Upon exiting the theater after seeing The Marvels, I texted a friend the following: “This is the first movie I’ve ever seen that requires you to watch three different TV shows beforehand to understand the plot.”
I was exaggerating – slightly. You don’t need to watch any of Marvel’s ever-burgeoning slate of Disney+ streaming shows in order to follow the plot of The Marvels – heck, I’ve seen most of their shows and I still had trouble following the plot. That’s because the plot of The Marvels is secondary to the film’s true motivation – to set up the next round of Marvel products over the next few years. You don’t simply watch the TV shows to understand The Marvels; you follow The Marvels to understand the next few TV shows.
I mean, yes, there is technically a self-contained story to this movie – something about a powerful alien named Dar-Benn (Zawe Ashton) who is searching for a magic bangle that will help her rip teleportation holes in space, so that she can avenge her people and restore her planet. Or something. Much as I’m sure you care about the stakes and intricate science-fiction details of the thirty-third film in the blockbusting juggernaut known as the Marvel Cinematic Universe, it is clearly beside the point. The main point of The Marvels is to be a cog in the ever-grinding machine of the MCU.
So the film is a sequel to Captain Marvel, bringing back the titular superheroine of that film (Brie Larson), this time pairing her with a grown-up Monica Rambeau (Teyonah Parris) – now with superpowers, which she acquired in WandaVision – and plucky teenager Kamala Khan (Iman Vellani), whose origin story was detailed in Ms. Marvel. They are brought together by a strange phenomenon that causes them to constantly switch places when they use their powers, and with some help from Nick Fury – who now lives on a space station, for reasons explained in Secret Invasion – they decide to team up and fight Dar-Benn. Along the way, there are nods to prior Avengers and Guardians of the Galaxy, plus a few brief cameos you may or may not recognize from prior Marvel works, at least one of which is designed to set up a future film and/or TV series.
Look, in fairness to Marvel, this sort of “setup” movie is nothing new for them. Think back to Iron Man 2, which was as thinly-veiled an Avengers setup movie as it could be. But the MCU was young then and brimming with new potential; now it seems overly crowded and confused, with multiple projects elbowing into each other with no clear or coherent direction.
And sure, Marvel has made mediocre movies before, particularly in recent years – Thor: Love and Thunder was flighty and inconsequential; Ant-Man and the Wasp: Quantumania was a drab CG sludgefest. The Marvels is a slightly different form of bad, though – it feels not just confused and crowded, but sloppy, in a way the franchise has rarely felt before. Multiple scenes collide into each other with no clear transition, several plot points are brought up and then abruptly dispensed with. (Don’t get me started on the “musical planet” sequence.) The film’s brief running time – at 105 minutes, it’s the shortest film in MCU history – suggests heavy post-production edits, and several key lines of dialogue appear to have been hastily added in post. (One memorable moment from the trailer has been cut from the actual movie, leading to an onscreen punchline without proper setup.)
I can’t say I actually hated this film – the three lead actresses are quite charming, and their banter carries the story. Vellani steals the show with her gleeful fangirl energy, and Larson, a talented actress who I didn’t much care for in the first Captain Marvel, has a lot more fun with the role this time around. There is a scene involving multiple alien cats that is fairly amusing, even though the setup – like so much else about the film – feels tonally off.
But The Marvels overall speaks to a sense of fatigue within the Marvel franchise, something reflected in both the critical reception and the weak box-office. (Its $47 million opening weekend is the lowest of any film in the MCU, including The Incredible Hulk; in its second weekend, it dropped an astonishing 78%, finishing in fourth place.) Less than five years ago, Marvel was a globally dominant cultural force – one of the few touchstones that people the world over could connect with. Now it appears to be fraying at the seams.
Which leads to the question: What next?
Earlier this month, Variety published a piece about the recent spate of struggles at Marvel Studios – the allegations against Kang portrayer Jonathan Majors; the shoddy, last-minute special effects for the TV series; the Blade reboot that was at one point “a narrative led by women and filled with life lessons.” (Seriously, read the article.) Even before the bombing of The Marvels, Kevin Feige and co. were well aware that their brand needed retooling.
The strain of superhero fatigue – also displayed in the struggles of recent DC films like Blue Beetle and The Flash (though in fairness, the latter film had plenty of external and internal issues of its own) – is underscored especially by the fact that the year’s biggest box-office hits had no capes or tights among them. In fact, not one of the year’s top three movies – Barbie, Super Mario Bros, Oppenheimer – is a sequel to a prior film, a phenomenon that has not occurred in over twenty years.
So it’s perhaps no surprise – due in part to the financial misfires, as well as the recently concluded writers’ and actors’ strikes – that Marvel is taking something of a breather. In 2024, the only MCU film on the calendar is Deadpool 3, a film that will likely (1) not be set in the main Marvel continuity and (2) get an R rating, thus putting it outside the Universe’s family-friendly brand. And Marvel is not alone in hitting pause – DC, too, is recalibrating next year, after drawing their current “Extended Universe” to a close – the only film on their docket for 2024 is Todd Philips’ Joker sequel, also likely aiming for an R rating. (The only studio with a packed slate of superhero flicks for next year appears to be Sony, which has been scraping every corner of the Spider-Man universe to come up with films based on characters they own the rights to, be they Venom, Madame Web, or Kraven the Hunter.)
And despite my longtime rep as a comic book nerd, I don’t really mind the break, having grown somewhat overwhelmed with superhero fatigue myself. (As of this writing, it’s been less that 72 hours since I watched Blue Beetle, and I’m already struggling to remember any details of that film.) But I also suspect that, despite some recent financial misses, superhero films are among the few remaining genres that can reliably turn a massive profit. Which means that, until something else comes along (and by “something else,” I don’t just mean occasional lightning-in-a-bottle flashpoints like Barbenheimer), movie theaters in the streaming era are probably going to need them to stay profitable.
So the MCU will continue, simply because it needs to continue – it may need tweaking and retooling and (following a couple more multiverse movies) a soft reboot. Presumably the X-Men, whenever Disney chooses to properly introduce them, will give the mega-franchise a new shot in the arm. Hopefully, the upcoming films will rely at least (and preferably more!) on the sort of fun and fresh stories that defined the MCU in its first decade. But for the time being, it’s Marvel’s universe, and Hollywood just lives in it.
Critically Touched 