Constructive criticism: Marvel movies (part 4)
Ah yes, the Marvel movies
The MCU, it`s had it`s ups, it`s had it`s downs. But let`s not pretend that it was always great, and never once failed until phase four. Phase one was certainly not without it`s hiccups (Ironman 2, and to a lesser extent: Thor). People complained about those movies, in case you have forgotten (nostalgia has a tendency to cause selective blindness). But those movies, even if they weren`t all great, still pulled in money. It wasn`t until phase four that the MCU`s hot streak at the boxoffice started to get a little unsteady.
What`s the difference between then and now? Some people say that it because of how the MCU uses bathos, but the MCU has had problem with how they use bathos since phase two, and people have still come back for more. So, what is the real difference between then and now?
Well, back then these characters and the whole idea of a shared, cinematic universe was something new, but the folks at Marvel also had a goal, something that they were focused on and building up to.
Phase one lead to the Avengers, which teased Thanos, and phase two and three lead to the inevitable big, giant climactic battle with said Thanos.
Phase four has not been as focused as the previous phases, it has been pretty long and meandering. In phase two and three we knew what the goal was, in phase four the goal was, for a while, unclear because of said lack of focus. It feels like the priority has been more on quantity.
But I think it also didn`t help that Avengers: Endgame was made in a way that made it seem like such a final film.
So, to summarize: the actual shortcomings of MCU is not the bathos but the lack of focus.
Personally I have not had as much problem with the MCU movies that has come out lately, as so many others have seem to had. They have been flawed, but I have enjoyed most of them.
So, in a mild defense of the movies of phase four I would like to say that it is not the movies that have gotten worse, only the phase.
I thought about focusing on the MCU but then I included other non-MCU Marvel movies, since I had, after a long time, finally come up with ideas how to change them.
If I knew then what I know now I would not have cast Jonathan Majors.
So... if I had a Pym particle powered Time machine that could take me back in time... what would I have changed?
I am burdened with glorious SPOILERS for: Antman and the Wasp: Quantumania and The Marvels.
Introducing the Dark overlords so late in the story
It took me a while to figure out how to change this one for the better, then I got it.
The first half of the movie is a fish out of water story and doesn`t turn into a defeat the monster story until the second half.
How about: before Bevely takes Howard to Phil Blumburtt we get a scene where we see a man (Dr. Walter Jenning) walking the streets, he appears to be confused and in physical pain. Later, when Beverly and Howard visit Phil they hear someone talking to him, mentioning Jenning and how he disappeared. Later, when Howard and Beverly run into Jenning they remember that he`s that guy who went missing earlier and after that things happen pretty much the same way they did in the movie.
I always believe in introducing important plotpoints early in the movie.
And If I knew then what I know now I would not have cast Jeffrey Jones as Dr. Jenning.
Took me a while to figure out what I wanted to change with this one. I`ve heard good things about the Director`s cut, and now that I`ve finally seen it I have a few ideas. First and foremost: keep the things that were cut from the Director`s cut. (I mean, for Pete`s sake, it`s only 2 hours and 3 minutes long. It`s not like it`s the Lord of the Rings.)
Matt and Elektra fighting the first time they meet
It just feels like some executive looked at the script and thought: "Not enough fights. Needs more fights or kids will think it`s boring." A woman fighting a blind guy that she just met? Just feels a little too goofy to me.
When Elektra first meets Matt she sees that he`s a lawyer and she quotes something about law and justice that some old philosopher once said. Matt finds her interesting, they talk a little more, some guy walks by them and drops something (maybe a saltshaker), she catches it with zero effort. This tells us that she has great reflexes.
Then, when she`s about to leave, a pickpocket steals a wallet from the handbag of an old lady. Elektra "accidentally" bumps into him, gets the wallet and puts it back in the old lady`s handbag.
Having a bullseye tattooed onto your forehead is stupid. You can take off a mask, but not your skin. Giving him a trenchcoat that he keeps on the entire time is also a concern. In the back of my mind, I can already hear Edna Mode shouting: "No capes!". And she shouted that for a reason. I`m not saying that Bullseye has to have a comicbook accurate outfit, but I am saying: lose the trenchcoat and give him some kind of ski mask.
The editing in some of the fight scenes
I rewatched this movie a while ago and noticed that one fight scene felt a little over edited and it took me out of it. They could have, in that scene at least, gone easier on the editing.
This is just me being a comicbook purist but I would have preferred if Typhoid Mary had been comicbook accurate. Instead of poisoning people with her lips she could have blades that she sometimes covers in poison.
The Big, strong bulletproof guy who gets taken out by a tree
How about this instead: The tree falling on him only knocks himout temporarily. He comes back later, fights a little more, gets knocked out by something big again, and the next time he comes back it`s near the end of the movie and Elektra has already defeated all the other badguys. The big guy sees that since the one who pays his salary is gone, there is no point in fighting anymore, so he decides to just walk away.
I think it would be best if the the last scene from Ironman 1 is the first scene in Ironman 2. That way the people who didn`t see the post-credit scene in the first movie would know who he is when he is telling Tony to exit the donut. (Back then we didn`t know that post-credit scenes would be common in MCU movies)
The power dynamic between Hammer and Vanko
When Hammer and Vanko first meet, Vanko makes it very clear, with the way that he behaves, that he will not work for Vanko, only with him, and only as long as it suits him. Sure, it makes Vanko look cool and confident but it also makes Hammer look kinda weak as a villain. I think it`s possible to make both look like strong villains. Vanko can work for Hammer in the beginning and then take some initiatives of his own in the third act.
Just like in the movie we got, we see Vanko taking care of his father (until he passes away) and building his own arc reactor in his apartment. Then he meets a henchman who gives him tickets to the U.S. When he gets to the U.S. he is greeted at the airport by a man holding a sign with his name. He is taken to a limo where he meets Hammer who greets him and says that he can help him. For Vanko it`s personal, for Hammer it`s business.
Skip forward to the scene where Tony decides to compete in the car race. Vanko shows up, but not just with his whips, but in a full Crimson Dynamo armor. He attacks Tony who shouts at Happy to throw him the suitcase, Happy does so, Tony suits up and fights Crimson Dynamo. Tony doesn`t defeat CD but he manages to make a hole in the chest of CD`s armor only to discover that CD`s suit is powered by an arc reactor, just like his.
Tony is shocked, Dynamo knocks him down and is about to deal him a fatal blow when someone (Hammer) tells him through a com radio that now is not the time. Dynamo reluctantly ends the fight and flies away. Now that the whole world saw that Crimson Dynamo has an arc reactor in his suit it will make the public question Stark and put lots of pressure on him.
Vanko being denied his revenge will make him angry and make him take matters into his own hands in the third act where he hacks the drones and War Machine`s armor at the Hammer expo.
Tony and Rhodey defeats the Hammerdrones at the Hammer expo, Hammer escapes so he doesn`t get arrested, and later reappears in Iron Man 3 where he appears in a few scenes and finally gets arrested in the end.
It is revealed that the guy who gave the tickets to Vanko worked for the Manadarin. The Mandarin was basically a matchmaker for Hammer and Vanko.
She-Hulk: Attorney at Law
The rendering on She-Hulk
There were scenes where the CGI on She-Hulk could have looked better. They should have given the VFX team more time.
Using the fourth wall breaking as a Deus Ex Machina
Now, a Deus Ex Machina isn`t inherently bad but it`s often a double edged sword at best. At best it can, at least be funny, at worst it can feel cheap, contrived and anticlimactic.
I`m not an expert here, but I´d like to think that there are atleast three types of fourth wall breaking.
Type 1: When the character talks to the audience without acknowledging that they are in a movie/work of fiction. In these cases the fourth wall break is just a way for the character to think out loud and nothing more.
Examples of this type can be found in House of cards (where it was frequently done by Frank Underwood), Wolf of Wall Street and Iago from Kenneth Branagh`s Othello (from 1995).
Type 2: When the character acknowledges that they are in a work of fiction and knows that there is an audience watching.
Examples of this type can be found in the Deadpool movies, where the character not only thinks out loud to the audience but also knows that a character is played by an actor who played another character in another movie and makes references to that movie.
Type 3: When the character is able to use the fourth wall to take over and control the story.
Examples of this can be found in works like the Looney tunes, like when a toon talks to the author and demand that a dangerous scene that is coming up gets scrapped and changed into something that`s more convenient for them.
Another example is Wayne`s World: At first the movie ends on a sad note but then Wayne and Garth says that they`re not gonna end the movie like that, and change it to a happier ending.
Basically the (main) character is technically a kind of reality warper.
Yes, She-Hulk broke the fourth wall in the comics, more than once in a plotbending kind of way.
But the reason she could break the plot was because John Byrne (who was both writing and drawing the comic at the time) needed a quick way to solve a plot in time for deadlines.
Personally I don`t mind a little fourth wall break, but draw the line at having a metafictional, reality warping Deus Ex Machina as a superpower.
Now, I´m not of the mindset "She-Hulk bad" but I am of the mindset "She-Hulk was fine, could have been better".
There are two ways that I would have done it different.
(I should point out that these three types are are not some kind of official, generally agreed upon list of different types of fourth wall breakers. I came up with these types and definitions myself.)
Like the one we got but with one change (actually two changes).
Limit She-Hulk`s fourth wall breaking to a type 2, so no plotbending, so no Deus Ex Machina.
In the final episode Todd Phelps doesn`t inject himself with a Hulk serum that turns him into a Hulk, instead he jumps into a Hulkbuster armor and fights Jennifer, but he makes a mistake that makes the armor overheat. It`s about to explode and he is trapped inside it, but then Jen opens the armor, pulls him out of it and gets away from it before it explodes.
Then things happen like they did: the police arrest Todd, Jen has a nice dinner with her family, Bruce shows up and introduce them to his son Skaar and all that jazz.
Somewhere in a secret, underground facility: The Leader is watching the News and hears about Todd`s failure in destroying She-Hulk. He`s not angry though, things went exactly how he expected them to go. Destroying She-Hulk was Todd`s goal, not his. He got what he wanted: a blood sample from Jen.
When the army raided his lab (in The Incredible Hulk) they took all his Hulk blood samples. He needed to get new samples and realized that it would be much easier to get it from Jen. He came in contact with Todd Phelps and told him to find a way to get a blood sample from her, in return he`d give him a Hulkbuster armor.
Leader could then use this blood sample to create a Hulk serum that turns Ross into the Red Hulk in Captain America: Brave New world.
B: Marvel special presentation
Personally I would have preferred if they had done this instead, like they did with Werewolf by night.
It would be less pressure on the VFX artists to do VFX shots for one TV-Special that is 40 to 50 minutes long, instead of a 9 episode long TV-series with 35 minutes long episodes. It would want it to come out beteween Avengers: Infinity War and Avengers: Endgame.
Jennifer Walters is a lawyer, doing her lawyer thing. After a day at work she spends time with her best friend Nikki, they`re talking and having a fun time. But then the Blip happens.
Nikki gets turned to dust and Jen is shocked. A week or so later Jen tries to go back to something close to a normal life. She watches the TV, the news report about a terrorist group called National Force and their leader William Burnside.
She is visited by her cousin and childhood friend: Bruce Banner. After the Blip Bruce started to look for old friends to find out how many of them he still had left, they are both relieved to see each other. Several days later they are out driving, their car crashes, Jen has an open wound and gets some of Bruce`s blood in it and she transforms. (Remember that Bruce had a mental block in Infinity Wars that prevented him from transforming, that´s why he`s not turning into Hulk now.)
Two transformations later (One where she scares the crap out of a bunch of guys outside a bar.) Jen wakes up in a lab where Bruce is monitoring her and doing some tests. He puts her through stress that triggers her transformation. She demolishes half the lab. Bruce, scared, tries to calm her down with the "the sun`s getting really low now" lullaby. Jen calms down when they make eye-contact and she turns human again.
The next day Bruce convinces Jen to meditate with him. After the blip he found some rare books on meditation in Dr Strange`s Sanctum Sanctorum. The two of them go through a character-developing inner journey down memory lane, similar to the episode of Avatar: The last airbender where the guru helped Aang open up his chakras. It takes them a few hours (for us it only takes 3 to 5 minutes. When they open up their eyes they are both in their Hulk bodies but their human minds are in control.
Elsewhere, in a warehouse: Members of National Force open up a crate to find Chitauri weapons that were confiscated by the government. Jackpot!
The next day: Bruce teaches Jen how to use her Superstrength. It doesn`t take long, she`s a fast learner.
After the training he tries to convince her to join the Avengers but Jen just wants to live (something close to) a normal life, with no superhero stuff. They argue but then reach an agreement, Jen accepts that the whole superhero thing may be unavoidable, but she doesn`t want to rush into it, she wants to take her time. Bruce understands.
A few days later: A public building, maybe a museum or something, is taken over by National Force. Innocent civilians are taken hostage. Jen realizes that now would be a good time for her to do the whole superhero thing. She hulks up and beats them.
A little girl is thankful for being saved, but she also mistakes Jen for someone else.
Little girl: "Thank you for saving me, Adele Dazeem!"
Jen thinks that this superhero thing is not so bad after all.
Then she could show up in Avengers: Endgame. She could show up in the scene where the gang meets Hulk for the first time in five years.
Bruce/Hulk: "Gang, this is my cousin Jennifer. Jen, these are my friends that I`ve talked about!"
And then, she shows up in the third act climactic battle where fights Thanos`s armies with the rest of the heroes.
Antman and the Wasp: Quantumania
Making Darren Cross M.O.D.O.K.
I like M.O.D.O.K., he has a fun design, and I like that they brought back Darren Cross and found a good use for him. But turning him into M.O.D.O.K.?
In my version, M.O.D.O.K. would be Charles Tarleton (like in the comics). Darren Cross could be a cyborg and fly around in an updated, redesigned version of his Yellow Jacket suit.
The bathos in Darren Cross`s death scene
Lose it. This would one of those times when it`s best to be sincere.
Using Kang as the main villain
If you want to make him the big bad final boss that the Avengers fight in the big team-up movie it would be better to not kill him off early.
I can already hear you typing in the comments: "But he wasn`t killed off. He`s got a whole army of himself in the Post-credit scene, ready to fight the Avengers!"
You know what`s better than a villain who needs a whole army of himself? A villain who doesn`t need a whole army of himself to fight the heroes. A villain who is enough of a threat by himself.
My solution? Save Kang as the main baddie for a later movie and make M.O.D.O.K. the main badguy for this one.
When M.O.D.O.K. and Scott Lang meet, the dialogue could be:
M.O.D.O.K. : "You probably don`t remember me."
Scott: "We`ve met? I`m pretty sure I`d remember someone with your... personality."
M.O.D.O.K. : "I was once an ordinary man named George Tarleton. I used to work for Darren Cross, that is, until his building imploded. I was out of a job for a while until I heard about something called A.I.M."
He tells Scott about how he volunteered for the experiment that made him what he is today.
M.O.D.O.K. : "Funny isn`t it? I worked for Cross, now he works for me."
M.O.D.O.K. was able to figure out how to create Pym particles, shrink himself down to the quantum realm and build an army. He is stealing resources to create powerful WMDs. Is this so that he can take over the world? Well, yes, but he is also doing it because he knows that a threat is coming and he needs to be prepared to fight it. And what is that threat you might ask?
After the movie ends and Scott assumes that everything will be fine we get a Mid-credit scene where we see that M.O.D.O.K. has survived (he was buried under some debris) and he is (unfortunately) saved by... Kang!
I would build up Kang by introducing him in post-credit scenes.
What does Kang need M.O.D.O.K. for? Since M.O.D.O.K. is good at calculating the possibiliy of things that can happen in the future Kang needs him to make sure that his plan works. He puts a mind-control device on M.O.D.O.K. to make sure that he stays loyal and obedient.
Don`t make it. If this was Avatar the last airbender this would be The great divide.
And Why kill Maria Hill? Samuel L. Jackson is 76 years old and Cobie Smoulders is 43. Why not keep Hill alive? When Jackson can`t play Fury anymore they could always make Hill the next leader of S.H.I.E.L.D.
Yes, Jackson has more starpower but still.
There were times when I felt that the plot moved forward a little too fast. Last time I checked this movie`s running time was 105 minutes long. (1 hour and 45 minutes). It could have been a little longer, maybe 10 or 15 minutes longer. It would let the plot have more room to breathe and stretch it`s legs.
Just a personal opinion: Monica being stuck in the X-Men universe
Not a bad idea at all really.
Personally I just think that it would have more emotional weight if Carol was the one being stuck in the alternate universe. We, the audience know her more than Monica, and she and Kamala have similar relationships to Carol: They both look up to her. For Monica she`s a parental figure and for Kamala she`s a hero.
And instead of Carol ending up in an X-Men universe there`s a Mid-credit scene where she wakes up in a bed in a spaceship. A man visits her. Now that she`s awake he wants to know everything about her, like where she`s from. The man... is Kang!
The whole thing with anchor beings works as meta-narrative device but still, is it such a good idea to hang one entire universe`s continued existence on someting so fragile and fleeting on the life of one mortal? An entire universe will fade away because some guy croaked a few thousand years ago? Personally I´m not to big on The chosen one narratives.
Here`s how they could do it instead: The old "The enemies have weapons of massdestruction" strategy.
Paradox claims that Cassandra has a timeshredder and he needs DP to stop her. He also tells him that they originally wanted the OG Wolverine from the X-Men universe, but since he is dead now, (and rules prevents them from going back in time and take him before he croaks) they`ll have to make do with what they`ve got. DP says screw the rules and tries to get the OG Wolvie (Because he knows that he`s gonna need help for someting like this, and that the audience have been looking forward to this crossover.) only to find out that he can`t, so he gets another Wolvie instead.
Fast forward to DP and W coming face to face with Cassandra to stop her from using the timeshredder only to find out that she doesn`t have it, but Paradox does. Paradox never really counted on DP succeeding in taking out Cassandra (but if he did, that would have been a plus.), he just wanted to kill two birds with one stone.
Captain America: Brave new world
There are things that people don`t like about this movie that I personally have no problem with, but... yeah, I can can see the problem with Ruth Bat-Seraph.
Now, some will point out that she`s not a national hero representing the state of Israel in this movie like she was in the comics, that they removed that and made her a former Black Widow instead.
True, but we still live in an age where you can look up things on the web.
How about this instead: replace her with Misty Knight.
Or: since this movie was pretty much a Hulk sequel in disguise: She-Hulk.
(But then again: Misty would probaly be cheaper, she would require less CGI which means less
My CCs are usually about script doctoring, but after having seen a behind the scenes video on youtube that revealed that Leader was originally not gonna have the "brain poking out of his head like a broccoli" look, but a more comicbook accurate one, I say: What was wrong with the original look? It looked fine to me.
Now... Avengers Doomsday is coming and we`ve all heard heard that Robert Downey Jr. is returning. Personally I`m fine with his final appearance in the MCU being in Avengers: Endgame, but I`m not against him coming back.
And now he`s back as... Dr Doom?!
I always thought that if Tony were to come back he`d do so as a copied mind, downloaded into a computer. He could sometimes appear as a hologram.
Here are some of my own personal picks for Doom, if RDJR wasn`playing him.
I can already hear you type "But Mads Mikkelesen and Jude Law have (just like RDJR) already played characters in the MCU!" Yes, but RDJR has played Iron man for a much longer time than those two, and he is more recognizable as his character than they are.
But who knows, maybe casting RDJR as Doom will work?
We`ll just have to wait and see.
It is of course very easy for me to write these because I have the luxury of hindsight. And unlike the filmmakers I didn`t have a movie studio full of corporate suits breathing down my neck, focus grouping the movie to death, forcing in unnecessary changes and pressuring me to get it made before a deadline.
For several reasons. I`m nitpicky. Sometimes the movies I criticize aren`t bad, I just like my own ideas better. Sometimes the movies I criticize are bad. I care about good storytelling and it`s a fun excerize in creativity and script doctoring.
But also because I have a lot of of free time.
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Started writing this: 2025-05-25
But then I got sidetracked. Really sidetracked
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