REALLY good video that articulates very well the reason I felt Shang Chi failed to rise to the level of a lot of the earlier MCU films:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CS5YmRlF7qUThe gist of it is that some Marvel films, Shang Chi being perhaps the best example, are in the process of telling a compelling story that gets derailed by a big CGI-fest of a battle in the third act that detracts from and undermines the existing story.
To me, this "third act" problem was most glaring in Shang Chi, followed by Black Widow. Both of these films had tremendous potential, and were still good, but fell short of what they could have been. The various live action D+ TV series, on the other hand, mostly did a great job in this department. Even though WandaVision similarly ended with a big CGI battle, the stakes matched the tone of the show and the scope of the actual conflict. This is why, to me, phase 4 has been so all over the place and, combined with the absolute disaster that was Eternals, makes phase 4 easily the weakest MCU phase so far. As I have posted, I expected phase 4 to be a letdown from prior phases. After the climax of phase 3, how could it not be? But I was expecting it more from a necessity of having to scale down the stakes and the plots of the individual films. I was not expecting it from the perspective of bad writing. And although Eternals was so inexplicably horrible, I guess I can sort of overlook it in the grand scheme of things just because the MCU was SO good for SO long that it was due for a misfire. It's kind of like a Tom Brady-led playoff team or a Stef Curry-led playoff team--they're typically so great that we forget that they're human, and when they do actually flame out, it's an understandable reminder that they are only human.
Shang Chi and Black Widow are different. They had the potential to be great films. They both focused for most of their run time on smaller scale conflicts that were personal, emotional, and relatable. They were shaping up to be much like Captain America: The Winter Soldier and Captain America: Civil War in that respect. Then they diverged in Act 3 and seemed to forsake what they were about in favor of superfluous CGI battles, and that's where they went off the rails. Both tried to dial it back in the end and remind us what they were truly about. I thought Black Widow was more successful in that regard. But it's just disappointing that both could have had much bigger impact and been overall much better films if they kept it dialed back the entire time and remembered what they were about. And while they are both still better than the typical non-MCU superhero film, that isn't by much.
Overall, here's my brief take on each of the films:
-Black Widow: The film that both exceeded and failed to meet expectations all in on movie. I didn't think we needed a Natasha movie. But it set up an emotional closure for the character that I wasn't previously willing to admit that we needed, and it nicely set the stage for some future events, and really added nice continuity with both the Falcon and Winter Soldier and Hawkeye series. The writers
mostly did a good job of keeping the scope personal. But the over-the-top nature of Act 3 detracted from that a bit and kept the movie from being as good as it could have been. Still, I would consider it an overall success.
-Shang Chi: Similar, but the third act problems were much more egregious. The video I lined says it all. I don't always agree with Ryan's hot takes, but his take on the problems with act three of Shang Chi, as compared to what it should have been given the very personal story it had been telling up to that point, are spot on to me. This film really could have been fantastic, but was overall just "good," and I hate when a film leaves me perpetually feeling like every time I talk about it, I have to say, "well, it was good, BUT..."
-Eternals: Doesn't really fit the topic, but for the sake of completeness in discussing phase 4 overall, I'll again repeat that it was a disaster and should never have been allowed to have been released with the Marvel name on it. Far worse than anything with the Marvel (MCU or not) or DC labels that I can recall.
-No Way Home: Again, just for completeness, I'll deal with it. Overall, good film. I don't like the multiverse premise at all. But given that that is where the MCU as a whole is headed, I do my best to set that major distraction aside. There were some other issues I had with the writing. The entire premise of the film was set up without Spiderman or Strange really seeming to give a second thought to what could go wrong. This is...very hard to swallow, to say the least. I think that was the movie's biggest failure. But getting past that, there was a lot that was really, really good about this film. Easily the weakest of the Spiderman films, but still really good. And this is a good example of a big climactic CGI-fest at the end that made sense in the context of the film. And that CGI-fest never once felt like it lost sight of the many complex levels of personal stakes that this film was really about. Overall, this is how to do a third act correctly.
Topic: Marvel Cinematic Universe thread v3 (no recent spoilers) (Read 71704 times)
