The Marvels is officially the worst-performing MCU movie of all time. With the 4th largest MCU budget of $275 million, it is currently struggling to make the budget, as it stands on $187 million worldwide gross revenue as of this writing. So, let’s dissect the reasons why The Marvels sucks:
15. Brie Larson’s Performance
© 2023 MARVEL.
There’s no doubt that Brie Larson (Captain Marvel) is a great actress. Her critical acclaim and awards over the years testify to it. But this film is just an example of how too much riding on one person’s shoulder can be a bad thing.
Not only is her performance in this film less-than-stellar, but it’s also quite expected and predictable.
It’s probably the cause of bad directing and subpar writing, but it doesn’t make an Oscar-winning actress look good when people are saying Iman Vellani (Ms. Marvel) stood out as the one with the best performance.
14. Terrible, Terrible Villain
That’s right, you read “terrible” two times. What made Marvel villains great before? Starting from Loki in the first Thor and Avengers movies. Then, villains like Alexander Pierce (Captain America: The Winter Soldier) or the Winter Soldier (Bucky Barnes) himself. They were memorable villains with a lot of great and quotable dialogues. They had great story arcs and purposes.
Meanwhile, the villain in The Marvels is just a rip-off of Ronan the Accuser and Hela. Which, again, puts too little at stake for the sake of sounding profound.
13. It Retcons Previous MCU Events
The Marvels is full of retcons. A retcon is simply when a new or progressed story element nullifies something that happened before. For instance, The Marvels simply doesn’t recognize anything that happened in the Secret Invasion.
And it kind of reminds Captain Marvel of being absent from Avengers: Infinity War.
Now, that might be considered more of a reveal than a retcon. However, the biggest retcon in the movie was how it redefined incursions (a reality-destroying event).
12. Messy Post-Production
A lot of reports suggested that Nia DaCosta, the director, had left the film during its post-production. Even though she has denied that since The Marvels‘ post-production issues were confirmed by its reshoots earlier in the year.
Now, it’s not always a testament that a film would turn out bad if it has a bad post or during-production days. However, a film lacking a vision for a greater purpose in the MCU was supposed to be something the reshoots were meant to fix — and they didn’t.
12. The ‘Marvels’ Trio Personalities are Errant
Ms. Marvel is just a fan girl of Captain Marvel. Monica Rambeau is someone who has known Captain Marvel since she was little. And Carol Danvers, well, she has a right sense of morality and duty. But somehow, all their chemistry seems off-place.
Once again, terrible directing and bad script can be blamed here. But the story progression doesn’t make them grow closer to each other. Their personalities are more selfish than the heroes.
11. Nick Fury is A Joke
Image Source: IMDb
Where is the Nick Fury that told a powerful council in its face that their decision was “a stupid- a** decision”? Or the Nick Fury who insisted that you don’t win a war with sentiments, but rather you win them with soldiers. Or the Nick Fury who stood up to Loki in Avengers. But enough of that, you get the point.
The point is, why is Nick Fury just a joke now? He is a senile old man who’s supposed to be a motivational speaker to other characters around him.
10. Strikes Didn’t Help
Image Source: Eden, Janine and Jim from New York City, via Wikimedia Commons
If you didn’t know, then SAG-AFTRA and Writer’s Guild have been on strike most of the year. Though the strike concluded, it did cause the absence of The Marvels‘ main stars from the film’s marketing and promotions.
Not to say that it would have prevented a flop, but it still didn’t help the cause. Then, the marketing itself seemed all over the place, with no apparent direction for the film — or MCU in general through the trailers or marketing material.
9. Constant Fan-Bashing
Image Source: YouTube
Let’s not forget that MCU or any major studio in 2023 loves bashing their fans. Whatever happened to the era of filmmakers and directors owning up to their mistakes and accepting that they made a bad film? Nowadays, it’s the fan’s fault for films being bad.
The director of The Marvels went as far as calling MCU fans “the haters” and labeled them a bunch of other things. If you’re an aspiring filmmaker, learn today that you shouldn’t do that if you wish for your film to do well at the box office.
8. Not Everything Needs To Be Funny
Jokes and quips have always been a part of MCU — even from the beginning. But they didn’t ruin big moments or cause any sort of disarray in the story. Some matters are serious, and superheroes are meant to face dire consequences and rise in their face.
They can’t exactly do that when they simply joke their way out of every situation. The Marvels is just a recent example of MCU movies that have stopped taking things seriously, like life or death. It adds to the list of cringe-comedy of Thor: Love and Thunder, Ant-Man: Quantamania, etc.
7. Less-Than-Stellar Dialogue
Here’s a quote from the film:
“You can stand tall without standing alone.”
Like, what? The point of standing tall is one being high and mighty enough to stand head and shoulders above the others. And where’s the quality of story-serving dialogue?
Remember the
“hardest choices require the strongest wills”
times? Or something as iconic as Steve’s:
“I can do this all day.”
MCU has been on a downward spiral and one of the major partakers in all that has been the ordinary and not-very-quotable dialogues.
6. Lots of Catching Up Needed
Have you seen WandaVision? Then you probably won’t get Monica Rambeau. Have you seen Ms. Marvel’s TV series? Then you probably won’t get Kamala Khan’s side. The only character that the casual fan might know a bit about is Carol Danvers or Captain Marvel herself.
It’s lots of catching up to do, and that’s not what the previous team-up MCU movies were about. A casual fan can go from watching Age of Ultron and then watch Infinity War, and they’d get it. This ton of catching up required to view this film has also caused a downward spiral for The Marvels.
5. The Characters Have No Growth
If you have seen WandaVision, Ms. Marvel, and Captain Marvel before, then we’ll save you the trouble. None of the trio of characters have any personal growth by the time the credits roll. They learn to work together, yes, but what’s the point of a team-up movie if they don’t do that?
None of them shed any of their previous attitudes or learn to do something better. It’s not the perfectly righteous characters that make memorable films. It’s flawed characters with a purpose that makes a good film. The Marvels seem to throw any personal growth of these characters out the window.
4. Story is a Secondary Focus
One thing you might find yourself wondering during the film is, “Where is the story?” Or, more accurately, what is the story? Now, the film feels more like an introduction to the trio, as well as the concept of multiverse. Like, we get it that multiverse exists. Doctor Strange in the Multiverse of Madness and various other films did that.
Now, let’s remind you that Captain Marvel was introduced in a whole movie, Ms. Marvel had a whole series, and Monica Rambeau was one of the leads in WandaVision. So, instead of being another introduction movie, it should have focused on the story.
3. Wayward Script
Did we say it had a bad story? It did, but the lackluster script didn’t help its case either. A wise man (George Clooney) once said that you can make a bad film from a good script, but you can never make a good film from a bad script.
That’s the case with The Marvels. It had the budget going for it, MCU’s grand marketing, and 4th highest budget for any MCU movie. But, what it did not have going for it was a subpar, badly-written, badly-paced, and direction-lacking script.
2. Where Has the MCU Vision Gone?
Saying that this film lacked any vision would be an understatement. Let’s talk about the golden era of MCU. Which would be from 2012 to 2018. You had Guardians of The Galaxy, The Winter Soldier, Age of Ultron, etc.
Now, mind you that Thor: The Dark World or Iron Man 3 weren’t exactly critically acclaimed. But they seem like cinematic masterpieces compared to today’s MCU. That’s because their directors had a vision that interconnected each MCU film. Where’s that vision now?
1. Marvel Fatigue Is Real
At the end of the day, The Marvels may not be the worst movie MCU has made. Their TV shows have been far worse. However, people almost expect MCU films and shows to be bad and a laughing stock at this point.
And all this is caused by Marvel fatigue. The dreaded term was coined back in 2021 when the MCU was announcing show after show and movie after movie. For instance, we got two films in 2014, two in 2015, two in 2016, and three in 2017.
Compare that to 2023’s MCU. We got three movies, four shows, and a bunch of other stuff laid out for next year. All this isn’t exciting fans anymore, and the lack of anticipation for any MCU stuff is only going to cause more instances like The Marvels.
Do you have something to add to the above-mentioned reasons why The Marvels sucks? Feel free to comment!
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