There is no Marvel fatigue. There is no superhero saturation. What there is, is simply trash. Make a shit superhero movie and the movie will just be shit. It has nothing to do with there being superheroes.
Hollywood doesn't get it. People don't seem to get it either. But these phases are just repeating itself. It used to be cowboys. It used to be cops. Then pirates. It used to be sword and sandals.
Cowboy movies are fun. So are pirate movies and superhero movies. If they're made well!
The moment some execs look at a bunch of numbers and think "Oh, people will pay money to see X", THAT is when things go wrong. No, people pay to see good movies. And Marvel used to be hype when they made good movies.
Youre mostly right but personally there is definitely superhero fatigue. I used to watch most marvel movies but nowadays the formula is sort of played out.
That’s what I’ve been telling people. My friends and I would religiously go the theatre nearly every Friday as adults. Pandemic hit and we obviously stopped, but once stuff started opening again, we went to see a couple movies but the quality has drastically dropped. We assumed it’s because we were coming out of the pandemic and stuff had been put on hold. In 2023, that excuse shouldn’t still hold up. Good writing didn’t stop during the pandemic, just production.
I'm guessing the fact that no one could even talk about the movie until like 5 minutes ago didn't help. I had no idea it was even coming out until a couple of days ago because the SAG strike kept everyone from doing press.
There was an absolute fuckton of marketing for it at the start of the year, like every other Twitch and YouTube ad I got was about that movie.
Then, nothing, so I thought it had been released and people weren't talking about it because it's just a massive snooze (Like with the Eternals movie).
I had little affinity for the movie to begin with, so seeing there was little public response after all the marketing just had me go "seems this is one to skip"
And now it suddenly comes out with barely any marketing going on in the past few weeks?
Which still makes me feel it must be a snooze, both because it wasn't marketed for release and because of the residual feeling the initial marketing caused.
Besides that, even before the pandemic neither me or my wife were big fans of going to the cinema, the noise, the seating and the gauging with drinks and food is just meh.
During the pandemic, we invested in an 75" TV, 200" projector screen and 8K projector and setup 7.1 audio in the living room.
We got as much popcorn as we want, can drink whatever we want, including alcohol and the only person that can annoy us is us.
And with most movies being available from a streaming service within a few months of cinema release, there's not much of any FOMO either.
I remember when they had a big long-arc that was spread intelligently across all of the movies that built up to Endgame. I think they've forgotten this.
Phase 4 lost the plot. It's like they didn't know what to do after Endgame.
For the plot going forward, you have to see:
Wandavision (Disney+, Blu Ray this month)
Loki Season 1 (Disney+, fresh on Blu Ray)
Spider-Man: No Way Home
Doctor Strange: Multiverse of Madness
Ant-Man: Quantumania
Loki Season 2 (just finished)
That's my point, you have to turn a hobby into a chore so that you can keep up.
It's the same reason popular game franchises have also failed. 343i messed up the Halo franchise when they started putting plot critical events and information in side media like novels and comic books. The moment you cater to the hardcore fans who have no other interests, you alienate the more common fans that enjoy it but don't make it their entire personality.
So now if you play Halo 5 you might be confused at what happened to the Didact, you know he survived Halo 4 but where is he? Oh. Right. He got killed in a comic book. Onto the next villain! Cortana took over the AI's? Holy shit, this is going to fill up the whole next game! Just kidding, that conflict happened off screen and now you're fighting the banished.
For what it's worth, I think this one is more fun than the first one. Or most recent Marvel movies except for Guardians of the Galaxy 3. And I haven't even seen Miss Marvel.
I struggle to think of a less likeable main character that wasn't some sort of anti-hero. It takes talent to be that smug and condescending for an entire movie.
How did Captain Marvel struck you as smug in comparison to the truckload of arrogant and full-of-themselves characters in the Marvel universe? Thor, Drax, or Iron Man who is basically a narcissist.
I think the inference to take from their comment is that by extension others probably didn't like it either, and so there is less excitement for a sequel to a movie that wasn't as well received.
Who is actually going to all of these Marvel movies? I thought everyone came to the same conclusion that Marvel started sucking noticeably immediately after Endgame.
Yeah even the filler shit up to endgame was questionable, I just assumed they'd stop making them after that. Now you have a TV show to watch as homework so you can understand the movies.
Do people seriously have the time to waste to just watch superhero shit endlessly? There's only so many ways you can write the same premise.
Marvel has been writing new stories in the genre (what you're calling "the same premise") for like 6 times longer than the MCU has been around. And they have more story arcs to deal with than the simplified MCU stuff.
Sure it's not all great, but I don't think there's any shortage of possibilities within the genre.
I'm a comic fan and I've watched all of them, and will continue. The problem people are having is they're expecting these movies to be like movies instead of comics, but the MCU has been thinking like comics for a long time now. Just like in comics, not every issue is going to be some enormous crossover event with huge stakes and universe-shifting impact. Most comics are character series issues, where the A plot is just some fun excuse for the hero to do cool shit and have a little bit of character growth. Comics are literally soap operas for boys and nerds, and that's what makes them great. The same applies here. Ya'll are attempting to compare X-Factor issue #97 to The Death of Captain Marvel, but those were never comparable things and they were never meant to be. If you go in to these films expecting X-Factor issue #97 instead, you might be able to enjoy these films for the non-serious popcorn media they're meant to be.
I want movies, I never liked comic books. Others want comic books and weren’t huge movie fans. Disney hasn’t committed to either and it’s not working.
I know I’ve stopped caring about the MCU entirely since Endgame. I’m really not interested in this comic style storytelling, just like I wasn’t as a kid.
I said from release day that Infinity War was the better movie. Endgame is good because it’s the culmination of 10+ years of movies, it wasn’t a good movie on its own. It wasn’t necessarily bad imo, but it was a step down from IW
Have you seen what comic fans will consume over very long time periods, good or bad? It’s almost like there are plenty of marvel fans that still watch even if it’s not Oscar worthy
I don't go to any of the movies in the theater but I watch a lot of them on my nice big TV at home.
They are a hell of a lot more interesting than the average boring TV show about Cops, Judges, Doctors, and Lawyers. Maybe there should be a superhero that combines all those like Dr Cop Judge, Attorney at Law and Private Investigator for Hire. Judge Dredd wasn't enough.
I am. I recognize that many of them are only okay movies, but they have a very high hit ratio and when they get it right it is amazing. GOTG3 and Spiderman NWH were amazing movies. Honestly even the bad movies are still okay. I have to admit several of the tv shows kind of suck and I hope they stop making them.
I want to see it, been looking forward to it, and will when it comes out for home viewing. But if already basically stopped going to theaters before the pandemic except for the biggest films, and the pandemic killed off the last interest I had in any of the disgusting expensive theaters near my home.
And now they’re raising prices for all the services… so we’ll see if when it gets to home viewing it it’s affordable enough to watch or not.
After seeing Dr. Strange and not understanding the entire movie engine because I don't have Disney+ I stopped watching MCU movies. I'd love to go see this movie now that I know it's out but why spend time and money watching actors in front of a green screen doing things I don't understand because I didn't watch multiple TV shows?
They keep trying to push Kamala Kahn, but I never found her to be a very compelling character. Even less so now that they changed her powers. I watch almost all the marvel stuff but I couldn't make it through that mini-series, and I'm not very interested in this movie either.
Maybe it was because I thought the examination of the American Muslim community was interesting and not something I'd really seen before, but I enjoyed it. It wasn't the best show ever, but it was interesting. The examination of The Partition was also interesting.
As someone who comes from a Canadian Muslim family, that's probably the thing that made me stop watching the show. It was just so over the top in terms of Muslim culture that it just seemed off. The way Islam was brought in to pretty much every discussion, no one actually talks or acts like that, at least no moderates. It's no different from people of Christian backgrounds who I am sure aren't talking about being Christian 24/7. It just felt like pandering.
Yeah the cultural exploration was probably the most interesting aspect of it, otherwise she just seems like a palette swapped Jubilee. They leaned pretty heavily into that. Honestly, I wish they'd just created a different Pakistani superhero to explore this, it might have been more interesting. Other countries should have superheroes too, right?
If I recall correctly, her original shape-shifting powers led to some interesting character development in the comics, which fit in with her thematically wrestling with her identity. That all got discarded when she got the power to summon purple glowing rock things instead, leaving behind the most interesting part of the character to me.
Also I recall there were a lot of "hello fellow kids!" cringeworthy attempts at appealing to zoomers in the miniseries.
Ms. Marvel is up there in terms of my favorite D+ series and what you mentioned had a lot to do with it. The end of the season felt extra corny and like some generic Netflix production but overall it was really fun.
Mostly because of her, I would like to check out The Marvels in theaters but I just don't think we'll have time and, realistically, it's going to be streamable in, what, a couple of months? That's probably the bigger issue - there aren't really movies I'm so excited to see that I can't wait that long.
Agree to disagree. I find the Kamala Kahn character to be an effervescent relief to a series that's taking itself way too seriously or trying too hard for slap stick. Does that make this particular movie great? No. The movie itself is a pretty flimsy plot. The main trope of the movie is someone makes a mistake, the group comes together to resolve the mistake, and develop themselves during that resolution. So with that said, it's not really good at delivering that, it's not Trolls bad (the original one which the plot sucks, the music is quite good) but yeah there was a lot of room for lots of character development that was just not included in what was delivered. To me the movie pulled its punches on what it could have delivered.
But in these kinds of tropes you see classic character stereotype traits, in this case Kamala Kahn plays the lighthearted comedic foil and does so quite well through the movie. Needless to say the Captain Marvel character is our person who brings the conflict to be resolved and towards the end you are left with a pretty unsatisfying result. Like the issue is indeed resolved, but it's about as exciting as how I might feel when I've completed my taxes. Hooray, I got that done. Maria Rambeau is our power character consistently pushing the accelerator for the characters to resolve the matter. And she's pretty good at it, but there was absolutely more opportunity for her to flesh that out that they kept sacking her personal past to keep that in check. Which at some point one might go, yeah we get it, she's troubled and doesn't want to talk about it. There's a degree of too much "I'm the aloof character in this movie". I will say the final fight scene is actually good for the level of just skirting the level of frenetic and follow-ability. I've gotten to a point where I just tune out superhero fights when it just becomes a lightshow and camera pandemonium (ala the most recent Ant Man movie).
Like I said, it's not a horrible movie. I went to the 10am showing of it on Friday (with one other friend) and that was $40 and that's where I would say "Do NOT go see this movie for $40". But I really enjoy the Kamala Kahn character and the level of energy the actress brings to the character. It reminds me a bit of how bubbly my twenty-two year old niece is sometimes and that serves as a nice refresher given the backdrop of generally everything else. So, I will acquiescence, there's a likely bias on my part for the character.
Again, absolutely not disagreeing with your position on the character. I think Marvel (and this touches just every so slightly on the superhero saturation) has gotten so big that not every character is going to be widely welcomed by everyone. I think there's a point that the Marvel Superhero movies get so numerous that you have to start considering sub-genres for the movies. And perhaps Marvel should pull back a bit on the distribution (it's their ship ultimately to sail and sink if need be). But I really enjoyed the Kamala Kahn character in the same way that I enjoyed the Katy character from the Shang-Chi movie. I good comedic foil is like pepper, you need just enough to flavor the food and not too much to over power the food and both of those characters have carried that role quite well thus far. But like anything, Disney has every chance to run that straight into the ground.
But creativity is hard and risky. Can I interest you in a milquetoast film written by committee instead? I promise it was made with almost no planning or preparation and rushed out the door.
Interesting to see the general negative impressions contrasted with the other column here saying how great it is.
I’m still deciding whether to see it in theaters - I’m a huge fan of the Marvel universe and still want more superhero movies. Iman Vellani does a great job with an excellent character, and I loved how the story connected with her culture. Fantastic. However Captain Marvel was pretty much a non-entity and we had no idea who Monica Rambeau will be yet - I hope the movie gave some much needed character development
What I don't really like is people telling me I shouldn't let myself be swayed by critics and should watch it and make up my own mind.
That's stupid. I'm reading the reviews to decide if I wanna watch it or not. I don't wanna spend my money and a couple hours of my life to decide if it was worth it if some people whose judgement I've trusted in the past tell me it's gonna be trash.
Don't get swayed specifically by critics. I swear most critics in the film and video game industry have the weirdest takes ever, while they should represent an average joe. There have been many movies which have been obliterated by critics, which have been quite popular and fun, as well as many awful movies, which have been praised by critics.
I am also a huge Marvel fan and I saw it Thursday night in a packed theater. My opinion is that all the pieces of one of the best Marvel movies are there, and just weren't put together properly. The leads have great chemistry, Iman Vellani is brilliant as always, the main plot point makes for unique and interesting fight scenes, and they let it get goofy in just the right ways (princesses and kittens, that's all I'm saying.)
But the overall pacing of the entire movie is SO bad. It feels so rushed. None of the fun or poignant things that are legitimately good are allowed to hang around on screen long enough to sink in. There are important plot points that move so fast they leave you wondering what just happened. Which is so disappointing. I was really excited that this might be the one that finally got Marvel out of their pandemic-induced production problems. Instead it's just another Marvel movie that I'll only see once.
I felt the same same way. It felt like all of these important parts of the plotline were skipped or got 1 line explanations. A lot of the emotional parts got about 5 to 10 seconds of screen time before moving on to the next part.
Spoiler
Can someone explain how a giant intelligence kept the air and water on a planet from floating away and made sure the sun kept burning?
Until I can spend many thousands of dollars on a home theater room it will be an inferior experience to going out. I don't need to pause to make snacks, or put captions on, or whatever. I'm happy to pay fifteen dollars for the occasional ticket and then fifteen more for eight cents worth of soda and popcorn loaded with salt and butter-flavored-oil because I know theaters don't see a pock of the ticket money.
I want a comfy recliner, a giant screen, outrageous sound volume, and two hours of uninterrupted movie. The places I usually go to are clean, I've never had a problem with rude patrons (the occasional restless child at family movies, sure), and I feel like I get good entertainment for the money. It's not a weekly thing, maybe monthly.
My local theater is packed almost every night of the week. There were flocks of entire families with kids dressed up in costumes to see both Mario and Barbie. I traveled an hour to see Oppenheimer in proper IMAX and there wasn't an empty seat in the house. Theaters definitely are not dead.
I have to agree, I hated Avatar 2 (liked the first one) and the theater experience made it 100 times worse. I went with an old friend that I havent seen in years, and a young guy in line behind us kept asking us if we were gay.. like literally 20 times, he was completely obsessed with it to the point of harassment. I will NEVER go to a theater again, ever.
If you are a big marvel fan then go see it. It is not a great MCU film but it is also not bad. You will get some good laughs and fight scenes and get some mild emotional moments. I enjoyed it in theaters, but recognize that it is not as good as say GOTG3 or Spiderman NWH.
It can be very well executed, but that doesn't change that it's a movie nobody really asked for. Unless there is demand to see it then it doesn't matter how well done it is. And endorcements of "it's actually good despite expectations" doesn't really generate a lot of excitement either.
I mean, i have been seeing the same damn trailer for it before every movie i’ve seen in theaters for months, and I still didnt realize it was coming out now.
This is literally the first I'd heard of the movie. If it's anything like the other marvel movies, it'll be overwhelmingly OK (not terrible, not great).
It was a legitimately awful movie. If you asked chatgpt to make you a superhero movie for teen girls and the plot didn't matter, this is what it would be. I'm hoping that's the audience they're trying to pull into the giant universe, because everyone else is going to be left underwhelmed.
Other diagnostics on The Marvels: 65% male leaning, with 45% men over 25, 22% women over 25 (giving it the best grades at 82%), men under 25 at 20%, and women under 25 at 14%.
I think this highlights the issue well. Marvel continues to be popular with primarily men. Disney has tried desperately to attract women by killing off popular male characters and introducing young women. Unfortunately all they’ve achieved is mostly just alienating men. I’ve given up on Marvel entirely.
Watched it. It is a pretty OK. Typical forgettable marvel movie. There is a villain and heroes do something, and the day is saved. That is all I expect from these movies t.b.h. Mild entertainment.
I don't understand the hatred received for it though. Most of them either seem to be on either their expectations not being met or they are tired of these superhero movies.
Well if it didn't meet your expectations, don't keep it so high for these movies. And if you don't like superhero movies, don't watch them. Solved.
Well if it didn't meet your expectations, don't keep it so high for these movies.
I've been seeing this sentiment a lot and it's such a shitty take.
Basically you're saying, "If a movie isn't liked, it's the fault of the viewer." since the only option it leaves is, "Continue lowering your expectations until you're happy with whatever you end up getting."
I mean, if you keep watching these movies, and you keep getting disappointed by them, it is your fault. You're still giving them money to make a movie you basically know you're not going to like, based on recent data. Either stop watching, lower your expectations, or just always be disappointed.
Idk. It’s a little bit of both right? I mean if you go see Pride and Prejudice because you want to see some epic fight scenes, you’re going to be disappointed.
No it’s more like “I don’t need it to be a goddamn Oscar winner to enjoy it”. It’s not blaming the viewer, it’s just saying that it still has good reasons to exist and if you have higher standards, off you go instead of just shitting on it in its entirety
Do you think they make movies without caring if it would be good ? All those people, all that money invested and they don't care for returns. Obviously not. They want returns and they try to make a good movie.
In the case of Marvel movies people keep their expectations so high that even decent movies like The Marvels is shit to them. That's definitely the fault of the high expectations.
Again, I'm not saying it is the best movie. But it definitely doesn't deserve the hatred it is getting.
For me it’s the way Captain Marvel was shoehorned into the MCU without any real development, and existed as what was basically a walking plot hole. Marvel movies have never been perfect but their whole thing was building characters into it over years. By Infinity War we’d been watching these characters for years and we wanted to watch the end of their stories. Then they just plopped Captain Marvel down into the series at the last second, had the existing legacy characters tell us the audience how to feel about her because the writers knew we wouldn’t care organically, made her disappear in Infinity war and most of endgame because they didn’t actually have anything for her to do except be a deus ex machine at the end of Endgame.
It also doesn’t help that Brie Larson just phones it in any time she’s on screen.
I agree that of the three lead roles I felt only Miss Marvel (Iman Vellani) seems to be the most developed character. And her portrayal alone is one of the positives of the movie too.
But as a movie it is still enjoyable like any other Marvel movie. It is a light hearted fun movie.
The level of hatred it received even before it got released is so cringy. They seen to just borrow someone else's opinion and spew it elsewhere.
You have to think of the general public and their patience for subpar serialized moviegoing experiences. Marvel hasn't had a standout movie since Endgame and the final movie of the Spiderman Home series. The last one I saw in theaters was Doctor Strange 2, but that was only because it was the "ending" for Wandavision. The last four movies since then have not been great, and Captain Marvel doesn't exactly get crowds excited. I'm not even going to bother because I've learned from the Marvel movie experience that is so serialized and there are so many references that I'll probably need to slog through the ones I missed to fully enjoy it without being confused. I have mild interest but not enough to change the position I'm in.
The MCU Golden Age is over. We'll have to get past Phase 5 and see where we end up, because Phase 4 only had a few enjoyable films, and Phase 5 so far has been pretty bad.
Why only make series, when you can make siries out of movies? right?
I get it, there are fans who still follow and watch the movies and series, but for normal people, like me, wont watch all this.
They expect to make money, like they did with the big ones, but IMO it has gone far away from that, the only ones interested are the ones who like this content. In the end, its more like a machine making, where they have to make more movies and more.
The series would have been fine had they not been needed to understanding what is happening in the movies.
Cue me wondering where I'd missed that Elizabeth Olsen is a villain again in Dr Strange 2.
I can deal with watching a movie every few months on the off chance that some of them are entertaining popcorn guff, but I'm not sitting through endless shows where you see 10 hours of characters you don't care about and their extended families you also won't care about.
Don’t worry, I watched wandavision and still have no idea why the hell she was like that in MoM. It was extremely clear the writers of WV and MoM never once talked to each other, despite one being a somewhat continuation of the other.
MoM left such a bad taste in my mouth after being the only Phase 5(?) movie I was even remotely interested in that I haven’t bothered going to the theaters for anything marvel since.
I haven't gone to see any movies for a while now. The effort to go to a theatre and all that just feels not worth it. I'd rather wait for the films to be available on something I can watch at home.
I feel like Disney already knew and was expecting this. The original Captain Marvel wasn't very well received, and they seem to understand now that not everyone wants to consume every piece of MCU media all the time with the new "Spotlight" tag. I expect it'll get a fast turnaround onto streaming.
Hmm.....maybe we should talk about Secret Wars and see if that doesn't make a huge hit? Sure we want to see Marvel split into three people with quirky outtakes and cats that are aliens. But watching the Wrecking Crew take on the X-Men and Ultron fight Thor with Dr. Doom and Ultron facing off against Cap and the Fantastic 4 and Venom being born.....nah. They are making it now, but it looks like they are going a different direction than the comic.
Who asked for this? I also heard they are reshooting the next Capt America, which was almost complete and now moved from 2024 to 2025, to take out a new hero called Sabra, a zionist superhero who works for the Mossad (I am not kidding.) Gosh, I wonder why. Who green-lit this?
This movie was already catching heat because they went with Black Falcon as their next Capt America, instead of, or I don't know, rebooting Steve Rodgers, the original Capt from decades of comics. This is why we can't have nice things.
I don't disagree, there have been more than a few questionable decisions made by Disney execs on the MCU.
But....
I'm pretty sure Sam Wilson has been Captain America in the comics, more than once I think. I don't think it's a bad move for them to make this change, especially with how well they wrapped up Steve's arc in Endgame. Actors age and using canon replacements is a great way to continue a franchise and introduce new stories.
Also: it's not Black Falcon, it's just Falcon. Gonna give you the benefit of the doubt that you weren't being racist about it.
I think people over estimate the Marvel brand. You can't just keep unearthing dozens and dozens of niche characters and comics and expect them all to have an established fan base.
Think, Disney.
Ironman? Yeah no shit. It's fucking Ironman.
Thor? Duh
Hulk? Yes, but get it right.
Antman? Pushing it but yeah he dope.
Captian America? Might as well said superman.
Gaurdians? Wonderful.
Captain Marvel. You lost me.
Eternals? ...
It's no mystery as to why not every franchise is going to be a hit. Just think about it.
When the first iron man movie was announced, the character was a solid b-lister
The guardians of the galaxy were even more obscure during a comparable timeframe and had a different roster.
So b-listers can be elevated by good movies and at the same time a-listers in the comics can bomb (Thor 2, Thor 4, non-mcu: Spiderman 3)
How well-known a character is in my opinion not the deciding factor for the success of a movie. I'd say the quality of a movie and the ability to build hype (which gets harder with what appears to be superhero fatigue) play a bigger role
Superhero movies are infantile comfort films, art is supposed to be challenging and interpretable. When you know the ending from the genre it's a bad movie.
Yet pseudo-nerds will sperg out over the meaningless cameos and "cannon implications."