It has become fun to bash the Marvel films.
There is no denying that despite increasing box office receipts and new records being broken with seemingly each new entry, the franchise has encountered mounting snobbery and cynicism from various critics and media outlets, as seems to be the nature with anything that is massively popular. A common criticism of the films is that they are overly reliant on prior stories with a particularly negative assessment from the New Yorker denigrating Infinity War as nothing more than a two-and-a-half-hour ad for the films that preceded it and those that will follow.
Others, such as a piece from Film School Rejects, have criticized the franchise’s adverse impact on storytelling, stating that the films’ proclivity for constantly teasing future installments with post-credit scenes reduces the impact the current stories are having. The mass genocide depicted during the conclusion of Infinity War was especially criticized as feeling inconsequential due to so many of the “deceased” characters having sequels already teased from their own respective film’s post-credit scenes. Additionally, the article criticizes how difficult it is for new fans to jump in thanks to the story being crafted in a way that requires seeing every prior film to completely understand the events depicted and fully reap the emotional payoffs.
