8 Problems With The MCU That Doctor Strange Doesn't Fix
2. The Planet Is Always Under Threat (But Always Survives)
You'd be forgiven if you let out a yawn upon discovering that Doctor Strange's villain followed in the footsteps of Ultron, Malekith, Ronan The Accuser, Hydra in The Winter Soldier and Loki in The Avengers by being the latest MCU antagonist who's threatening to cause widespread destruction, devastate a planet or take millions and millions of lives.
Come on. Does anybody watching really believe that they'll make good on their intentions?
If the stakes are consistently this high (as they tend to be) it makes the hero's plight completely unrelatable because you know for a fact that the villain can't possibly destroy the entire universe/planet - would Marvel really kill off their biggest heroes, 'end' their cinematic universe or choose not to make more sequels and more money? As a result, you don't care about anything that happens because you already know the outcome of the battle; everyone walks away with nary a scratch.
On the positive side, Marvel have previously shown that they can shake this formula up; Ant-Man's small-scale skirmish was a refreshing change of pace and Civil War's more personal, grounded struggle felt incredibly engaging - but these are few and far between.
Moving forward, it would be far better if the studio started to focus on making their conflicts more character-driven, like the latter two, instead of threatening destruction on such an unbelievable scale - this at least lends the climax some weight.