser outings is that they're just boring lol. At least with a bad movie I can have fun taking the piss.

If that's true then you should also be able to take the piss out of the bad MCU films. So I don't really buy this lol

lolife67 posted...

If that's true then you should also be able to take the piss out of the bad MCU films. So I don't really buy this lol

Most "bad" MCU films aren't offensively bad they're just bland and uninteresting.

Like I'd much rather watch Star Wars The Last Jedi over The Force Awakens for the same reason. >_>

Honestly I'm kind of at the point where I'm wondering why Kang is such a threat. Is it because there's a bunch of him? Is there a sort of super Kang out there somewhere, or is he just an army of his own minions?

Glob posted...

The only reason anybody likes No Way Home is the nostalgia bait. Its fine to still enjoy it, but claiming that its good beyond the nostalgia is a genuinely fucking ridiculous take.

I could not possibly give less of a shit about Tobey-Man and I thought it was phenomenal.

Glob posted...

The only reason anybody likes No Way Home is the nostalgia bait. Its fine to still enjoy it, but claiming that its good beyond the nostalgia is a genuinely fucking ridiculous take.

That is not true. It is fine to have a differing opinion, but don't try to explain how others feel

specialkid8 posted...

I could not possibly give less of a shit about Tobey-Man and I thought it was phenomenal.

Like I said, a ridiculous take.

bsp77 posted...

That is not true. It is fine to have a differing opinion, but don't try to explain how others feel

If its fine for me to have a different opinion, then why did you take exception to me having it in the first place? Youre normally not a bad poster here, but at the moment, youre being pretty insufferable, and all over the fact that you like a Spider-Man film. Which Ive said its fine to like.

Accusing me of trying to explain how others feel? The entire premise of the film is teasing returning characters. Thats literally all it does, all the way through. And some of them dont really even do anything. Its an overcrowded mess. Like I said, you can enjoy it all you want, but dont try to tell me that its got any value beyond nostalgia, because I will take you for an idiot.

All of phase 3 was fire tho

Glob posted...

Youre normally not a bad poster here, but at the moment, youre being pretty insufferable, and all over the fact that you like a Spider-Man film. Which Ive said its fine to like.

he gets in these modes sometimes. next hes going to say you didnt like the movies because you have no friends and all his buddies are giving him a toast this very moment on how impeccable his movie tastes are.

Yeah there were some ones that werent so great but now we dont get any good ones.

They keep trying to dump all these B list heroes on us

As an above poster said, I think Guardians 3, No Way Home, and Shang Chi were certainly good post Endgame movies.

I think the next good one we'll get will be Deadpool 3, personally.

dioxxys posted...

Yeah there were some ones that werent so great but now we dont get any good ones.

They keep trying to dump all these B list heroes on us

The MCU started with B list heroes. Why do people constantly forget or ignore that?

Honestly there are very few good MCU movies. Infinity War and Endgame were so huge, we just forgot.

I felt superhero movie fatigue in phase 2. Infinity war is the only reason I caught back up

the team ups made up for the shitty movies
dunno about the latest ones

lolife67 posted...

The MCU started with B list heroes. Why do people constantly forget or ignore that?

Because they're either too young to remember pre-MCU or they never cared enough about the comics to know that Iron Man was never as big as the movies made him

Glob posted...

Like I said, a ridiculous take.

If its fine for me to have a different opinion, then why did you take exception to me having it in the first place? Youre normally not a bad poster here, but at the moment, youre being pretty insufferable, and all over the fact that you like a Spider-Man film. Which Ive said its fine to like.

Accusing me of trying to explain how others feel? The entire premise of the film is teasing returning characters. Thats literally all it does, all the way through. And some of them dont really even do anything. Its an overcrowded mess. Like I said, you can enjoy it all you want, but dont try to tell me that its got any value beyond nostalgia, because I will take you for an idiot.

How am I being the insufferable one with comments like the bolded? Also, why make it personal when we do get along? We have for awhile.

I only called you out here because of the nature of the discussion. It seems to require a more objective lens and claiming none of the movies are good other than GotG clearly isn't an objective lens. No Way Home was adored so that shouldn't have a negative place in an objective discussion about post Endgame MCU.

I probably am an idiot for expecting an objective discussion though. Maybe it is because I read articles all the time about why people are losing interest in the MCU, which try to be objective. Any article would say No Way Home is a high point, even if the writer didn't personally agree.

Youre forgetting that the biggest draw was seeing what was going to happen next in the overarching story.