With the release of WandaVision’s first two episodes on Disney Plus, the Marvel Cinematic Universe has returned to screens for the first time since Martin Scorsese controversially declared that its movies were “not cinema,” but rather theme park rides. (Ironically, due to the COVID-19 pandemic, “not cinema” is back in streaming form.) There are valid arguments on both sides of this debate: movies like The Avengers are undoubtedly driven by commerciality, but they also evoke strong emotions in their audiences. Met with ecstatic reviews praising its originality, WandaVision’s premiere has proven that Kevin Feige still has plenty of tricks up his sleeve and that the MCU is far from going stale or being pigeonholed by a predictable formula.
Phase Four of the MCU was supposed to kick off last summer with the long-awaited Black Widow movie, but thanks to COVID, it was pushed back (along with Eternals, which was supposed to hit theaters in November) and in its place, WandaVision has kickstarted the next chapter of Marvel’s shared cinematic canon. While Scarlett Johansson’s solo movie filling in Natasha Romanoff’s backstory will undoubtedly be a huge event when it does hit theaters, WandaVision has arguably made a much more fitting introduction to Phase Four, because it proved that the MCU still has the ability to surprise.
Marvel has given plenty of creative freedom to its directors in terms of putting an authorial stamp on their films – Thor: Ragnarok is distinctly a Taika Waititi movie, Black Panther is distinctly a Ryan Coogler movie etc. – but there are certain inherent factors that every Marvel movie needs to have. They’re not all exactly the same movie like Scorsese has suggested, but they are all action-packed spectacles with likable heroes that culminate in a big battle in the third act in which those heroes triumph over the bad guys. (Kevin Feige pointed to Infinity War as an example of the bad guys winning, but all the dead people were resurrected and the good guys won in the next one.)
Phase Three concluded with Spider-Man: Far From Home, which had its fair share of surprises courtesy of Jake Gyllenhaal’s Mysterio (although the twist that he’s really a villain was widely predicted as soon as the first trailer dropped), but despite shifting the setting to Europe, the Spidey sequel ultimately followed the same semi-rigid formula that already brought home Marvel’s bacon 22 times before. Avengers: Endgame felt like a massively satisfying series finale, and Far From Home riding on the back of its success had some fans worried that all the MCU’s future held was more of the same. Diehard Marvel fans will continue to ravenously consume the studio’s movies no matter what, but there was a real risk of franchise fatigue with the general audience, who would eventually get bored of the same shtick if there wasn’t a major shakeup. Thankfully, WandaVision has that covered.
Movies like Captain America: The Winter Soldier and Guardians of the Galaxy felt refreshing, because they subverted a lot of expectations of how they would execute the formula, but WandaVision has really broken the mold and left that formula in its dust. For starters, it embraces the fact that it’s a TV series. The Mandalorian, another streaming-based spin-off of a giant Disney-owned movie franchise, is a chapter-based adventure-of-the-week serial, but its high-octane set pieces wouldn’t feel out of place on the big screen. WandaVision truly wouldn’t work as a movie and could only work on the small screen.
In paying homage to classic sitcoms like I Love Lucy and The Dick Van Dyke Show, every aspect of WandaVision rings true, from the ‘50s-style set design to the snappy punchline-driven dialogue. With its 4:3 aspect ratio, traditional sets, and multi-camera shoot, WandaVision is a more accurate recreation of a long-forgotten filmmaking style than David Fincher’s recent Netflix release Mank, which weirdly used wide lenses in its attempt to replicate the look of Citizen Kane.
Wanda’s last adventure saw her fighting Thanos alone in a battle that would decide the fate of the universe; her first adventure in WandaVision sees her trying to cook a meal for Vision’s boss and his wife. The stakes are significantly lower, but the audience isn’t any less hooked by the story, because there are some ominous overtones that suggest all is not as it seems. There’s a dark conspiracy at play as Wanda’s seemingly fabricated TV reality is slowly unfolding.
When moviegoers settle down for the latest Marvel blockbuster, they usually have a vague idea of what to expect and leave the theater satisfied that those expectations were met and there were a couple of surprises along the way. After a beekeeper crawled out of the sewer, Wanda rewound time, and the whole world was colorized at the end of WandaVision’s second episode, fans have no idea what’s going to happen next. The series is set to run for nine episodes, and as it stands, pretty much anything could happen in the remaining seven. That’s the most refreshing thing about WandaVision – it’s following its own compass, so the audience has no expectation for how it’ll pan out and trusts the creative team to guide the way.
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