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Angelus on 26 January 2018
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Smartie900 said:
Angelus said:
It's kind of amazing as I look down this list of movies, realizing that there's very few in there that I actually love. The MCU has gotten so big, and is universally regarded with so much acclaim, you'd think I'd be looking at every other movie on this list thinking "man I can't wait to watch that one again!" Yet here I am, scanning the list, wondering how much longer I gotta wait to get to the good stuff, and it's like "....wait....how much good stuff was there, really?" At least half these movies are mediocre, or forgettable, I'd say. I wonder if it's just the few of them that are great, are so widely loved, that people disregard how much of Marvel's content is ultimately unremarkable.

It's also possible I give them more credit than they deserve, because I think about Marvel Netflix shows like Daredevil, Jessica Jones, and Punisher, like ya Marvel are really on top of things.....but in the end that's rather separate from the movie universe they've established, from everything to management, themes, tone, etc. So one can't really view them as being part of a greater whole, no matter how many easter egg references they throw in there.

I think Iron Man 1, Winter Soldier, Guardians of the Galaxy, and Spider-Man Homecoming are the only ones I would regard as "spectacular". I had varying levels of enjoyment for Avengers 1, Iron Man 3, Civil War, Dr. Strange, and GotG 2. The rest of them are either mediocre or just plain bad. The biggest problem with these movies is their choice to ignore having an emotional undertone, in favor of some stupid jokes. They also follow a similar plot structure all throughout the universe. I was watching the trailer for Black Panther today and was thinking that it just looked like a giant ripoff of Iron Man 1. Marvel needs to start experimenting with the type of movies they make. I would love to see a Marvel movie that's reminiscent of Spider-Man 2 or The Dark Knight. The Netflix MCU content usually has more flaws than the movies but they experiment with their structure which I can appreciate.

My list pretty much matches up with yours. Iron Man, Winter Soldier, Guardians, and Avengers are the ones that really shine for me. 

We're in complete agreement on the lack of emotional gravitas. Anything meaningful that happens is always immediately undercut by a joke, or a wink at the audience, and this becomes more and more prevalent the further out you get with these movies. It's like Disney/Marvel have adopted the mind set that a comic book movie can never be anything other than silly fun, because after all....it's comic book material, right? I'm not even a big comic book fan, and even I find that frustrating. What's worse, you can see all the opportunities in many of these movies to present some real stakes, and actually throw some weight behind the decisions these characters make, but then nothing ever really comes of it. I mean maybe Marvel is right to do this. Maybe that's ultimately what the majority of audiences want to see from a comic book movie. Certainly they're making the money to support their decisions, so it's not like I can necessarily say they're missing the boat. It's just not really what I want to see. Not that I'm against silly fun movies, quite the opposite really. That's not exactly the way to keep me consistently engaged in an ongoing, extended movie universe though. I don't need a consistent cast of characters, and overarching plot to get some "cheap" laughs.

Still, I think at this point I'm mostly resigned to Marvel being Marvel. I really hit the height of my frustration with Civil War, and have since kind of made peace with the fact that I shouldn't go into these movies expecting anything other than a whole lot of quips, and some very cool action set pieces.