By: Rose Caisley '26
Photo Courtesy of Marvel Studios
Fresh off the success of Black Panther: Wakanda Forever, I had begun to regain hope that the Marvel Cinematic Universe (MCU) had started to regain its shine again after a few missteps in “Phase Four” of its lifespan. Sure, Eternals marked the first certified Rotten score from Rotten Tomatoes score of the MCU and Thor: Love and Thunder didn’t quite live up to the legacy of its predecessor, but there were still plenty of wins. Shang-Chi and the Legend of the Ten Rings and Moon Knight illuminated new interesting corners of the mythos, Spider Man: No Way Home reunited three versions of the classic web-slinger, and Marvel ventured into the TV landscape with well-received shows like WandaVision and Loki. All of this capped off with Black Panther: Wakanda Forever, for which Angela Basset was nominated for an Oscar.
Photo Courtesy of Adam B. Vary and Variety
So, with the mostly positive Phase Four out of the way, how did Marvel choose to open Phase Five? With Ant Man and the Wasp: Quantumania, a movie so bloated that not even the legendary charm of Paul Rudd could keep it afloat. In many ways, Quantumania exemplifies the recent missteps that Marvel has taken. The third Ant-Man installment seems to have forgotten what the Ant Man trilogy was all about. The Ant Man movies have always been clever, charming heist movies, with Paul Rudd’s Scott Lang being joined by a quirky cast of characters to aid him along his hero’s journey. While Michael Douglas’s cantankerous Hank Pym and Evangeline Lily’s Hope Van Dyne both return, very few actors from the original movie return. Gone is all the hilarious banter between Scott and his ex-wife Maggie and her new partner Jim, and even more criminally missing are the friendships between Scott and his former cellmates, Dave, Kurt, and Luis. Michael Pena’s Luis’s absence is particularly felt as the movie lacks one of his signature recap scenes. This failure to remember its roots has plagued the MCU of late. Initially, each movie had its own unique style; if you went to see a Captain America movie you knew you were going to get a political thriller, if you went to see Guardians of the Galaxy you’d see a zany sci-fi comedy, and if you went to see a Spider-Man movie you’d see a teen coming-of-age flick. But recently, many marvel movies have become formulaic; the plots have become “sarcastic quippy hero faces underdeveloped villain in a generic comedy action with a bevy of sidelined side characters.” Did I just explain Thor: Love and Thunder or Doctor Strange and the Multiverse of Madness?
Instead of focusing on creating unique movies with compelling characters, Marvel these days seems more concerned with setting up new characters that will go on to headline their own movie series, characters like Cassie Lang, America Chavez, and Kang the Conqueror. But where Marvel used to do this kind of characterization organically, think Natasha Romanoff in Iron Man 2 or Sam Wilson in Captain America: Winter Soldier, now it seems more like a cheap ploy to try and use old characters to make us care about new characters without putting in the work of developing them.
Photo Courtesy of Marvel Studios & The Hollywood Reporter
Is the Marvel Cinematic Universe too far gone? Not remotely. The series is still a titan in the film industry and still has plenty of hope for the future. Despite his awkward shoehorning into Ant Man and the Wasp: Quantomania, Jonathon Major’s Kang was an interesting villain, and it’s exciting to see how he fills Thanos’s shoes as the new big bad for the series. The MCU is having an identity crisis due to the growing pains of expanding. Phase One of the MCU took four years to complete and had six movies. Phase Four was released in a year and a half and included six movies and eight TV shows. As long as Marvel can remember where it came from and what made it stand out from the often-monotonous movie landscape, it will stand the test of time just fine and continue for many years into the future.
Fresh off the success of Black Panther: Wakanda Forever, I had begun to regain hope that the Marvel Cinematic Universe (MCU) had started to regain its shine again after a few missteps in “Phase Four” of its lifespan. Sure, Eternals marked the first certified Rotten score from Rotten Tomatoes score of the MCU and Thor: Love and Thunder didn’t quite live up to the legacy of its predecessor, but there were still plenty of wins. Shang-Chi and the Legend of the Ten Rings and Moon Knight illuminated new interesting corners of the mythos, Spider Man: No Way Home reunited three versions of the classic web-slinger, and Marvel ventured into the TV landscape with well-received shows like WandaVision and Loki. All of this capped off with Black Panther: Wakanda Forever, for which Angela Basset was nominated for an Oscar.
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