2023 feels like a distant memory in some ways. It was the year of the Barbenheimer phenomenon, the final season of Succession , and critically acclaimed music from Lana Del Rey and Olivia Rodrigo. Despite only two years passing, it feels like a long time ago, especially regarding superhero movies.
I said this same thing at the time, and added that there is a second category of hate-reviewers, critics who are tired of Comic Book Movies. Critics watch movies to write reviews and draw readers to sell ads. They must watch every movie, and it’s entirely relatable that they would be sick of slogging through yet another superhero origin story, especially given the DC, Sony, and Fox garbage that tried to emulate what Marvel had done. Terrible movies make for entertaining reviews. Shitting on bad movies is good for engagement, which sells more ads.
But the movies aren’t made for critics. They aren’t made for casual viewers. They’re made for fans. If you don’t want to watch a comic book movie, all of its flaws will stick out like when you bit the inside of your cheek.
So you have the bigots who hate seeing women, minorities, and LGBTQ+ representation in films. Then you have the critics who want to gather clicks. And you have legitimate grievances with formulaic movies, bad writing, and unfinished CGI.
These snowball into a compounding, self-sustaining feedback loop, and if you aren’t paying attention, it seems like consensus.
None of the MCU movies have been terrible. None of the latest batch have been perfect movies, but even the worst ones have been entertaining and sincerely enjoyable for fans of the comics.
Compare the Marvels to a movie like Madam Web, which was irredeemably bad, or Wonder Woman 1984 which was reviled by DC comics fans. The reviews for those movies focused primarily on their flaws, and not being “woke.”