I pretty much totally agree with this piece, but more importantly I actually dig this piece. I think the difference here is that you're using Marvel as supporting evidence rather than the crux of the argument, because while certainly the past decade of MCU stuff has been bad, it's low-hanging fruit. Jordan Peele I think is more illustrative of the rot here, in part because his films are generally very good, which puts these issues into sharper relief.
I liked NOPE much more than you, I think, but it very much struck me as a film that had been drafted with the explicit aim of being Vox explainer fodder - lots of meta references to pop culture (oh, hey, did you get that the ending is kind of like JAWS?? wink wink) and a theme that's sufficiently signposted that a casual viewer will get that this movie is about "spectacle" or whatever but also vague enough that you'll still have to google what the film "meant," at which point some chinstroking Youtuber will gleefully explain Guy Debord at you for 40 minutes. It feels like an easter egg hunt moreso than a coherent work of art.
Of course, the obvious caveat is that there's nothing preventing a movie in that vein from being good, or great even. I think Everything Everywhere All at Once deserved its Oscar, for instance, because the "blink-and-you'll-miss-it" elements were just garnish on a film with great acting, fight choreography, etc etc rather than pure fanservice or Reddit fodder. Spider-Verse 2 is probably my favorite film of the year so far for similar reasons, but this is in spite of the movie's insistence on a third act which is basically pointing at some guy and going LOOK, IT'S SPIDER-GLORP-GIRL FROM THE SHORT-LIVED 1996 "SPIDER-GLORP" CARTOON, and then pointing at a different Spider-Glorp, and then ten Spider-Glorps, etc etc, for thirty uninterrupted minutes.
I pretty much totally agree with this piece, but more importantly I actually dig this piece. I think the difference here is that you're using Marvel as supporting evidence rather than the crux of the argument, because while certainly the past decade of MCU stuff has been bad, it's low-hanging fruit. Jordan Peele I think is more illustrative of the rot here, in part because his films are generally very good, which puts these issues into sharper relief.
I liked NOPE much more than you, I think, but it very much struck me as a film that had been drafted with the explicit aim of being Vox explainer fodder - lots of meta references to pop culture (oh, hey, did you get that the ending is kind of like JAWS?? wink wink) and a theme that's sufficiently signposted that a casual viewer will get that this movie is about "spectacle" or whatever but also vague enough that you'll still have to google what the film "meant," at which point some chinstroking Youtuber will gleefully explain Guy Debord at you for 40 minutes. It feels like an easter egg hunt moreso than a coherent work of art.
Of course, the obvious caveat is that there's nothing preventing a movie in that vein from being good, or great even. I think Everything Everywhere All at Once deserved its Oscar, for instance, because the "blink-and-you'll-miss-it" elements were just garnish on a film with great acting, fight choreography, etc etc rather than pure fanservice or Reddit fodder. Spider-Verse 2 is probably my favorite film of the year so far for similar reasons, but this is in spite of the movie's insistence on a third act which is basically pointing at some guy and going LOOK, IT'S SPIDER-GLORP-GIRL FROM THE SHORT-LIVED 1996 "SPIDER-GLORP" CARTOON, and then pointing at a different Spider-Glorp, and then ten Spider-Glorps, etc etc, for thirty uninterrupted minutes.