My Thoughts on the MCU

Let me get this out of the way as soon as possible, this has NOTHING to do with the DCEU. I know I have controversial opinions on that matter, but it’s entirely irrelevant when talking about a different film series. This isn’t a team sport, and I really dislike when people assume you can only like 1 of two rivaling things. I love both Sailor Moon and Cardcaptor Sakura despite them having a fandom rivalry back in the day, you don’t need to just pick one thing.

With that out of the way I want to give a brief talk as to my feelings towards the MCU. Around it’s inception I considered myself a very casual fan of the MCU, and now I don’t really. I wanna explain what I think the MCU’s strengths and weaknesses are in my opinion. Let me start off with what I think are the good points about the MCU

-Their origin movies are pretty good origins. I really think the MCU is at it’s best when it’s discussing psychological conflict, much like Marvel proper, and/or is relating to a difference in opinions or ideals. I thought Thor 1 was pretty decent, I liked Deadpool, Ant-Man and Spiderman: Homecoming overall, I thought Iron Man 1 and Captain America 1 were both pretty strong good movies. Doctor Strange I vary in my opinion off but it’s definitely overall positive. Avengers 1 was one of, if not their best, film. They do a really good job at getting person from in a psychologically damaged place to be a good protagonist. There is one, controversial, exception to this which I will comment on later.

-Their protagonists have believable personalities and conflicts. As I said, their psychology when it comes to their heroes is believable and they do well at setting up interpersonal conflict between them such as the Jaded Materialism of Iron Man and the Idealism of Captain America in Avengers 1.

-A good overarching meta-narrative. The Infinity Stones makes for a very good way of connecting a bunch of disparate unconnected narratives under the veneer that the 6 plot items are related and that the unification of them is a very important element. This allows for a versatility of narrative type without causing a completely disjoined feel.

However, overall, I’m not a fan of the MCU. While I think it has good points to it, the actual act of watching their movies is not very enjoyable to me and here are my reasons.

-It’s sense of humor. I’m gonna be honest, I hate the MCU’s style of humor. Like the cutesy self-deprecatory idea where you mention how ridiculous the situation is. I can’t stand that at all. I have to come to cringe at the words "quirky" and "irreverent" because to me these are works basically being used to mean "this is gonna waste time with lol random humor and/or won't be able to put in any sense of grandiosity or mythos". This is by far my biggest problem with the MCU because more and more the movies are comedies with the veneer of being superhero movies and I just don’t find them funny. Like, at all. At best, most of the humor is non-offensive and I don’t think much of it and just wait for them to actually get back to the story. At worst it’s really annoying and it destroys the grandeur they were just setting up. I might make a whole post talking about this in particular but the MCU humor is so boring to me, because it’s the expectation now. The only MCU films I found funny at all were Spiderman: Homecoming, Deadpool, and Iron Man 1, and I didn’t find them THAT funny. I watch fiction for the stories, and the MCU humor seems most of the time to just be distracting from the story for a diversion and how silly the story is. This is why I didn’t like Guardians of the Galaxy 1 and didn’t see the sequel because it was basically the MCU humor for 2 hours straight. If it's hard to understand my dislike for the MCU's humor, imagine it was Teen Titans' Go humor for a second since I know most of my friends don't like that. That is what "irreverent" humor is like to me. It's just a sheer disrespect for your own premise and your source material.

-Villains. In total fairness, this is not an MCU specific problem, it’s a comic book movie problem in general. The DCEU, The Nolan Batman Films, the Raimi Spider-Man films, all superhero movie series I really like, and yet like half the villains are good in those. This is also the same in every other superhero movie series. Villains in comic book movies are usually at best serviceable, but it’s really hard to think of comic book movie villains that are highlights of the film, as opposed to just decent for the role needed. I can think of a few but this infects every series of superhero movies, and it really infects the MCU. I can’t think of a single MCU film villain I’d want to see in another film. I know everyone says Loki, but I don’t find Loki that interesting honestly, and so who else is there? Thanos? That guy who hasn’t done anything yet?! I seriously don’t get the Thanos hype at all when they haven’t done anything with him. The best I can think of is Vulture from Spiderman: Homecoming and even him I wouldn’t say he was a highlight of the film or anything.

-Their sequels. I don’t know what it is, but the MCU sequels, with the exception of Captain America 3, have never clicked with me. It’s like after setting up the characters with their origin movies, they have no idea where to go from there. I can only barely recall the plots of Iron Man 2 and 3 because I was so unengaged. Thor 2’s plot I remember if only because it was really simple, but it still wasn’t very exciting. Didn’t even see Thor 3 yet, because it looked so much like all the problems with the MCU.  I think Captain America 2 was a very lukewarm product and really don’t get the hype. Avengers 2 was good for about 20 minutes near the beginning and then the rest of the film is a mess of trying to stop a cheap Ultron imitation and without all the cool realization of potential they set up.

-Aimlessness. The MCU seems to be trying to please everyone, from all demos. And you know what, it seems to be going pretty well for them financially so whatever, good for them I guess. But as a result, they are sort of the middle-of-the-road watery, and with a giant limit on how much intensity they can muster in any direction. To keep everything feeling coherent with each other, they have lowered their ability to have any distinctive identity. I don’t know what I am going to an MCU film FOR. Comedy? Even if I liked this type of comedy, there are better series devoted to it. Action? There are better action scenes in other things. Superheroes? Even ignoring my controversial views on the DCEU, there are better films for superheroing imo. Tell me what I can get in the MCU that I can’t get better somewhere else. Tell me what niche it should fill.

Overall, the MCU too me seems to me a sort of cult of personality. How much you like it and are invested in liking it seems hinged on how much you like these writers and actors depiction of these characters alone. How much do you like RDJ’s Tony Stark or Thomas Hiddleston’s Loki? Because these are characters pieces and your enjoyment will almost entirely depend on how much you enjoy just watching these depictions of these characters.