Back in February, the MCU’s latest comeback attempt united characters and plotlines from a few mildly ed Disney+ shows, B-tier movies, and one that came out 17 years and one Hulk ago. So once Captain America: Brave New World didn’t work beyond its mild box office, it didn’t bode well for Thunderbolts* – another crossover combining Disney+ characters and others from several non-Avengers level events, with the added unoriginal promise of being yet another attempt at yet another Guardians of…
These days, even a massive hit like Deadpool and Wolverine is only a temporary band-aid for the struggling MCU. It has three shots to build true momentum again in 2025, yet the only one that might have a realistic shot is the last one in a new Fantastic Four. First, it has to get through two movies that seem to just be crossovers of various past B-list movies and Disney+ shows – the first of which is Captain America: Brave…
Instead of taking real steps to halt the MCU’s bleeding – like ‘convincing’ Kevin Feige to step down, or canceling the rest of the Multiverse Saga while there’s still barely time to course correct – Disney and Marvel’s new time buying strategy is to throw The Marvels under the bus. Between low box office tracking that Disney itself could have helped dent by getting SAG a fair deal weeks ago, an unwarranted press narrative that director Nia DaCosta was too…
All the justified recent teeth gnashing about the MCU won’t stop no matter how Guardians of the Galaxy Vol 3 turns out. Not only are they far removed from the bigger Marvel picture now – to their benefit if not the MCU’s – mastermind James Gunn is already off to run the next incarnation of the DC universe. As such, Gunn’s Marvel and Guardians’ swan song is less a return to form for the MCU, and more like one last…
On screen, the MCU is hurtling towards a crossroads in the multiverse. But even that pales in comparison to its off-screen crossroads as it enters Phase 5, and the middle phase of ‘The Multiverse Saga.” After Phase 4 had some of the lowest lows in MCU history, and even had its high points come with a few annoying asterisks, the post-Endgame part of this story is ironically running out of time to fully come together.
But with Ant-Man and the…
The MCU’s 2022 movie slate was built on big returns not just for certain characters, but for their directors. Yet after Sam Raimi was either helpless or just another enabler to Kevin Feige’s most outdated plot and character arcs for Doctor Strange in the Multiverse of Madness, and after Taika Watiti crafted a merely disappointing reunion with Thor for Thor: Love and Thunder, it was left to Ryan Coogler to salvage something from this trilogy of sequels – four years…
When it comes to the original Avengers, Thor has turned out to be the elder statesman, or at least the last man/god standing in movie theaters. With Iron Man and the original Captain America and Black Widow dead, and with Hawkeye and Hulk overseeing their replacements on Disney+, Thor has snuck up as the first MCU character to get a fourth solo movie – which few would have foreseen after his first two.
Taika Waititi got most of the credit…
Warning: May be too spoilery for some, but few specific spoilers lay within
Doctor Strange and the Multiverse of Madness sells the promise of a creative, different and edgy trip through the multiverse, with original Spider-Man director Sam Raimi at the helm and with more intense action than usual. But that promise is built on an ugly lie.
There is truthfully nothing resembling genuine creativity, nothing that could be called truly different or edgy, and pretty much nothing in this…
WARNING: POSSIBLY TOO SPOILERY FOR SOME
Spider-Man: No Way Home should not work.
For one, turning Tom Holland’s third Spider-Man outing into a mega crossover with the other Spider-Man universes puts his own story into the background, or at least seemed poised to. For another, the animated Spider-Man: Into the Spider-Verse already did a multiverse Spider-Man in 2018 and was an Oscar winning classic, so there seemed almost no way No Way Home could look like anything but a second-rate…
The Marvel Cinematic Universe technically wasn't shaken up right after The Avengers, given that three sequels to established heroes followed. It had been a while since Marvel introduced new headlining heroes into their movie realm, yet they certainly went to the edge of the galaxy to make up for it soon enough. Nevertheless, their new Guardians of the Galaxy delivered some of the high points of the Marvel universe to that point.
When Marvel began its universe with Iron Man,…
As recently as April 2015, Marvel looked set to have the biggest winner of the summer in Avengers: Age of Ultron while Ant-Man was a mere afterthought. After original cult favorite Shawn of the Dead, Hot Fuzz and Scott Pilgrim vs The World writer/director Edgar Wright left and/or was fired over creative differences, and Marvel critics had their excuse to say the MCU doesn’t value truly outside the box visionaries, Ant-Man was behind the eight ball from the start.
Since…
The Marvel Cinematic Universe has gone across galaxies, different realms and into civil war, but Doctor Strange takes it past the bounds of reality itself. Yet some of the same old MCU rules remain, namely that hiring the right people can sell just about anything. In this case, they can sell disorienting visuals, mystical mumbo jumbo, breaking visual barriers much more than narrative ones, and the idea that the MCU still has some tricks up its sleeve even after 14…