We Need To Talk About The MCU
The Marvel Cinematic Universe is in trouble. Or ... is it?
My wife and I went to the movies this weekend, and saw Thor: Love and Thunder. It was … fine! Some of it truly didn’t make sense at all, but the action was pretty good and if you can work Christian Bale and Russell Crowe into your franchise, you’re doing okay.
I previously ranked all the films in the MCU here, and have since seen Spider-Man: No Way Home, Doctor Strange and the Multiverse of Madness and the new Thor film.
Quick synopsis:
Spider-Man: No Way Home (15) — hey, this was super fun! Really well done, but it falls lower in my rankings because I never saw the Andrew Garfield Spider-Man films, and man, those villains are super dumb. Also, what made this film so fun is definitionally not replicable, so I worry about where we go from here.
Doctor Strange and the Multiverse of Madness (23) - This really…doesn’t make any sense. Apparently it was supposed to be a TV show sequel to WandaVision, and that sort of makes sense in a way that doesn’t make me more favorable to this. It’s a mess, saved marginally by the effects and the fact that the sheer conceit of Doctor Strange just works for me.
Thor: Love and Thunder (21) - Unlike Doc Strange above, this one only had plot holes that are kind of fine with comic book movies and I’m always a fan of Natalie Portman showing up. It just fell a bit flat for me, and for now, is slightly below average in the MCU.
I added them to the rankings, and adjusted them overall as well as some things have aged better or worse for me.
Here are my new, definitive, rankings of all the films in the MCU:
It’s easy to look at this and notice that a lot of the recent, Phase 4, movies are pretty low-ranked. And if you break the average rating down by Phases, it backs this up:
Phase 1: 16.8
Phase 2: 17
Phase 3: 9.7
Phase 4: 20.8
Remember, there’s only 29 films here, so averaging about a 21/29 for the recent group of films is … not great. But if you look at Phase 1 & 2, the average is pretty … well, average. Most of these phases have some very good films, and some stinkers. It’s also worth noting that Phase 3 has 11 films in it, where all the other phases (so far) have six apiece.
If you adjust Phase 3 by taking the cream of the crop out (Thor: Ragnarok, Black Panther, Infinity War & Endgame) it averages 13.9 - still better than the others, but much less so. That’s fake math, of course, but it’s worth pointing out that for me, at least, the quality of Phase Three is really, really influenced by just how good those four films were, and indeed, with the two Avengers films, the conclusion of a story that had been building throughout so many of these other films.
It’s also worth pointing out that the MCU has expanded, quite a bit, to TV shows on Disney+ and those are … also pretty uneven. I’m a BIG fan of Loki, and I thought WandaVision had some interesting ideas even if it it both really faltered for me and is somewhat responsible for the mess of Doctor Strange 2 … (spoiler alert below with the video, but it’s such a snappy song I can’t resist):
But a lot of the other shows seem either like space fillers or ways to set up future movies (Ms. Marvel had promise, but it seems like just a way to set up The Marvels, for example, or a way to establish a new Captain America so that franchise can continue). Shows like Hawkeye are fine, but I barely remember it. Folks seemed to like Moon Knight, and I aggressively disagree. Overall, it’s all better than network sitcoms, and I’m going to keep watching, but the quality isn’t as high as one might hope.
It’s easy to think that perhaps the franchise is a bit rudderless, and needs that Thanos as a North Star, so to speak. I must say I’m not exactly eager for the upcoming Phase 4 films. The Black Panther sequel has been plagued by controversy and for a film releasing in a few months has been locked down in a way that is really atypical, Ant-Man is not my favorite franchise, nor is Guardians. It’s possible that The Marvels will be good as well as yet another reboot of The Fantastic Four but … I worry that I don’t care.
I’m probably part of the problem - the films keep selling tons of tickets and folks are gobbling up the TV shows in a way that might not make the folks at Marvel overly concerned. In the big picture though, it’s worth remembering that the franchise has always had stinkers, and that it’s so far always found its way back.
I’m holding out hope.