The Single Biggest Mistake Each MCU Film And TV Show Has Made

31 films. Eight Disney+ shows. $28.7 billion in box office revenue. One insanely successful cinematic universe, the likes of which were never seen before and will almost certainly never be seen with any other media franchise. God knows, many studios have tried to launch their own cinematic universes, and most of them have crashed and burned.

Still, it's no secret that the Marvel Cinematic Universe has completely lost its way recently. Phase 4 was a disaster and Phase 5 recently got off to a terrible start, so that has no doubt made many people wonder if this cinematic universe was ever that good to begin with.

Well, rest assured, the Infinity Saga is largely just as good as you remember, but at the same time, every single MCU film and Disney+ TV show has at least one huge mistake to its name - ranging from writing mistakes to flat direction, from poor casting choices to garbage special effects, from uninteresting heroes to terrible villains.

So, what is the single biggest mistake each instalment of this once-proud franchise has made? Read on to find out...

Every single MCU joint, even the very best ones, has made at least one huge mistake, and Iron Man, the very first film in the series, very much started that trend.

Iron Man is an absolutely excellent superhero origin story that, despite the MCU's reputation for big brash spectacle, plays more like a character study that just happens to be about a superhero. Tony Stark's (Robert Downey Jr, who's just perfect in this role) journey from villain to superhero is a smart, exciting and deeply moving affair that kicked off this franchise in great style, but alas, it does definitely drop the ball in the final act.

More specifically, the climax is fairly lacklustre and takes the form of a boring final battle between Iron Man and the film's awful lead villain (a criminally wasted Jeff Bridges), which also established a few unfortunate MCU trends. Namely, hit-or-miss villains, the bad guy suddenly going insane in the final act and the hero fighting a bad guy boating a more advanced version of their suit and/or powers; a narrative trope that feels lazy at the best of times.

Iron Man returns to its previous heights with a strong final scene, but nonetheless, this weak climax prevents it from necessarily being one of the top ten MCU films in retrospect.