Marvel Studios is notorious for their big releases of action movies such as Avengers: Infinity War, Thor: Ragnarok and Captain America: Civil War. They spend dozens of months filming and perfecting their projects while providing excitement and anticipation each time to make the theater experience more enjoyable. However, once Avengers: Endgame was released in 2019, I think Marvel has gotten more careless and lazy with the newer Phase 4 movies. I’m not saying they’re awful, but I don’t enjoy their movies nearly as much three to four years ago.
After releasing Black Panther: Wakanda Forever on November 11, Marvel concluded Phase 4 of the Marvel Cinematic Universe (MCU). It’s time to review it, the good and the bad.
Black Widow
Black Widow was the movie that kicked off Marvel Phase 4. It’s a story about Natasha Romanoff and her origin story, which is arguably one of the saddest in the MCU. However, after watching it, it feels almost forgettable compared to the rest of the movies.
After Natasha Romanoff died in Avengers Endgame, fans were excited to see a new movie about her being released. Even though this movie should have been created long before her death, it was great to finally get an origin story of an underrated character. Romanoff was exiled after fighting against the government in Captain America: Civil War and is forced to come together and reunite with her old family. In the end, she ends up fighting Dreykov, the man who is responsible for the torture she went through as a child.
This film let me down in a couple ways. I wanted to see more of the villains Dreykov and Taskmaster. Dreykov only appears at the very end and doesn’t do much except motivate Romanoff to help other characters. Taskmaster had so much potential, but Marvel threw it away by killing the character. This was such a waste of two characters I wanted to see more of.
The movie also felt like it dragged on and I wasn’t interested much. Previous films like Captain America: The First Avenger kept me engaged, had an amazing villain, and really brought out the best in one of my favorite characters. Black Widow seems to not have the same attention holding spark as previous Marvel Origin stories.
This movie was a 5/10 for me.
Shang-Chi and the Legend of the Ten Rings
I think for a movie to be decent, it has to follow three rules. It must have an interesting plot, a great villain who has lots of character, and lots of growth for the main character. Shang-Chi and the Legend of the Ten Rings fits all of those.
This movie is a great origin story for a great character. It was an interesting idea to talk about the “Ten Rings” organization. It adds a lot to the MCU. The plot consists of Shang-Chi, who tries to escape his past, but is forced to revisit it and ultimately fight the antagonist over powerful rings which give the user immortality.
From the start of this movie, I fell in love with Shang-Chi’s father, Xu Wenwu. He has such a cool backstory and I felt sad everytime a flashback happened. This movie does a great job at showing the struggle between Shang-Chi and his father and it makes you love the villain in this story.
I give this movie a 7.5/10. The villain was not as dull as other villains in the phase, the plot was decent, and the introduction of the character made me excited to see more of him. However, I wish they added just a bit more personality to him and the story.
The Eternals
The Eternals movie is a wonderfully written story. However, there were a few things wrong with this movie. The Avengers movie was the first movie where the MCU brought characters from different origins and had them team up to defeat the enemy. However, the Eternals was written very similarly to Avengers. So why did The Avengers make $1.5 billion but The Eternals made only $400 million?
Eternals was a risky movie to make for Marvel. It encompasses a new team of heroes and the stakes of this story are much higher than the average Marvel film. It talks about the celestials, a group of godlike beings, and the Eternals, a group of aliens created by the celestial Arishem. They are tasked to help the human race thrive to eventually gather enough energy to destroy it. However, the Eternals are not told about the destruction of Earth before assigning them to this task, which causes them to rebel against Arishem. This movie almost dwarves all of the conflicts in every other MCU movie as Earth is portrayed as a very small part of the picture.
However, the movie felt extremely rushed. It brings in so many unknown characters and tries to quickly introduce them to us. In the beginning, there are flashbacks to show how the Eternals came to be. Then it shows them defending Earth throughout the ages. However, one big question is where were the Eternals during the events of Avengers Endgame or Age of Ultron? We don’t get an answer that makes sense other than they “were not supposed to interfere with human war,” which is a big plot hole.
The Avengers movie in 2012 worked because there was a lot of buildup to it. Each character had somewhat of an introduction previous to the Avengers movie so that when it came out, we already knew and loved all the characters. I didn’t know half of the characters’ names an hour into the movie.
The story was good, but it felt rushed. The characters weren’t as interesting as characters in other movies. Those sentences seem repetitive throughout these reviews as it seems to be a common theme throughout this phase. I give it a 5/10.
Spider-Man: No Way Home
Spider-Man: No Way Home blew me away. It is such a heartwarming end to the MCU Spider-man trilogy and I could watch this movie on repeat.
Tom Holland’s Peter Parker had his life changed drastically when everyone found out his identity in the previous movie Spider Man: Far From Home. He went to Doctor Strange for help, but over a course of events and spells, he accidentally released villains from two different universes. These included the villains from the other two Spiderman franchises where actors Tobey Maguire and Andrew Garfield played the roles of spiderman. Now Parker must fight all these new villains while even teaming up with the other two spidermen played by Maguire and Garfield.
Parker’s character growth in this movie is insane. In the other two Spider-man movies he was just a normal teenager. He always fought for good, but had no consequences. In this movie, he struggles to be a hero and realizes the weight and challenges that come with that responsibility.
The villains in this movie are very nostalgic to watch for people like me who really loved them in their original movies. Marvel brought back the menacing Green Goblin, a comic book character who was also the main villain for Tobey Maguire’s Spiderman. Green Goblin proves to be a great challenge for Parker. He teaches him even more lessons and causes him emotional pain he has never experienced before.
I give this movie a 9.5/10. This was my favorite movie in the entire phase and my second favorite end to any Marvel trilogy they have made.
Doctor Strange in the Multiverse of Madness
I have a love-hate relationship with Doctor Strange and the Multiverse of Madness. I love the story, but I’m not sure I’m entirely happy with what they decided to do with it.
The villain in this movie is Wanda Maximoff, who goes by the name “Scarlet Witch.” After the show WandaVision, Wanda loses so much. As a result, she begins to use any means necessary to find a perfect life, but Doctor Strange has to stop her. Wanda goes on a rampage throughout the multiverse but eventually dies at the end. I think putting Wanda in this movie was a great decision, but I wish they gave her justice at the end instead of killing her character.
This movie was a different kind of Marvel movie in the sense that it felt like more of a horror movie. There were a lot of jumpscares in so many places and I was on the edge of my seat the whole time, showing how much Marvel cares about their audience in the theaters. It was an interesting approach and I enjoyed how they executed it.
My problem with this movie is the fact that I had high expectations with it. It is called Doctor Strange and the Multiverse of Madness, but I felt like there was not nearly enough Doctor Strange and not nearly enough multiverse. The film seems like it’s trying to introduce the new character America Chavez more and focusing less on the development of Doctor Strange himself.
I give this movie a 6/10. If you enjoy movies with jump scares and gore, you would like this movie. Otherwise, for those that are used to normal Marvel movies, it may not be for you.
Thor: Love and Thunder
There are a few problems with Thor: Love and Thunder. To be fair, I also had high expectations for this movie, but it simply did not meet them.
The movie was directed by Taika Waititi and it follows the story of Thor after Avengers Endgame trying to search for inner peace after losing everything he loved. Waititi directed the previous Thor movie, Thor: Ragnarok. That movie is one of my favorite movies because it is funny, has a lot of character development, and turns one of the most serious godlike characters into something of a relatable human being.
Thor: Love and Thunder failed to do this. It focused too much on jokes instead of the dark villain, Gorr the God-Butcher, who was intended to be a brutal enemy. In my opinion, the jokes in this movie weren’t even that funny. They didn’t belong in the places the movie decided to put them in, which took away from the seriousness of the story.
I wish I could say the movie had a great story, but it really didn’t. The movie dragged on and I wasn’t interested. The end fight is extremely cheesy and I don’t find Thor as relatable or likable as I did in the previous movie.
I give this movie a 4/10. If it focused more on the dark villain and the story more than cheesy jokes, it would have been better. It didn’t live up to the expectations of the previous movie.
Black Panther: Wakanda Forever
I think Black Panther: Wakanda Forever gets too much hate from fans. I watched this in theaters over Thanksgiving break and I was blown away.
An unexpected death happened to actor Chadwick Boseman, who played T’Challa. Marvel decided to incorporate this tragedy into the story instead of recasting the irreplaceable actor. In the story, T’Challa’s sister Shuri had to quickly move on from her brother’s death and learn what it is like to lead her people against a new threat. She had to grow up and stop being a kid and I think Marvel did an outstanding job of showing that.
The villain in this movie is great. Unlike other villains who had lots of buildup but were largely disappointing, Namor had a lot of personality and character. Coming into the theater I thought he would be a failed villain like Gorr in the recent Thor movie or Dreykov in Black Widow. However, he was a great addition to the MCU and brought a new perspective of Wakanda.
The only complaint I have of this movie is the extremely long runtime which is comparable to that of Avengers Endgame. In total it is 161 minutes, or 2 hours and 41 minutes.
Overall I will give this movie a 8.5/10. It is definitely worth a watch.
Overall
Phase 4 was a completely new style of Marvel, and I think it let most fans down, including myself. Each movie had lots of hype to it, but when the movie was released, many fans were disappointed.
If you are not sure about watching the newer Marvel movies, I would say to still watch them, because they all have some good elements to them as well as development of the characters.
This phase of Marvel can not compare to any other phase. It was average and the only movie that felt similar to a normal Marvel movie was Spider-Man: No Way Home. I hope that in the future Marvel will produce better movies and focus on the quality instead of lazy writing and boring plots.
Phase 4 Ranking
- Spider-Man: No Way Home
- Black Panther: Wakanda Forever
- Shang-Chi and the Legend of the Ten Rings
- Doctor Strange in the Multiverse of Madness
- Eternals
- Black Widow
- Thor: Love and Thunder
