The Marvel Cinematic Universe (MCU) has become one of the most iconic and recognizable adaptations in film history. Their films have brought many fan favorites to life in a way that tells a much bigger story than what’s seen within one movie.
The decade-plus long film universe has been known as one of the greatest to be produced in Hollywood, even if some films are better than others. The MCU has managed to create stories that made many invested and excited for what’s to come, but something has changed within the MCU. The series doesn’t feel like the one that we’ve come to know and love. It feels like it’s slowly descending into an inconsistent, directionless mess, riddled with character assassination and too much happening at once.
One of the few things that are dragging the MCU down by its legs is its lack of a consistent story. The main goal of phases four through six focuses on the concept of the multiverse, with projects such as “Loki” and “Spider-Man: No Way Home” striving to go into more detail with this storyline.
That being said, there’s no consistent rule for the other timelines within the MCU. From “WandaVision” to “Quantumania,” there’s hardly any consistency within the story of different universes. The writers of each production continuously contradict each other, combining the concepts of time travel, alternate universes and different timelines under one roof. Whenever some rules are set up, they’re quickly countered with rules for something else. In comparison, Sony Pictures’ “Spider-Man: Into the Spider-Verse” has a consistent set of rules for their multiverse story, and they stick with it in the second film.
It’s also worth mentioning that not every movie follows this plot device. While it’s understandable that not every movie would follow the storyline of the multiverse, the MCU has too much going on at once. Some of them expand on older characters with subpar results depending on the character. This can either be in favor of a character, like Falcon or Hawkeye, or complete character assassination from a character’s previous appearance.
There’s also an incredible amount of tonal whiplash that makes the projects in question, show or film, feel like they’re supposed to be super dark and interesting when they’re really the exact opposite. “Quantumania” is a perfect example of this tonal whiplash: the advertisements made it seem like this movie was meant to be a big deal that would’ve led to Ant-Man being possibly killed off.
When the movie was released, however, it was filled with loads of unnecessary comedy to the point where it’s not even funny. This phenomenon is so prevalent that people have started to label this sort of comedy “MCU Humor.”
So many issues with the MCU currently could all be changed if they had one major and very important detail: direction. Long ago, the MCU brilliantly told the story leading up to Thanos. They were able to tell several different stories that may not have added up at first but would eventually play a huge role in the story they wanted to tell. The writers and directors had a clear path ahead, leading to an endgame during a time when this seemed impossible.
Phases four and five have zero direction for what they want to achieve. Sure, they have a path to Kang, but they’re suffocating to get there by adding unnecessary details, extra characters who serve no purpose other than shock value and storylines that overflow Marvel’s basket. They want to add more characters to the MCU, but they don’t realize they’re overwhelming the story down to the point where it’s tasteless fanservice in some areas.
That being said, not everything in the MCU has been awful. Despite the criticism given to the cinematic universe, some of their projects have been received well by fans. Fans are hoping for something to change within the MCU, but it’s sad to say that whenever the MCU seems to reach its peak, it manages to fall back into the same rut it just climbed out of.
