13 Huge Mistakes That Are Killing The MCU

And finally, the biggest reason the MCU is dying? It's forgotten about the thing that made the earlier films work so well: character development.

Once upon a time, the Marvel Cinematic Universe did a terrific job at fleshing out its fantastical superheroes into developed, emotionally engaging characters who had powerful, terrifically executed arcs - some of which neatly unfolded across many years of movies.

Most notably, Iron Man's character arc - which unfolded across 11 years of MCU flicks - is among the best character journeys in blockbuster cinema.

And now? The MCU just doesn't seem to give a damn about character anymore.

Not only is the franchise insisting on ruining once-loved characters to no end, but the overwhelming majority of the recent movies are fatally bereft of any satisfying character work. As such, not only are these movies getting bloody soulless but, in spite of all their jokes and pyrotechnics, they're actually becoming pretty tedious too.

Furthermore, the series is frequently doing a poor job of establishing its new heroes. For example, while Captain Marvel (Brie Larson) and Shang-Chi (Simu Liu) were both important steps forward for inclusion, neither were interesting characters on their own terms, while it's very hard to even remember what any of those Eternals were actually called; that's just how poorly-developed they were.

Let's just hope the Marvel Cinematic Universe gets back on track soon. Still, even if it doesn't, we'll always have the Infinity Saga.