4 Marvel Movies That Could (Possibly) Suck

Spoiler alert for Captain America: Civil War; it's a good movie. To be fair, I haven't seen it yet and am basing this only on the opinions of 124 individual's who watch, study, and critique movies for their livelihood. But if I learned anything from Batman v. Superman, (lord knows Warner Bros. hasn't) it's that no good thing is promised in this world, that the future is bleak, and hope is for fools. I'm just realizing how meta that movie was... maybe it didn't suck?

Speaking of suck, when is Marvel going to make a movie that sucks? Not "Thor 2 was ok" suck, I mean a real stinker. I mean something that transcends the "fun movie" defense. I mean something that deeply, truly, and unequivocally sucks. Surely it's only a matter of time, right? The higher Icarus flies, the hotter the sun is on his paraffin wings. For those of you not familiar with Greek mythology, the moral of the story is better summed up by Han Solo: don't get cocky kid. Below is what I feel are the four upcoming Marvel movies with the highest chances to suck.

1. Avengers: Infinity War: Part 1

10% Chance of Suck

I know it might seem crazy to say that an Avengers movie would be the first Marvel movie to suck. It's even crazier to assume that it would be one directed by the Russo brother's who have (so far) surpassed every ridiculous expectation placed on them. So what could possibly make this surefire hit fail? Two words: Part One.

Think about other "part ones". Deathly Hallows, Mockingjay, Breaking Dawn, even the Hobbit, all of them suffer from a feeling of being an insufferable waste of time. Every time you split a movie into multiple parts, you decide to interrupt the story, and basically guarantee your audience leaves the theater unsatisfied.

What's worse is within the year audiences will be waiting for Part Two, there are going to be two other Marvel movies released, Ant Man and the Wasp and Captain Marvel. So either Infinity War is missing Ant Man, the Wasp and Captain Marvel (two of the major female heroes, by the way) or the solo movies happen before/after the events of Infinity War. Maybe after a serious whooping, the Avengers call for half time, and Michael Jordan gives them some "secret stuff" from his water bottle. Or maybe these are all problems the creative team at Marvel studios has undoubtedly thought of, and solved with a team of writers who are all individually more clever than me, and who are collectively clever enough to sustain a string of 13 successful movies.

2. Thor: Ragnarok

30% Chance of Suck

Let's be honest, Thor has always been the weakest link in the Avengers chain. Is he going to be that missed in Civil War? My guess is no. Does anyone look forward on the Phase 3 line up and think "hey, when's Thor coming back?" not really. Things are looking bleak for the god of thunder, so bleak in fact that the Hulk is being injected into his solo movie to hopefully bring in a little extra juice. That'd be like if they randomly through Iron Man into a Captain America movie... wait. Never mind.

Really though, Thor is just a difficult character to make interesting. He's incredibly powerful, nearly unkillable, and not at all clever. In most stories, Loki would be the hero, a clever trickster wronged by his family who has to stop his dangerously incompetent (but also dangerously strong) brother from taking the throne. Audiences are used to championing clever heroes, but Thor movies force us to cheer for the idiot and hope he's good enough at hitting things that the universe isn't destroyed.

To counter act this abundant lack of personality, Marvel has hired frequent Flight of the Conchords director Taika Waititi, whose background in very dry humor should serve well to a very dry character. Taika's recent directorial efforts include the highly lauded What We Do in the Shadows, which was almost universally praised by fans and critics alike, though wasn't nearly the kind of big budget action film that Ragnarok will surely be.

3. Ant Man and The Wasp

35% Chance of Suck

Last summer's Ant Man might seem like a straightforward entry into the Marvel canon but it's actually been in development longer than virtually any other Marvel movie. Edgar Wright, director of the excellent Cornetto trilogy was asked to create a script for an Ant Man movie he would eventually direct. This was all the way back in 2006, roughly 2 years before the original Iron Man movie. Joss Whedon claimed Wright's Ant Man script was the best Marvel had ever had, and they had two scripts written by Whedon.

Of course, directorial responsibility then fell to Peyton Reed, and we got the Ant Man movie we all know and love... or at the very least like. Here's where I get worried: how much of Ant Man's success can actually be attributed to Reed? If a 5 star chef assemble all the ingredients, throws the dish in the oven, then I add a pinch of salt and watch it cook, it doesn't mean I can make a 5 star dish.

This could be being entirely unfair to Reed, who still can take credit for directing the movie, the actors, and sticking with it through post-production. But a part of me is very worried the movie won't live up to the original, and could be a giANT disappointment.

4. Dr. Strange

40% Chance of Suck

Dr. Strange has been mired with controversy ever since it was announced that Tilda Swinton, a very white woman, would be playing the Ancient One, a character who is very notably a Chinese man. Somehow, Marvel managed to cast someone that pissed off people on the political left and right. Misogynists are mad that Swinton is a woman, because they hate women, which is stupid. But asian americans are upset because they lost what little representation they were going to have in the Marvel universe. Seriously, there are more green characters in the MCU than asian characters.

Kevin Fiege, head of Marvel studios, has explained that The Ancient One is a title that has belonged to many individuals, and that the original depiction of the character leans pretty heavily on some yellow-face stereotypes. This is the same thing that happened in Iron Man 3 when The Mandarin, the OG of yellow-face stereotypes, was played by Ben Kingsley, so they wouldn't be racist. It's not the worst excuse, but Marvel has actually debunked its own defense several times.

Many of the African American characters in the comic books lean very heavily on stereotypes from the era. Falcon's backstory originally had him start out as a caricature of a thug/pimp. How did they address this when introducing him in The Winter Soldier? Easy. They didn't make him a pimp. That's how simple it is. So if they were worried about a character being a bad representation of Chinese culture, all they have to is not be racist.