The Marvel Cinematic Universe (MCU) has been a box office juggernaut. Since the release of Iron Man in 2008, it has been received warmly by both critics and fans thanks to its cinematic world building storytelling. Its iconic characters like Iron Man, Captain America, and Black Widow have become a dominating part of pop culture. Unfortunately, the quality of the MCU has been on a steep decline since 2019’s Avengers: Endgame, which bid adieu to many of its era-defining stars. So what happened to the MCU after the conclusion of Avengers: Endgame, and what can it do to recover from the decline?
A lack of clear direction and vision for its future plan is one of the prime reasons MCU has been losing its appeal to the fans. Endgame successfully completed the ‘Phase 3’ of MCU, with the core characters like Captain America, Black Widow and Iron Man all stepping away to make room for the newer batch of heroes. Phase 4 introduced many newer heroes and villains and expanded into new platforms like its Disney+ streaming service. This should have been the best opportunity to usher in a new era, by revitalizing the franchise, but instead it resulted in a loss of coherence and streamlining.
The MCU now feels more disjoined and fragmented than ever. For example, casual fans who have only seen the movies, had no idea what happened to Scarlett Witch to turn into a menacing villain all of a sudden, as it would have required them to watch the Disney+ show Wanda Vision to better understand the narrative.
This is a prime example of where a coherent overarching narrative is missing like the previous phases, resulting in movies and shows where the stakes feel less compelling and lower. Spider-Man: No Way Home and Guardians of the Galaxy Vol.3, both of which were commercial and critical success, is regarded as an exception to the current decline state of the MCU.
But the storytelling vision isn’t the only thing that fans are upset about.
There has been scathing criticism regarding many of the recent projects suffering from awful visual effects, compared to their predecessors.
Eternals was criticized for its inconsistent and dull visuals, Black widow was slammed for its over the top unrealistic action scenes and while Shang-Chi and the Legend of the Ten Rings had an overall positive reception, its over reliance on CGI for its final act was also heavily criticized.
There’s no more Tony Stark, popping up in different movies to give the feeling of a connected universe, nor Steve Rogers, who was a shining beacon of hope in MCU. A plethora of insipid characters since phase 4 hasn’t made it any better either, as it has failed to give satisfying stories with engaging characters. For example, The Falcon and the Winter Soldier suffered from bland main heroes who get tangled up in a plot that’s convoluted and messy at best, while Loki was deemed anticlimactic thanks to its rather confusing finale. Thor: Love and Thunder was criticized by a large section of fans for being too silly and not taking its character’s legacy seriously enough.
Yet with so much misdirection, MCU is far from over, as it still has a rich source material to fall into, with an ever evolving cast and crew. But to turn around the tide, what the MCU must do is streamline its projects to improve the quality of comprehensive storytelling. Bad and redundant CGI should be replaced by more practical visual effects, and extensive efforts must go into the cinematography in order to enhance the viewer’s experience of watching a compelling storyline.
And most importantly, MCU should take more risks.
If it continues with its predictable and formulaic tropes, the same over-reliance on humor and incoherent storytelling across formats, it’s a disservice to the fans who turned it into the most successful film franchise of all time.
We want to see storylines that rival the Thanos and Infinity stones arc, such as Galactus who is rumored to be the main villain of the Fantastic Four reboot, or how Kang the Conqueror will shape up to be the big baddy in the next Avenger films.
MCU is in no doubt in a course correction approach, and with the new projects like Fantastic Four and X men on the pipeline, it should have no problem revitalizing its universe and start anew with the same kind of fervor and anticipation since the end of Iron Man, when something amazing was promised, and delivered in due time.