Falcon & The Winter Soldier: 10 Biggest Problems
3. ...In Favour Of Generic Globe-Trotting Action
Sadly, the main focus of The Falcon and the Winter Soldier isn't the character moments. It's a bog-standard, by-the-numbers and ultimately unmemorable action story in which Sam and Bucky hunt down the Flag Smashers.
Sure, it's watchable enough, but there's also a familiar and low-stakes feel to the whole thing that prevents one from getting terribly excited by any of it. Additionally, the MCU has given us this kind of narrative so many times before.
The franchise does have a problem with over-familiarity, and now that the MCU is over a decade old, it really doesn't feel like we need to see the same old story yet again.
Sam and Bucky's emotional story-lines, the racial commentary, John Walker's tragic downfall and all the things about the legacy of the super-soldier serum and the Blip (Thanos' snap) - all of that is interesting. Better still, it's not the same old stuff at all and whenever the series focuses on all of that, it does feel fresh and exciting.
Therefore, the series really, really should've honed in on all of those elements. Honestly, had this been a quieter, character-based drama similar to WandaVision, that really would've been better. And speaking of WandaVision...