The other day, I found myself rewatching all the Marvel films in chronological order, like every self-respecting Marvel geek does. Somewhere between Iron Man’s first flight and Captain America’s thawing from the ice, I was hit with a profound sense of sadness. It was like watching your favourite band from the noughties play their greatest hits, only to realise their latest album is just noise. The nostalgia was overpowering, but so was the sense of loss. What happened to the magic?
There will always be some who disagree. They’ll argue that superhero films have never been better or have at least maintained their quality. I’m sorry, but if you’re one of them, we can’t be friends.
The glory days
Marvel’s cinematic journey started out strong. Iron Man introduced us to a flawed hero (read: genius, billionaire, playboy, philanthropist) played by Robert Downey Jr., whose wit and impeccable timing made us believe in the impossible. Following suit, Captain America and Thor brought godly charm to the screens. Each film built upon the last, culminating in a superhero mashup so epic, it made everyone overlook the fact that we were essentially watching a multi-billion-dollar commercial for toys.
The Infinity Saga was the crown jewel. For those who (unlike me) don’t waste all their time dissecting every scene of these films trying to find easter eggs, the Infinity Saga consisted of all the films in Phases One to Three which started with Iron Man and ended with Avengers: Endgame.
Avengers: Infinity War and Avengers: Endgame were not just movies; they were cultural events that took 18 films to build up. Thanos became the villain to end all villains that would occasionally show up in your nightmares with the promise to “bring balance to all things”, and the stakes had never been higher. People laughed, cried, and then promptly lost their minds when Spider-Man got snapped away. I, myself cried at 13 different points during Endgame (yes, I counted) while my family down the row questioned whether or not I was for real.
Overhyped and underwhelming
But oh, how the mighty have fallen. The transition into Phase Four has been, to put it mildly, a train wreck. After the climactic showdown in Endgame, Marvel announced a slew of new projects, making promises bigger than The Hulk himself. Fans were ecstatic. But what did we get? A series of films and shows that felt more like filler episodes than anything else. WandaVision started on a high note but fizzled out, and Falcon and the Winter Soldier was forgettable. Ant-Man and the Wasp: Quantumania should have been a fun romp through the quantum realm. Instead, it felt like a disjointed acid trip with jokes that fell flatter than a week-old soda. And don’t even get me started on Thor: Love and Thunder. Taika Waititi tried to capture the magic of Ragnarok but ended up delivering a chaotic mess with more goats than a bakra mandi before Eidul Azha.
The CGI, once a marvel (pun intended), now looks like something out of a low budget video game. Remember that explosion scene in Black Widow? Yeah, the one that was so bad it spawned a thousand memes and Reddit chains. It looked like someone had cut and pasted it from an old action movie.
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