Marvel Letdown: New Marvel productions have been underwhelming and fail to live up to the franchise’s past standards

Leaving the movie theater after spending three hours on the edge of my seat watching “Avengers: Endgame” in 2019 was a surreal experience. How could they kill Iron Man and Black Widow? Captain America is an old man now? What will happen next?

Endgame was a masterpiece, becoming the second highest-grossing film of all time, according to CNBC but it also meant that Marvel had set a pretty high bar. I was eager for what the franchise was going to create in the next few years. 

But after less than an hour into Marvel’s most recent creation, “Madam Web”, released on Feb. 14, I knew it was time to face the truth and accept that the once groundbreaking, innovative and brilliant film studio is now falling apart.

New Marvel productions no longer live up to the standards of “Captain America Civil War” and “Black Panther,” which have a balance of action, comedy, and drama while still being in-depth stories. Now all fans have to see is bad writing, cringe-worthy computer-generated imagery, predictable plots and a puzzling timeline.

“Madame Web” can just be added to the pile of Marvel productions that have flat writing and plots with no meaningful buildup or connections created for the viewer to latch onto. I used to gasp out loud or burst out laughing when watching Marvel films, but recent franchise productions like “Madam Web” had bland jokes followed by action scenes that felt unmotivated and rushed. 

The action scenes themselves are loaded with CGI which makes me wonder what the film budget is going towards. The company went from hyper-realistic aliens invading New York in the 2012 “Avengers” movie to She-Hulk looking copied and pasted into the 2022 show.

Marvel has come under fire from visual effects artists for demanding too much on a short timeline, creating unreasonable expectations according to TIME. The sheer number of projects they’re creating is unsustainable and the poor results are showing on screen.

Today it seems unthinkable for Marvel to dedicate multiple movies to developing one character, but that was the reason Marvel’s Golden Age movies were so successful. Each one introduced new audiences to the epic lore behind Tony Stark, Thor, Captain America and more. 

The dramatic arc that meaningful character development and film production can create is essential to hooking viewers. Tony’s signature “I am Iron Man” wouldn’t have the same impact when said in “Iron Man” and then again in “Endgame” without Marvel’s patience. With the new “quantity over quality” mindset Marvel has going on; fans may never get to experience a moment like that again. 

Now we’re stuck with productions like “Ant-Man and the Wasp: Quantumania”, “Thor: Love and Thunder”, and “The Marvels” that occasionally have cool moments in them but are constantly interrupted and derailed by subplots designed to set up the next big movie taking away the from the actual storyline.

So much focus is now spent on reminding us of the bigger cinematic universe instead of giving the well-made adventure films that were the engine of the MCU’s success for a very long time. The MCU timeline used to be one of its greatest features, but it’s gotten so convoluted that it feels like I need to be a theoretical physicist to even begin to understand it.

So even though Marvel has no shortage of talented new actors like Dakota Johnson, Gemma Chan and Iman Vellani, the short timeframe of production, insufferable plots for the timeline and awful CGI give them no room to create the masterpieces that once were Marvel films. 

I remember when I used to fall in love with the Marvel characters I saw on the screen, from American hero Steve Rodgers to Tony Stark being his playboy, genius and philanthropist self. Their franchises and movies were only successful because of the time Marvel took to develop them.

If Marvel keeps pumping out these shallow multiverse productions with no true quality, they will continue to lose fans, even fans who are currently willing to sit through three different TV shows to understand the plot of one movie. Marvel needs to refocus on what’s important — create fresh compelling narratives that prioritize depth, originality and emotional resonance. That’s the only way the studio will win back fans and become the powerhouse of superhero movies it once was. But for now, they’ve lost a longtime fan.