It isn’t a Ms. Marvel review. Or a She-Hulk review. It’s barely even a review of the recent announcements made at the D23 Expo regarding the future of the Marvel Cinematic Universe.

​

Thor: Love and Thunder came very close to being the first Marvel film in seven years that I didn’t see in the cinema. Not because I hated the trailer or didn’t care for Taika Waititi’s last Thor outing. It’s because I’m utterly burnt out on Marvel.

​

Let’s take a look back onto the last few reviews I wrote. I have generally been enjoying Phase 4 so far. I felt that the two-year gap in Marvel releases - though obviously not under good circumstances - enhanced the experience of them returning to screens. Marvel fatigue, after ten years and twenty-three films, felt like it could have been a real threat to their cinematic dominance. With an eighteen-month break between Avengers: Endgame and the Disney+ TV series WandaVision, it felt like a natural break between the huge finale and the next instalment of the franchise.

​

But now we are in an entirely different situation. The last two years saw a backlog of projects pushed back during the pandemic, and now it feels like they’re all coming out at once. The only months in 2022 without a Marvel project coming out were January and February. The other ten had at least one film or episode released. Does that not feel like far too much?

​

Have you ever thought about how much time we invest in the Marvel universe? Or compared the number of minutes of content in Phases 1, 2 and 3 with Phase 4? The whole eleven-year Infinity Saga is 49 hours and 56 minutes long. Remember that that spans from 2008’s Iron Man to 2019’s Endgame. Well. Now let’s turn to the length of Phase 4. At my time of writing, it is 55 hours and 16 minutes long. So just a little longer than the Infinity Saga - doesn’t seem so bad, right? But remember that this is just one of the three phases of the new Multiverse Saga, while the Infinity Saga estimate accounted for three whole phases. Let us also remember: Phase 4 only began in January 2021. Just twenty months ago. Yes, the turn to streaming television clearly increases the average run-time of Marvel projects in the presence, but it is the time span that particularly concerns me. 50 hours over ten years felt overwhelming at times, but now we’re meant to consume over 55 hours in less than two.

​

I don’t know about everyone else, but I don’t think I have enough space in my brain to process so much Stuff in one go, with so little time for anticipation or processing either side of each release.

​

The Infinity Saga trod waters unnavigated by prior filmmakers in its ability to weave together a narrative across twenty-three films. The Multiverse Saga is also going to go beyond other film series- with the story not only threading between films, but also involving a transmedia narrative with streaming television. This could be used to create new scales of stakes and drama. From smaller-scale stories and character studies to cinematic, universe-altering stakes, Phase 4 has a unique opportunity to experiment with new stories and genres. However, I’m concerned that this will give way to releasing continuous series that don’t tie into the wider story, with more of a motivation to retain subscribers on the Disney+ streaming service.

​

The rapidly shortening release schedules are revealing the cracks in the production process. In the past six months, we’ve seen viral social media trends regarding the visual effects of recent projects. Taika Waititi made a joke at the expense of VFX artists working on his latest film, Thor: Love and Thunder, and unfinished-looking CGI in the trailer of She-Hulk: Attorney at Law went viral online. Reports of intense and unsustainable working conditions caused outrage among audiences, with artists alleging that they were not told when release dates were moved up, were subject to stress-induced breakdowns and underpaid relative to the amount of work they put in.

​

When these stories are coming from behind-the-scenes, it feels disingenuous to keep publishing reviews of these movies without highlighting the issues behind them.

​

So much content is released on what feels like a daily basis, which even makes me - someone who is volunteering to write these pieces - feel snowed under whenever I feel interest in writing about a film or series. By the time I’ve written something, had it edited and had it published, the next instalment is out and suddenly it feels as if you’re behind.

​

So here are my takes from the past year. Since my Eternals review came out, there has been: Hawkeye, Spider-Man: No Way Home, Doctor Strange in the Multiverse of Madness, Moon Knight, Ms. Marvel, Thor: Love and Thunder and She-Hulk. I’ve had a tough time keeping up with even watching them. They’re all good, bad, fine or unwatched. Everyone will have their own favourites, least favourites and target audiences, so there’s hardly any use in pitting them against each other. My main issue is that for one studio to be releasing so much in such a short space of time, I worry for the creatives involved.

​

It’s hard to come to a conclusion on a topic like this. Perhaps all I can say is: I have no idea when the next Marvel review will be coming. Maybe it will be in November, when the sequel, Black Panther: Wakanda Forever releases, or maybe it won’t be until next July, with the release of The Marvels. Maybe another budding writer will pitch a review, or maybe the speed of the MCU will finally become too fast to hold on to. For now, all we can do is wait for the next product to come along that makes us care.