The Marvel Cinematic Universe has now established itself with some of the best live-action interpretations of characters we have seen and heard in comic books for years. Each project carried a narrative that was a story in itself while playing the part of a bigger narrative. Various directors have come through over the years with their own versions of the superhero movies and this has given us a variety of treatments for the characters. But amongst all these movies, there have been some that didn’t actually live up to the expectations of the fans. Let’s take a look at the 10 worst MCU movies that we have witnessed over the years.
(Keep in mind, the MCU has been extremely successful and I applaud that. But out of the 26, I feel that the following 10 are inferior)
Ant-Man And The Wasp
While Ant-Man introduced us to the character of Scott Lang and Hank Pym, the sequel did not actually do anything big like set up an essential narrative in the history of the MCU. The entire movie takes us on a fun narrative that has nothing special to add except for the fact that there is a lot of Quantum stuff happening and they even bring back the character of Janet Van Dyne whose death was an essential part of the narrative of Hank Pym. Ant-Man’s whereabouts during Avengers: Infinity War is the only thing the movie actually ends up deriving.
Avengers: Age of Ultron
The sequel to Joss Whedon’s Avengers did not live up to the title of the movie and consisted of a lot of things at the same time which was not even given a clear explanation. Ultron is one of the best villains of the franchise and there are a lot of characters that the movie ends up including. The character of Vision who will play an essential role in the MCU was set up in the movie and he does bear a lot of characteristics in the movie that are later found to be rather important to the narrative. But the weakest moment of the movie was killing Quicksilver considering the death could have been easily avoided.
Iron Man 2
Iron Man 2 works on the same logic as every other Iron Man-related narrative where Stark is responsible for creating his own enemies. The movie gives us one of the best Iron Man suit moments where he battles with Whiplash during the race. There is a lot of insight into the personality of Tony Stark but at the same time it does not give us a proper villain and even Justin Hammer isn’t given much to play with. The movie will play a significant part in the narrative of Iron Man as a whole but as an individual movie, it didn’t do as well as the original Iron Man movie from 2008.
Doctor Strange
Doctor Strange works as a character who was introduced quite randomly into the Marvel Cinematic Universe with an origin story that is rather similar to the original Iron Man movie. The timeline of the movie works quite randomly and in no time Strange becomes the Sorcerer Supreme. There isn’t even much to establish in the world of Stephen Strange either and the character ends up leaving a lot of blanks that haven’t been dealt with yet. In terms of the villain, the movie doesn’t give any chance for the villain to actually work as a character and just kills him off like any other possible villain character.
Thor
The first movie to introduce us to the world of Thor and his notorious brother Loki doesn’t really deliver to the high expectations the movie had. We are given only a one-dimensional hero who has little to work up towards as he navigates through the narrative of being worthy of his powers. The movie even features another Avenger in the form of Hawkeye who is not even given proper establishing which is something we will see for the character in future MCU projects too.
Captain Marvel
Captain Marvel’s narrative is something that does not do justice to the character we had come across in the comics and it doesn’t give us valid reasoning behind her enemies in the movie. There are various things in the movie that introduce us to the world of Captain Marvel and amongst these some play a role in the building of the MCU as a whole. Where it fails is the fact that the movie tends to take some major narratives in a very funny manner and this hurts the history of the MCU characters as a whole. The movie basically works as a simple venture to introduce Captain Marvel between Avengers: Infinity War and Endgame.
Black Widow
Black Widow had high expectations considering this was the first time that we had gotten to explore the character with a proper exploration of her past. The movie failed to deliver on that because it had the added pressure of being the final venture that will explore the character of Natasha Romanoff. Even the villain is poorly constructed and hardly given much to do considering Taskmaster is one of the most awesome villains in the comic books.
Thor: The Dark World
The sequel to Thor does not live up to the hype of the various Marvel projects that were coming out and exploring further into the world of MCU. There are various things here that do give us a chance to explore the characters and at the same time tell us about how the MCU will navigate around but at the same time, the individual story of the movie fails to be exciting or even enjoyable. One of the major reasons for this has to be because the character of the villain in the movie absolutely failed to live up to the past few villains we had seen in the MCU.
The Incredible Hulk
Considered to be so bad, The Incredible Hulk was not even mentioned as a part of the MCU, and mostly it’s not counted amongst the movies. Featuring poor CGI and some mindless battle sequences the movie does not stand anywhere in terms of the Hulk that we have come across in the much more recent MCU movies. It is only recently that MCU seems to be correcting its history by bringing back certain characters from the movie so as to correct the failure that movie ended up being.
Eternals
Eternals has to be one of the most off-the-beat MCU movies of all time as it comes off as something that fans of the MCU won’t be able to enjoy as much. The movie had too much responsibility upon its shoulders while working out how to navigate through with so many characters in hand. There were various moments in the movie that were only trying to justify to us that these characters have been a part of the MCU for a long time. Too much exposition and too many characters at once are the reasons why this movie ended up failing to live up to other MCU projects.
I apologize if your favorites made this list. I was asked to make this list at gunpoint, so I kinda had to :P! I really loved the character development in Iron Man 3, so I didn’t add it here. You guys could switch it out. And make your own list of worst MCU movies in the comments.
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