Under the familial blanket of Thanksgiving this past Thursday, following some succulent honey baked ham, pillowy mashed potatoes, and — right after some apple pie and vanilla ice cream — the cold fizz of brut, there bright and peering through atomic dots of a large TV screen was the sugar-spoonful, hilarity-inducing, and sheer warm cocoa mug of a John Hughes feature. Everyone knows Planes, Trains and Automobiles with Steve Martin and John Candy, and as fans can attest, within its litany of silliness and hysteria was a concrete theme of belonging, of family, of a man seeking to reconnect the bond that binds him to his wife and children. But unbeknownst to him was a guardian assisting him on the way — a man who lost everything. Through the relatable pains of innovative American travel and infrastructure, choices are made and wrong paths are taken like when Del leads both Neal and himself on the wrong road and close to death…

Driver: Holy shit! Look at that guy on the wrong side of the highway, he’s going to KILL somebody! [honks at Del, who nonchalantly looks over, and looks back at the road].
Driver [continued]: HEY… HEY!!
Del: [looks over again, and honks back, not knowing what he’s doing].
Neal [waking up from a slumber]: Hey, what’s going on?
Del: This joker wants to race. 
Driver: TURN AROUND!!
Neal: Race? That’s ridiculous.
Del: [amped and ready to hit the gas] Alright, come on, let’s go, let’s go.
Driver: PUT YOUR WINDOW DOWN!
Neal: He wants something. [Rolls down window]
Del: He’s probably drunk.
Driver & his Wife: YOU’RE GOING THE WRONG WAY!!
Neal: What??
Driver & his Wife: YOU’RE GOING THE WRONG WAY!!

The traveling duo doesn’t listen, and meet their comeuppance. Thankfully, not a tragic one. At this point in time, hasn’t Kevin Feige, Bob Iger, and the rest of Disney’s all seeing eye noticed that they’re seriously going the wrong way? A road headed for total destruction, but more so in this case, total boredom? It’d be a lot simpler to link other reviews from before such as this one; or this one; and this recent one, and be done with it because the thought always comes that there is really no need to write about this shit anymore. But to quote the last MCU review: “… it comes to mind that the importance of explaining why a film is not good can be worthwhile in the possible outcome.” The hope remains that others go out and seek other movies or realize that this next entry for Disney’s Marvel is just another car driving down one side of the highway and GOING THE WRONG WAY…

Hoping to liberate the Kree world Hala, Captain Marvel aka Carol Danvers (Brie Larson) destroys the A.I. system ruling its inhabitants, but ends up causing a civil war and Hala’s desolation. The Kree’s new leader Dar-Benn (Zawe Ashton) searches for and retrieves a Quantum Band (an instrument that harnesses energy), while on earth Kamala Khan (Iman Vellani) retains its other half. Dar-Benn uses the Band’s power to tear open a jump point in space, which is discovered by Nick Fury (Samuel L. Jackson), at the S.A.B.E.R. space station. Also finding the tear, but in her location, is agent of S.W.O.R.D. Monica Rambeau (Teyonah Parris). Fury enlists Carol to scout the location, and as she does so, Monica makes contact with the anomaly. The simultaneous timing causes Kamala, Carol, and Monica to switch places through teleportation, and suddenly the three must work together. Through Carol and Monica resolving past tensions and finally reuniting, and a fan in Kamala meeting her hero Captain Marvel, the Marvels must stop Dar-Benn from wreaking anymore havoc across the galaxy.

Through the eyes of other moviegoers or cinephiles out there, they sensed trouble afoot somewhat early on. For me and others, it wasn’t until much later into Feige’s multibillion dollar franchise. Disappointment with Spider-Man: Homecoming only led to pure annoyance, and then complete dislike (with the exception of being a sucker for No Way Home). But as of recent for the past two years, announcements of more Disney+ content: Ms. Marvel, She-Hulk, Secret Invasion, you name it have only continued sculpting the cheap marble of sheer disappointment, annoyance, and dislike into utter boredom and indifference. An indifference that ironically appears to harmonize so well with the style of manipulated direction as so par for the course in past Marvel entries. Once again, it’s time to revisit this statement from Thor: Ragnarok’s cinematographer from my last MCU movie missive, and hammer it down…

Javier Aguirresarobe: As a cinematographer, one dreams with doing a custom work and that’s not the thing here, it’s actually the contrary. You vanish. Your function is to get a technically impeccable image at the service of the director and a fundamental character crew, that is the VFX supervisor. 
— Teresa Flano, “‘Working for Marvel has given me satisfaction and frustration’.” El Correo. www.elcorreo.com/bizkaia/sociedad/201611/26/trabajar-para-marvel-producido-20161125183849.html

This might be not twice, but thrice this statement’s been quoted. The Marvel’s cinematographer Sean Bobbitt, who’s helped visualize other stories helmed by famous filmmakers, and one that strikes the memory with a visceral hammer of naturalism in The Place Beyond the Pines, has a filmic footprint that's nowhere to be found. Just as Bill Pope (of Raimi’s Spider-Man 2 and 3 fame) had no trail marks left in Shang-Chi or Ant-Man and the Wasp: Quantumania, or the aforementioned Javier Aguirresarobe (of Woody Allen’s Vicky Cristina Barcelona and Blue Jasmine distinction) couldn’t even craft a truly functional creative handiwork in Thor: Ragnarok. He even worked on two Twilight sequels — maybe it ain’t unfair to say those had better visual thought than these marvelous higher, further, faster feature films, eh? As he said about cinematographers working for these Disney products, “You vanish.”

Each shot in Nia DaCosta’s turn as helmer for the sequel to 2019’s installment possesses no thrill, no excitement, no awe, no wonder, and no appreciation for an imaginative locomotive of what should be a blockbuster hitting the likes of prior cape flicks like Sam Raimi’s dear web-head trilogy of a mild-mannered teenager realizing humility within heroism or the mythicism and challenge of American icons in Zack Snyder’s DC trilogy. But these sentiments would merely be a variation of what’s been said in the previous reviews linked. Neither DaCosta or Bobbitt seem to have any true creative juices flowing, but are only relegated to being machines. Standard VFX handled by underpaid artists cramming in more work than is normal toward deadline, more shots of characters only in front of the camera to be in front of it. No thoughtful sense of blocking, framing, or distinction between superiority and inferiority, etc, etc. Once more, to go on would only be both a repetition or a variation of what has been said in the aforementioned reviews. Time to hammer down this next statement...

“Around the time of Victoria Alonso’s dismissal, I was DM’ing with an extremely well-known director who had worked on a Marvel film, and she was relating some remarks that Victoria had said to her about another filmmaker, who directed, let’s just say, it was one of the biggest movies Marvel’s ever put out. And (Alonso) was talking about this guy and (Alonso) said, ’They don’t direct the movies. We direct the movies.’ Meaning that the filmmakers don’t have creative control over the look of the films that Marvel does.”
— “Marvel Directors Don’t Really Direct The Movies? Bold Claim Comes to Light.” ScreenRant. screenrant.com/marvel-directors-really-direct-mcu-movies/

Again, there really isn’t anything new to say. If the character of Kamala Khan — a young fangirl gushing over the chance to work with her favorite Avenger — was supposed to be the avatar for all MCU fans, then the goal tantamount for Feige and company’s motive to sell this home is incongruent when it seems that much of the audience and fans of the “Oh, SOOOO great Marvel” are now choosing to skid off the highway to avoid getting run over like they have for the past decade. 

“‘The Marvels’ opened to $47 million at the domestic box office, the lowest opening weekend in the history of the Marvel Cinematic Universe. Before that opening, the worst debut belonged to 2008’s ‘The Incredible Hulk’ ($55.4 million, not adjusted for inflation), which premiered at the dawn of the MCU. News for “The Marvels” only got worse as it earned $10.2 million in its second weekend, a disastrous 78% drop that now holds the record the MCU’s biggest second-weekend drop. ‘Ant-Man and the Wasp: Quantumania’ previously had the largest decline of the franchise with 69.9%. It’s likely ‘The Marvels’ won’t even make it to $100 million at the domestic box office at this point.”
— Zack Sharf, “Iman Vellani Says ’The Marvels’ Flopping at the Box Office Is for Bob Iger to ‘Focus On,’ Not Her: ‘What’s the Point? That Has Nothing to Do With Me.’ Variety. variety.com/2023/film/news/iman-vellani-the-marvels-box-office-flop-bob-iger-1235801694/

The Incredible Hulk from 2008 is way better than whatever DaCosta and Bobbitt could churn out under Feige and Iger’s tent. Additionally, there comes people who’re expected to find the time and, as fans might like to say, “do their homework” when it comes to these movies. Kamala’s very own series Ms. Marvel being only available through a paid subsctiption to Disney+. Result? Moviegoers would have to wonder and consider how this character is suddenly in the MCU and retrieved her powers, when they haven’t seen a whole streamed television series that explains it all. Similarly, there's Monica Rambeau’s first appearance and origin in Disney+’s WandaVision before this new sequel. Furthermore, Scarlet Witch and her sons in Doctor Strange and the Multiverse of Madness — AGAIN, a WandaVision/Disney+ assignment before the fall midterms. It’s all just tiring. And what does that make those who just haven’t had the liberty to pay for or the time to view all of this churned out content without any respite? “Not real fans?” Sure. What minimal charisma or magnetism exists in the movie really only belongs to whatever chemistry Brie Larson, Iman Vellani, or Teyonah Parris could muster between themselves through their respective roles that just may have been twisted, edited, and controlled from pre to post-production just as it always has been with what’s, for awhile, looked like theatrical versions of streamed content. Sure, let’s also believe Zawe Ashton’s female Ronan is supposed to be an intimidating antagonist, shall we?

Superhero films used to be spectacles. Real blockbusters that truly brought paneled characters to life or challenged preconceived notions of them through artful and magnificent lenses. Sure, there are plenty of stories to tell with new C and D list Marvel heroes. But does the audience want anymore of that? No. Suffice to say, the reason is in the third sentence of this final paragraph. *Yawn* It seems that much of us are that same driver trying to stop Neal and Del from going the wrong way. But in this case it’s Feige and Iger. YOU’RE GOING THE WRONG WA— never mind…