What do we want from a Marvel movie?

THOR: LOVE AND THUNDER and the current state of the megafranchise.

Jul 11, 2022

I’d originally planned to devote today’s newsletter to one of my usual spoiler-filled reviews of the latest Marvel entry, this month’s being Thor: Love and Thunder. But after seeing the film, I think I’m going to take a different approach.

It’s not that I don’t like Taika Waititi’s latest entry in the God of Thunder’s ongoing saga. In fact, I’m a bit more positive about it than most critics. The film currently sits at a 67% on Rotten Tomatoes; technically fresh, but a far cry from the 90%-ish range that recent MCU movies like Spider-Man: No Way Home have experienced.

Thor 4 definitely has its flaws; the CGI is ladled on to an extreme, and Waititi’s comedy meshes awkwardly with some of the story’s pitch-black elements. I also understand the director is an acquired taste for some, and he’s at risk of becoming the next Lin-Manuel Miranda in terms of overexposure.

But Waititi’s humor happens to be in my wheelhouse, and I tend to be an easy sell for Chris Hemsworth’s more humorous take on the character. Christian Bale gives one of the scariest and most fully formed villain performances in the MCU. There’s enough weird heavy metal imagery, goofy camp sensibility and whatever the hell Russell Crowe is doing as Zeus to make it an easy sit for me, and that’s not even including the giant, screaming goats, who made me laugh every single time they appeared. Plus, it clocks in under two hours, which is rare for any recent blockbuster, let alone a Marvel entry.

But I think what I appreciated most from this Thor adventure is how, even through its faults, it aims at being something different than we usually expect from a Marvel movie. And that, along with the divergent reactions I’ve been seeing, made me wonder: what is it we really want, if anything from the MCU?

Nothing at all

There is, of course, a large contingent of film buffs and critics who have completely soured on the whole Marvel enterprise. They roll their eyes any time a new entry is announced, and I’m assuming they get nauseous whenever they hear the fanfare accompanying the Marvel Studios production logo.

I get it. First off, it’s tempting to want to dismiss anything from the Mouse House these days. Disney is so omnipresent, and their attempts to resurrect and dominate the monoculture borders on assault. Although this summer has started to turn things around with the success of movies like Top Gun: Maverick and the financial failure of Pixar’s Lightyear, for the last few years, Disney has been pretty much the only studio whose films could be relied on to turn a profit, something that was happening even before the pandemic. And I understand why such a reliance on IP feels crass and soulless, turning art into product to help pad Goofy’s 401(k).

I’ll go as far as to admit I grade the movies on a curve. I don’t go in expecting art, and I have no assumptions that these movies will wind up on my best-of list in December (I think that’s happened only once, with Guardians of the Galaxy hitting #10 in 2014; the only other time a comic book movie has cracked my top 10 was in 2018, when Into the Spider-Verse was my favorite film of the year). I won’t try to argue for them for those who have checked out.

But the super franchise still brings me a great deal of enjoyment. I like these characters, and I think Marvel has largely been canny in the actors chosen for these roles. These movies are larks; they’re fun adventures my whole family can enjoy together. Plus, while they don’t dig particularly deep or seek to advance the art of cinema, I do think what Kevin Fiege and company have pulled off in terms of transmedia storytelling is an amazing accomplishment. Somehow, they’ve made a series of movies and TV shows that weave in and out of each other, and audiences haven’t abandoned them. That’s impressive, and part of me wonders if it would be more accepted by cineastes if Marvel Studios had pulled this off without the Disney name behind it (of course, it’s a moot point, as only a company as big and rich as Disney could afford to pull all these disparate franchises and characters together, and then shell out money to bring in characters from other studios’ franchises as well).

It’s all connected…

And for some people, that interconnected nature is what they continue to love about the MCU. The fact that you have to see every movie and keep up with each TV show is part of the appeal. The enterprise is not a collection of franchises but one giant story, the biggest TV show ever made, and people get a kick out of seeing their favorite characters flit in and out of films.

Pre-Endgame, that was the appeal of the MCU for me. I loved the audacity with which the MCU planted its flag in Iron Man, bringing in Samuel L. Jackson as Nick Fury to promise a future in which characters from multiple films would appear together down the line. When The Avengers pulled off what seemed, at the time, like an impossible task, Marvel just raised the bar higher. Future films didn’t just toss together superhero teams; they widened the scope of the entire cinematic universe to bring in intergalactic beings, gods, time travel, and metaphysical shenanigans. Every time it seemed that a new step might be too weird or confusing for mainstream audiences — remember when people thought Guardians of the Galaxy might be Marvel’s first bomb because non-geeks wouldn’t get the talking tree and racoon? — moviegoers ate it up. And with Infinity War and Endgame, Marvel culminated a 25-film saga that involved dozens of major characters from varying realms of the cosmos and spiritual planes while remaining largely coherent in tone.

That’s actually the reason why Thor: Ragnarok bounced off me on first viewing. I’ve since come to view Waititi’s first Thor movie as a fun and highly rewatchable piffle. But coming as the last pre-Infinity War release, its reliance on quirky humor seemed to undercut the momentum and heft of the overall saga, especially when the film tried to balance wacky hijinks with the destruction of Asgard and foreshadow the death of many of its residents. It seemed, to me, a bridge too far in a saga that usually found the right balance of stakes and humor.

But post-Endgame, I find the desire to continue linking everything exhausting. The best of the Disney+ MCU shows use the existing films as jumping off points before becoming their own things. WandaVision is best before it widens its scope beyond the TV-inspired universe Wanda created, and Hawkeye manages to reference the larger MCU and rope in a few surprising characters from the Netflix shows without making it feel convoluted. Meanwhile, Falcon and the Winter Soldier suffered from too much post-Blip malaise only to wind right back at the status quo, and What If…is too in love with the established Marvel canon to ever truly go weird.

On the big screen, the best of the Phase IV films have succeeded by downplaying their links to the larger MCU. Shang-Chi brings in Wong from Doctor Strange, but that’s a minor cameo before the movie becomes its own thing. Spider-Man: No Way Home works like gangbusters when it’s focused on being a Spider-Man movie, but you can almost feel sweat coming off the screenwriters as they try to figure out a reason for Doctor Strange to go against character to help Peter Parker. And speaking again of Strange, Multiverse of Madness’ weakest moments come when the film tries to incorporate WandaVision, Endgame and Far From Home, while also setting up teases and hints about other MCU characters we might see down the road; it’s best in its second hour, when it’s an icky, funny, deeply weird Sam Raimi horror movie.

With Endgame, Marvel proved it could tell a multi-film, multi-platform story. And down the road, sure, I’d love to see them play around with how much more convoluted and tricky it can get when it comes to integrating its characters into other adventures. But really, once they proved they could pull off the biggest story in the world, I wanted Marvel to go smaller and probe deeper into each of these characters, ending the crossovers for a bit and really exploring their backstories and universes. I wanted Marvel to go weirder.

…but does it have to be?

While I don’t think Thor: Love and Thunder is as good a movie as Ragnarok, I appreciate what it’s doing now for the same reasons I dinged its predecessor. I like that, aside from a Guardians of the Galaxy cameo in its first 15 minutes, Love and Thunder is a largely self-contained movie, unconcerned with the bigger MCU.

Just as the comic books keep resetting themselves by bringing in new artists and writers, I hold out hope that Marvel will keep the MCU fresh by giving the reins over to distinctive voices to play around with these characters. Eternals is the one MCU film I haven’t seen, but in theory I like the idea of letting an auteur like Chloe Zhao bring her unique take to the saga; but even as I say that, I realize that Zhao’s grounded, lived-in films are at odds with the types of stories Marvel is telling. Multiverse of Madness works best when it lets Sam Raimi indulge his Evil Dead tendencies. And the Spider-Man movies’ biggest creative successes came not from how big its crossovers went but from those moments when Jon Watts remembered he was making a John Hughes movie in spandex.

Waititi has a very specific voice. He can go big and wacky, but he’s also able to navigate dark, emotional turbulent material at the same time. The Hunt for the Wilderpeople is a very funny movie with a very big heart, and even What We Do in the Shadows has its bittersweet and romantic moments. JoJo Rabbit might be a bit unwieldy, but I do appreciate the way Waititi makes a funny movie about the Holocaust while being firmly aware of the horror and heartbreak.

Thor: Love and Thunder at times feels like it’s about to fall apart, but its best moments capture Waititi’s voice. The screaming goats are one of the great Marvel comedic creations, and there’s a love triangle between Thor and his weapons that is funny every time it’s brought up. Waititi and Hemsworth trust each other, and I’ll take this flippant, pompous and air-headed Thor over the Thor we got in the first two films any day. There’s also very effective, darker material concerning Bale’s villain and his motivations, as well as Jane Foster’s fate; at times, the dark and light seem a weird combination, but by the end I found that Waititi made it work in a way that moved me.

Is it the best of the Marvel movies? Like I said, no. It’s mid-tier. But it’s a mid-tier movie with a personality, which is more than I can say for some Marvel movies that just come in, move the saga along and get out.

DC famously botched its movie universe by trying to mimic Marvel’s approach. But maybe Fiege and his brain trust should study and improve upon what the Distinguished Competition is doing. While the interconnected approach taken by Zack Snyder did not work, DC has found itself in a position of making one of the messiest and most inconsistent cinematic universes around, but it’s also one of the most fascinating.

There are plenty of DC films I flat-out hate, and I won’t even include the Snyder ones in that count. I think Joker is an unpleasant slog that believes it’s twice as smart as it actually is. James Gunn’s The Suicide Squad is fun in places, and I appreciate the attempts to make a big-screen Troma movie, but it never really did much for me. And yet, I thought Birds of Prey was a striking and fun showcase for Margot Robbie’s Harley Quinn and that area of the DCEU. Shazam is a kids’ movie that is a ton of fun. And while I don’t care much for Suicide Squad, I think HBO Max’s Peacemaker spinoff is one of the best superhero-related bits of media of the last few years.

DC apparently hit a point where they decided to throw everything at the wall and see what stuck. Some of it’s been good. Some of it’s been very bad. But I’ve found it all interesting, and never boring to talk about.

I wish Marvel would see this approach and perfect it. I’m glad they turned Sam Raimi loose to make an MCU horror film; I wish they had removed any requirements to connect it to anything or have to further several separate franchises. Likewise, I’m glad they gave Taika Waititi his own weird corner or the MCU to play around in; even when it’s not perfect, I think it’s a lot of fun. While I’m sure the Disney constraints will make this hard, I’d love to see them recruit a variety of directors who can experiment with tone, edge and voice, and tell stories that are fun and weird, without worries about whether they’re all tied together. Give me a G-rated Spider-Man or Captain America that kids can love. Tell another R-rated Wolverine story. Let Doctor Strange finally be trippy, weird and acid-tinged without having to tie into another character’s story.

And the option is right there. Right now, Phase IV seems all in on the multiverse (even though the various TV shows and movies can’t seem to agree with who’s pushing that thread along or what the rules are). At the end of this phase, I would love to see the Multiverse sealed off. But imagine a series of movies that go visit different characters in various multiverses, where each film can have a different tone, maybe even a different actor’s interpretation. Don’t make everything into a three-film arc; let some be stand-alone.

The future of Marvel shouldn’t be bigger and more connected. I’d rather it go weirder, deeper and try new things.

Also, a word on post-credit scenes

Stop them.

The last few movies’ post-credit scenes have been inelegant ways to introduce new actors into the MCU, but have largely just undercut the emotional resonance of the movies’ final scenes and confused audiences. It was fun when Sam Jackson showed up, and I’ve enjoyed some post-credit scenes more than others. But I think we’re okay moving on.