One good thing about Shang-Chi is people are finally starting to acknowledge that Black Widow wasn't that good, especially when you think of how good it could've been given inspiration from the source material and fellow spy movies.
The bad thing is people are acting like it's one of the best superhero films ever made and it's not even close. And the main reason both films suffer is the same: great setups managed by competent directos that are let down by their third acts.
And I learned recently why this is the case: Marvel doesn't have the directors make the third act anymore. The studio has its own pre-selected crew come in and quite literally "factory produce" it. no wonder Black Widow couldn't follow through on some darker tones about trafficking and felt the need to go for light-hearted falling from an exploding sky castle. And no wonder Shang-Chi shortchanged itself with a big CGI monster battle that doesn't come anywhere near the first minute of its own bus fight scene.
Imagine if Black Widow had more of a "Taken" vibe and finale, something much more dramatic and grounded. Imagine if Shang-Chi's final battle was him vs. his dad, but instead of (rushed) CGI monsters and weapons, the rings were somehow disposed of or deactivated so they had to fight completely hand-to-hand. Then we get this grounded, slow, dramatic fight that would be a mix of Ahsoka Tano vs. the Magister and Donnie Yen's dramatic fights in "Ip Man" and "Flash Point."
There are some writing issues too, and that's largely because the scripts are not given time — Black Widow's script was written in less than two weeks with no revisions, last I heard.
What's made the MCU great has been the films that did something new and took risks, which were usually the films where directors had more creative freedoms. Winter Soldier, Guardians, and Thor: Ragnarok usually sit high on people's all-time favorite MCU films precisely because creators were given freedom. I think having literal factory-produced finales could spell the end for it in the longrun.
Genuinely curious to hear other people's thoughts. I've always been an ultra-MCU fan who would defend it vigorously, but I keep getting worried based on how well they're able to set up a premise but then fail to execute a satisfying conclusion.
