The 2021 MCU Roundup

After a year devoid of Marvel projects due to a small complication, the Marvel Cinematic Universe came roaring back with its most content-heavy year yet. Phase Four of the MCU content mill took viewers from small-town magical drama to international espionage, and into the realm of Jackie Chan and wuxia-inspired fantasy with a selection of four feature films, four live-action television series, numerous behind-the-scenes specials, and an animated series — the latter of which I did not watch and will not write about here.

Phase Four sees the grand story of the universe head off into uncharted, unclear waters. While the first three phases of the MCU had clear trajectories and overarching storylines all clearly culminating with the universe-altering Avenger: Endgame, Phase Four is all over the place. With the universe’s scope so large and with no obvious plotline to tie it all together, Marvel’s 2021 slate was full of projects that largely did not connect with one another, but rather jumped off of Endgame into new territories.

Marvel got a shot of creative energy with the introduction of streamer Disney+ and their line-up of A-list, movie-budget miniseries. These miniseries focused on some of the lesser players of the MCU while also providing some of the most human and most compelling stories the studio has produced yet. Despite being understandably confined to a release window lasting just half the year, Marvel managed to release four features this year, the most they have done in a single year yet. Three of those films underperformed relative to Marvel films from years previous, but Spider-Man: No Way Home was a confounding runaway success.

As the year continued on and I started to take stock of the excessive amount of MCU content that Disney was pushing out, I rationalized that I wouldn’t have the time to talk about everything individually. While I did write about a few of the movies in detail, I decided ultimately to push everything into one post at the end of the year as a way of summarizing some of my overall thoughts on the largest movie brand in the world.

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WandaVision

Elizabeth Olsen and Paul Bettany in WandaVision. Image courtesy DMED.

“We are an unusual couple, you know.”

The Disney+ shows are the best thing to happen to Marvel in a very long time. Having been relegated to supporting characters exclusive to the large-scale team-up movies like Age of Ultron (2015), Civil War (2016), and Infinity War (2018), Wanda Maximoff and Vision (no last name) are finally getting their “starring” due. Set in the immediate aftermath of Endgame, Wanda and resurrected Vision live out their sitcom-inspired life in an idyllic New Jersey town. Meanwhile, government agency SWORD, the successor to SHIELD, is trying to break down Wanda’s self-imposed prison.

WandaVision succeeds when it's weird and falls flat when it returns to the MCU formula later in the series. The highlights of the series are the impeccable homages to classic sitcoms ranging from the 1950s, including an episode filmed before a live studio audience, to the mockumentaries of the late 2000s and 2010s. Despite a few rocky patches here and there, the show is delightful and serves as a nice change of pace from the usual large-scale storytelling that the MCU thrives on.

Elizabeth Olsen and Paul Bettany are wonderful in the leading parts and Kathryn Hahn’s wicked turn as the suspicious neighbour Agnes is perfectly over-the-top. Supporting cast members like Randall Park, Kat Dennings, and Teyonah Parris are all welcome additions to the show’s ensemble.

The series is far more intimate and emotional than most other MCU projects. It keeps its drama within the confines of Westview and digs into Wanda’s trauma and complicated history before setting her up for greater things to come. It’s a show about loss, love, grief, and coming to terms with a world that keeps giving us pain. How well it succeeds at those deeper meanings and themes is entirely up to the viewer, but it is nice to see WandaVision trying for something thematically rich and compelling.

Created by Jac Schaeffer.

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The Falcon and the Winter Soldier

Anthony Mackie and Sebastian Stan in The Falcon and the Winter Soldier. Image courtesy DMED.

“Symbols are nothing without the women and men that give them meaning.”

The Captain is no longer with us. Is he dead? Is he on the moon? Opinions are mixed, however, we are sure that Steve Rogers is no longer playing an active role in America’s political and espionage operations. Steve left behind two potential heirs, Sam Wilson and Bucky Barns, who also happen to not like each other very much. While they continue to bicker, the United States government introduces John Walker, the new Captain America, as a global terror threat emerges in the post-“blip” world. While The Falcon and the Winter Soldier starts much stronger than it ends, it remains entertaining throughout and has one of the MCU’s most human and thoughtful stories.

There is so much to love about this series. Anthony Mackie and Sebastian Stan give two great leading performances. Wyatt Russell’s love-to-hate-him John Walker is a fantastic foil to the heroics of the two leads. Daniel Brühl’s reinvented Baron Zemo is one of the series best elements. My favourite part of all of the Disney+ shows thus far is that they provide much more time to see the characters in a more relaxed family setting and the Wilson family drama is some of the most human, emotional stuff in the MCU. The Falcon and the Winter Soldier introduces the character of Isaiah Bradley, played by Carl Lumbly, a Korean War veteran and super-soldier serum test subject who is used to explore racism in the Marvel Universe, something that none of the films have been brave enough to talk about before.

The series struggles with its pacing and with finding a villain. The main threat is the Flag Smashers, a group of anti-establishment anarchists who are trying to fix some of the key global problems after the blip. However, the group’s motivations and characterizations are muddled and written quite inconsistently. There’s a compelling, although disavowed, theory that the show cut a pandemic-related storyline from the show which would explain the gaps in the logic of the group. It is clear, regardless of cut storylines, that the group just is not compelling enough to be the villains of the show. Zemo would have made for an interesting antagonist, but he’s left as a supporting anti-hero. Walker would have also been an interesting main villain, but the show tries to redeem his character towards the end.

Falcon and the Winter Soldier is a messy but well-meaning series. It has moments of fantastic action, some great leading performances, and brings some much-needed nuance to the legacy of Captain America. However, the show is relentlessly messy with far too many plot elements being scattered around leading to a slightly underwhelming concussion. I am looking forward with eager expectation for Captain America 4.

Created by Malcolm Spellman.

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Black Widow

Scarlett Johansson and Florence Pugh in Black Widow. © Marvel Studios.

“I’ve lived a lot of lives, but I’m done running from my past.”

The lawsuit-inducing Black Widow is Marvel’s first movie of the year. Picking up where Civil War left the title character, the film serves as both a bridge between that film and Infinity War as well as a retroactive origin story for one of the founding six Avengers. Right off the bat, Black Widow suffers from a complex identity problem after Natasha’s story came to a tragic close in Endgame two years ago. The film has an unspoken question of “why should I care?” which ultimately results in the film feeling like too little too late. This movie would have been much more effective if it were released in 2017 or 2018 but it feels totally irrelevant now.

In a time where the rest of the MCU’s projects are about moving the universe forward, their first film since 2019 is about looking back.

The film suffers not just from an identity problem, but also from being a not very good movie. The action is bland, the visual effects range from weak to atrocious, and the characterization of both Natasha and the majority of the supporting ensemble is grossly underdeveloped. The narrative of the film is a total mess opting to abandon its spy-based story for world-ending stakes and the usual superhero-shenanigans making Black Widow feel like a fish-out-of-water in the worst way possible. Black Widow is largely disengaging as well. It doesn’t offer enough spectacle to create the “wow” factor the Marvel content machine strives for and the human drama and political intrigue are not done well enough for it to be remarkable in any way.

There are moments of promise throughout the film. There are some interesting performances, cool concepts and ideas, and moments of familial drama which are compelling. The undeniable highlight is the excellent Florence Pugh as Yelena Belova, Natasha’s sister and heir to the Black Widow title. However, these moments in the film make Black Widow all the more frustrating when it fails to give any of those parts justice.

You can check out my full review here.

Directed by Cate Shortland.

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Loki

Jack Veal, DeObia Oparei, and Richard E. Grant in Loki. Image courtesy DMED.

“I am Loki of Asgard, and I am burdened with glorious purpose.”

To me, Loki is the contrast of Black Widow. Like Black Widow, the series is about one of the MCU’s oldest and most-established characters who never had a solo project before their untimely demise. Unlike Black Widow, Loki isn’t interested in going backwards or interesting an awkward retcon to the movies. Instead, it expands the universe and takes the character in a new, exciting direction. It gives the audience a reason to care.

Once again picking up from the events of Endgame, the show focuses on an alternate version of Loki (played once again by Tom Hiddleston) who escaped the Battle of New York with the Space Stone in hand. He’s picked up by the Time Variance Authority (or, TVA for short), a time-and-space-traversing law enforcement organization that protects the proper flow of time. Turns out, this Loki isn’t the first version of Loki that has interfered with the TVA’s operations. Here we’re introduced to Sylvie (Sophia Di Martino), a female version of Loki, and the two begin an operation to take down the corrupt TVA and expose their nefarious leaders.

Loki is a pretty fantastic show. Despite having an episode count far too short to provide all of the time-hoping antics you could want, the show is certainly worth its salt. Hiddleston and Di Martino are fantastic leads of the series and Owen Wilson proves to be a great addition to the cast as well. Other great supporting performances come from Gugu Mbatha-Raw and Wunmi Mosaku as agents of the TVA and Jack Veal, DeObia Oparei, and Richard E. Grant as other Loki variants. The production design of the series is excellent and the visual effects are top-notch throughout. Loki is also so far the only Disney+ Marvel show to have been renewed for a second season, which makes me quite excited. The universe they’ve built for this show stands apart from everything else and I’m excited to see it continue.

The show also ends quite well. The highlight of the first season is the final episode which not only avoids the trap of ending in some sort of final battle but introduces the charismatic Jonathan Majors as He Who Remains, a new character who spells certain doom for Marvel’s quickly developing multiverse.

Created by Michael Waldron.

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Shang-Chi and the Legend of the Ten Rings

Simu Liu in Shang-Chi and the Legend of the Ten Rings. © Marvel Studios.

“You can't outrun who you really are.”

The Ten Rings have had their fingers in the MCU since the earliest days with the organization being responsible for the kidnapping of Tony Stark in Iron Man (2008). Years after their first appearance, Marvel finally provides the true history of the organization and unveils their leader Wenwu, also known as “The Mandarin.” I neglected to review Shang-Chi and the Legend of the Ten Rings when it first arrived in theatres in September and I regret that decision in retrospect. Shang-Chi was a delight and is by far my favourite of Marvel’s four movies this year. It’s engaging, features some strong performances, has an interesting emotional core, and some interesting action — everything I want from a superhero blockbuster.

It isn’t easy being a member of the Xu family. Shang-Chi, the son of legendary warlord Xu Wenwu, is on the run from his family’s history and his destiny as an agent of and heir to the Ten Rings, one of the most powerful organizations on Earth. Going by the alias “Shaun,” he tries to establish a normal life for himself in San Francisco. Now, Shang-Chi’s past is starting to catch up with him as agents of his father are out to bring him and his sister, Xialing, back home.

Shang-Chi pulls from a robust set of influences like wuxia films like Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon (2000), the filmography of Jackie Chan, and Hong Kong action cinema which gives it a distinct tone and style. The cast is wonderful across the board with Tony Leung Chiu-wai’s turn as Wenwu and his relationship with Simu Liu’s Shang-Chi being the standout. Sir Ben Kingsley’s return as his faux-Mandarin from Iron Man 3 (2013) was a nice surprise. 

I greatly enjoyed Shang-Chi. While not a perfect film — I found that the third act bends a little too much to the usual, overly-digital Marvel finale — I was far more impressed by it than any of Marvel’s other feature films this year. The film is a breath of fresh air for the Marvel universe and is the first time in a while where an MCU project feels primarily concerned with tellings its own story rather than connecting it to the larger picture. While the majority of this year’s marvel content focuses on familiar characters and taking those characters to their next stop on the journey, Shang-Chi provides something new, which is the best possible direction for the universe post-Endgame.

Directed by Destin Daniel Cretton.

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Eternals

Richard Madden and Gemma Chan in Eternals. © Marvel Studios.

“When you love something, you protect it.”

The Eternals have been on Earth for thousands of years. They have guided, but never interfered with, our story since the earliest days of civilization and keep us safe from the villainous, intergalactic Deviants. Their promise to never interfere with the development of our world is easier said than done as centuries of attachments threaten to rip the group apart. Now, having discovered a terrible secret that questions the validity of their operation, the Eternals have to band together to fight off their greatest threat yet.

Following up on her critical and awards darling Nomadland (2020), Oscar-winning director Chloé Zhao brings her naturalistic filmmaking sensibilities to a grandiose sci-fi epic. Eternals features a large, diverse, and talented cast of wonderful performers and the story has an epic, mythic quality to it. Zhao strives for heart and empathy in her movie while telling the story of Gods and Goddesses and their complicated internal struggles. There are some fantastic character moments and the many historical flashbacks are far more entertaining and interesting than the main plot of the film itself. 

The film’s negative elements far outweigh the good. The film has far too many characters, undeveloped thematic content, and some truly bizarre narrative choices. Eternals underdevelops several of the ten members of the main team while spending too much time with supporting characters. The two antagonists — the celestial Arishem and the deviant Krol — are underdeveloped and too impersonal to be interesting. There’s also the confounding inclusion of a Hiroshima flashback which still doesn’t sit well for me.

The love story between Eternals Sersi (Gemma Chan) and Ikaris (Richard Madden), the film’s central element, is emblematic of everything I dislike about Eternals as a whole. Sersi and Ikaris’ story has the promise to be something new, bold, and original and, like the film’s cinematography, both Chan and Madden are good-looking people. But the result is a pair of performances that are totally lifeless and stilted, a relationship that is talked about more than it is depicted on screen, and a narrative that is better in flashbacks than in the present.

You can read my full review here.

Directed by Chloé Zhao.

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Hawkeye

Jeremy Renner and Hailee Steinfeld in Hawkeye. Image courtesy DMED.

“Wait a minute, aren't you Hawkeye?”

Hawkeye was a very pleasant surprise. I, like most people, had no prior attachments to Hawkeye as a character. I had no expectations for what I wanted the show to be like. Embarrassingly, I hadn’t even read the Hawkeye run by Matt Fraction and David Aja on which the show is primarily based. Hawkeye was a big wild card. The series comes through with one of the best, if not the best, MCU projects this year.

Hawkeye is the mainstream MCU’s most low-key and low-stakes story yet. The Christmas-set action-comedy sees Clint Barton stuck in New York City over the holiday season as he repairs the damage he caused during his stint as Ronin and comes to terms with his emotional trauma, all the while he’s shadowed by fangirl and wannabe protégé Kate Bishop whose family may be the key to solving his problems. The series is refreshingly relaxed un-ambitious in a good way. It exchanges multiverse-based crossovers, world-ending threats, and mystical dragons for dudes in tracksuits, LARPers, and a bow-and-arrow.

I liked Hawkeye a lot, although I fear it may go criminally under-seen. The series is self-aware without being obnoxious. It keeps the action to a personal, relatively grounded level. It’s nice to see a Marvel show where the big stunt is a tree falling over. Hailee Steinfeld and Jeremy Renner have a really strong dynamic as the show’s two leads. Florence Pugh makes a last-minute return as Yelena Belova and steals the final two episodes of the show. Hawkeye is light, earnest, and endearing.

I am really curious as to where Hawkeye² are going to go from here. The rest of the shows all have clear continuations set up for their main characters except for Hawkeye. I really hope this isn’t the last we see of the Archer duo because Hawkeye just got interesting.

Created by Jonathan Igla.

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Spider-Man: No Way Home

Tom Holland and Benedict Cumberbatch in Spider-Man: No Way Home. © Sony Pictures.

“You have a gift. You have power. And with great power, there must also come great responsibility.”

Do not be afraid: I am going to keep this blurb spoiler-free.

That movie was an overload for the senses. Spider-Man: No Way Home has been built up quite severely as the epic conclusion to the twenty years of theatrical Spider-Man storytelling, but, unfortunately, the result is a film that isn’t particularly special. No Way Home is able to withstand the pressure of fan expectations and the weight of its own ambitious storytelling. It satisfyingly brings back characters from Sam Raimi’s trilogy and the Amazing Spider-Man duology each with their own arc as well as serves as a finale to what we’ve seen from Tom Holland’s Spider-Man so far. However, the film can’t find an identity beyond its functionality. It has a good heart and love for its characters, but the nostalgia-heavy film has an emotionally rotten core and fails to say anything new or interesting.

There’s a lot to like about No Way Home. Tom Holland is the best he’s ever been as the character here. Zendaya and Jacob Batalon are really great compliments to Holland, even if they’re both too underwritten to stand apart from Spider-Man. Alfred Molina and Willem Dafoe knock it out of the park and are by far the best of the returning cast. No Way Home is by far the best entry in the MCU Spider-Man trilogy and is willing to test its characters and give them significant hardships and challenges

However, there’s a lot to dislike about the film as well. Jon Watts is a terrible director and couldn’t direct action and spectacle if his life depended on it. There’s too much gross visual design and CGI throughout. The film primarily fails because it doesn’t present anything new to audiences. It gives audiences exactly what we think we want and doesn’t put any serious thought into what it represents. No Way Home is built on fan service, which, while it is exciting in the moment, — I got aggressively giddy as Green Goblin, Doc Ock, and a surprise first-act cameo appeared — these images of nostalgia for bygone eras is nothing more than a collage of frivolous, baseless iconography.

I think I would be far more into this if Into the Spider-Verse didn’t do this same premise three years ago and do it so much better.

You can read my full, spoiler-heavy review here.

Directed by Jon Watts.