The Falcon and the Winter Soldier series was weird. Just all-round weird.
They had to gut the series. The main plotline was originally that the Flagsmashers were trying to infect and kill half the world. It's why the final scene suddenly has that gas outta nowhere. They obviously cut it out due to Covid. Wish they'd let it in. Especially due to Covid.
It had a couple good moments, I thought. But in general suffered from generic/boring villains, and perhaps they could've played around more with the whole ambiguity around US Agent.
I think Wandavision could've been better if they'd leaned in to the premise more. Art direction was okay, would've been perfect if they'd mimicked the time-periods better - everything being 4k quality nowadays drops a lot of the "feel" of the oldschool series. They could've artificially dropped the quality to make that look far more period-accurate, which I think would've contributed greatly to it. Apart from that, I would've liked to see less (none) of the real world in between the Wandavision episodes, and more "glitches" and weird stuff happening during the TV episodes.
I think my main dig against most of these series is that they're just not on the same budget as the movies. Which is kind of a dumb issue, since that's just 99% expectation management on my side.
I think I wanted it to be more weird and creepy. More ... Hitchcock/King. More Outer Limits.
However, I thought Loki was really good. Could've been slightly more clever, but overall really well acted as well as having some real, real cool character development. Going into the series I wasn't a huge fan of Tom Hiddleston but I'm getting on board now. Also, I really loved the implications of the final episode, once it was all wrapped up.
Loki, as a setup/lead-in to the movies is kinda superb. Hope the baddie ends up dictating all of Phase 4. He's not only potentially Thanos levels of cool; he's also got potentially by far the most story development of all time.
That's also the part I want to see leveraged even more. The fact that "it all ties together". Allows for some insane set-up and pay-off stuff.
Black Widow was the most mediocre/forgettable movie I've seen in the MCU since probably the original Antman, only Antman at least was the first time meeting that character. Black Widow was just throw-away. Did dig her sister. She was kinda cool.
As for the future:
- HELLA keen for Moon Knight, love Oscar Isaac as the main lad (Moon Knight the character is kinda a mix between Deadpool and Batman)
- Ironheart (Riri Williams!) has a lot to live up to, sort of 'taking the torch' from Robert Downey Jr
- She-Hulk is kinda a blank sheet for me, not expecting anything, feels a bit Iron-Fist-ey (probs gonna be mediocre)
- Thor: Love & Thunder might be fun, kinda keen to see what kinda vibe it'll have, how weird it'll get
- I love Benedict, am keen to see what the new Dr Strange will bring. Hope it gets WEIRD
The other announced stuff falls into two camps for me;
- Movies with all new casts that have the potential to be fun, but are unknowns atm
- Movies with known characters where I'm expecting "more of the same", which doesn't interest me too much