Saw it last night. I liked it a lot! I wouldn't say I "loved" it because it's rare that I truly love a franchise film these days, but I very much enjoyed it and am really looking forward to more.
Frankly, I love when the Marvel films swing for the fences with the bonkers out-there stuff. I mean, I love the more grounded MCU as well, but ever since the first Thor movie came out, I've so enjoyed seeing Marvel films embrace the truly weird aspects of their comics legacy, from Jack Kirby's distinct designs to Doctor Strange's bizarre visuals to the weird multiversal stuff.
I'm digging this new phase, too. I don't get all the burbling rumors about how Marvel's films are failing and such. I think people are (1) primed to crap on Marvel because they had such a long run of successes, (2) people can't really see where things are headed, and (3) they look at Phase 1 and 2 thru rose-tinted glasses.
Everyone has had their "Has Marvel lost it?" articles in the can for ages now, like pre-writing a famous person's obituary. When the films don't do Endgame box office numbers, it's time to trot them out. Yawn.
I think it's also difficult for people to imagine what the culmination of this phase will be, too. With Phase 1, the culmination was the formation of the Avengers in "The Avengers," which was a monumental success and a terrific capstone to what was a shakier launch than I think a lot of people remember. With Phase 2, it was pretty obvious they were building to another Avengers film, which set in motion Phase 3, which culminated with Endgame. Anyone remotely familiar with the Infinity Gauntlet storyline knew where they were headed by the time the first Avengers film ended and we got our first glimpse of Thanos.
But I think people have seriously forgotten how uneven those first three Phases were. Iron Man was terrific, and Captain America: The First Avenger has had a bit of a renaissance and is now quite well regarded, but when a bunch of these films first came out, people were fairly unimpressed. Anyone remember The Incredible Hulk? Or the way people responded to the first Thor film? How about Iron Man 2? Really, out of the six Phase 1 films, only three are generally well-regarded now, with the rest being "Fair to middling." I mean, I enjoy them all, but on first release, they weren't all smash hits.
Same story with Phase 2. Another uneven ride. Guardians of the Galaxy 1 was amazing, The Winter Soldier is peak Marvel, and Ant-Man was a lot of fun, but Iron Man 3 is pretty weak, most folks didn't love Thor: The Dark World, and Age of Ultron was a seriously mixed bag on release and remains the weakest of the Avengers films.
Phase 3 was thus far the longest of the phases, and I think tends to be what most colors people's attitudes about the MCU. It was a run of 11(!) films of which most were at least "pretty good" and many were "outstanding." Captain America: Civil War was kind of a mini-Avengers film. Doctor Strange brought to life a comic I thought could be unfilmable. Guardians of the Galaxy 2 wasn't as well received as Part 1 but was still solid. Spider-Man Homecoming was a fun little film with a tight focus. Thor: Ragnarok was a welcome departure from the dreary Dark World. Black Panther was simply amazing. Infinity War gave us the "OH CRAP" snap. Ant-Man and the Wasp was fun, even though it didn't quite do the thing I wanted it to do with Ghost. Captain Marvel was a good film beset by some really toxic "fan" reactions. Endgame was, well, Endgame, and it all capped off with Spider-Man: Far from Home.
With Phases 4 and 5, though, everything changed. The core Avengers were done, but also Marvel was branching into TV, which creates a different style of storytelling, and sort of diffused things, both in terms of the platforms and in terms of how stories were told across multiple episodes of a show. But honestly, I've really enjoyed just about all of it. The difficulty here, I think, is that people can't quite see the big picture yet, and given what they got used to with Phase 3, that bothers them.
Folks want to know how Kang is going to threaten things. With Quantumania, you get the first hints of it, but the role could be re-cast (which would be a shame, but should be done if the allegations prove to be true), and it's hard for a lot of people to imagine how a gazillion Kangs are going to threaten the multiverse, and then how that threat will be met. It's fundamentally different from the Infinity Gauntlet series, and the closest thing to it is the Once and Future Kang storyline from the comics.
