Pros:
*
Iron Man (still their best movie, even if
Winter Soldier is their best from a pure filmmaking perspective)
*characterizing a whole host of little-known characters and making moviegoers care about them. (Captain America is such a well-done character, yet the quality of the performance, writing, and filmmaking may be overshadowed by the fact that it’s a superhero flick, unfortunately.) I mean, who on earth would have expected an
Ant-Man movie? Or a
Black Panther movie, let alone one that does well both with critics and audiences?
*willingness to switch tones between films (
The First Avenger,
The Winter Soldier and
Thor: Ragnarok couldn’t be more different)
*a sense of fun and whimsy
*amazingly consistent in quality
*the sheer daring of the shared-universe concept, which everyone now wants to copy
*the willingness to make good movies, not just good superhero films, and to bring in real directors and actors to make the stories work just as human stories.
Cons:*the shared-universe concept, which everyone now wants to copy. As I wrote, I appreciate the daring, but I don’t like shared universes, canons from above, or really even series that much. I’m not a fan of having to cross-reference one movie just to understand another movie, twists and jokey references leading up to something in the future. I think every movie’s an individual unit to be judged on its own merits, and the MCU was the vanguard for a shared-universe style. When it becomes self-absorbed, it can become decadent or onanistic.
*a rather rigid formula despite the tonal shifts. I almost always know how the storytelling will go in a Marvel movie (the few exceptions–Iron Man 3 most notably–only go to prove the rule), and I always get it–and it
is usually good! It’s just that I want something really different for once. One thing I appreciated about
Batman v Superman was just how different it was from the MCU–it’s more like an opera than a superhero movie.
*the lack of strong villains. @forceghostackbar brought this up somewhere–I want a Darth Vader-worthy baddie, a real hissable villain. Redford’s Alexander Pierce was this, even more so because (unlike, say, “Red Skull”) he was a believable character. But few other MCU villains are quite up to this level. (Not that the DCEU is much better, with lackluster villains in
Wonder Woman and [especially!]
Justice League.)
*Spidey. I liked
Spider-Man: Homecoming and still knew they weren’t doing Spider-Man any justice, for a host of reasons the Ackbars, among others, have brought up several times. I think he’s ill-served by the shared-universe, too, becoming just a cog in the machine rather than doing his own thing.
*sacrificing character for jokiness [if that’s a word…].
Thor: Ragnarok was, for me, the worst offender in this regard. It was the first MCU picture where I understood the “stakes” complaint: I felt nothing for the people on screen, because we were supposed to laugh at the destruction of this whole world.
The Avengers, which I couldn’t stand, also had this in spades. And it’s infested other franchises, it seems–I noticed the same tendency in
The Last Jedi. And, as I wrote in reviewing that, if the storytellers don’t believe in their story, why should we?
*lack of event-ness [which I
know is not a word]. The Raimi Spideys and the Nolan Batmans felt like events–everyone went to see them, they revitalized the superhero movie as something for every regular moviegoer (and thereby set the stage for the MCU). Maybe it’s just how many superhero movies there have been, but they never feel like a major event anymore. People watch ’em, like ’em, and forget ’em.
All in all, I’m happy we’ve got the MCU films. They’re a lot of fun, and there are some real gems in there (
Iron Man,
First Avenger,
Winter Soldier).
