The debate on whether Marvel movies are still good is raging across the Internet right now. On one hand, you have the elitist film critic who says that because there are aliens and explosions, these movies are worthless, as if he’s never wanted to watch something just for the fun of it. On the other hand, you have the regular person who insists intellectuals are looking down on these movies because they don’t understand how exhausting the world is right now and how important mindless entertainment is. After all, how can Marvel movies be bad when Spider-Man: No Way Home was the 7th-highest-grossing movie ever?

I really hate having to agree with my snobbish genre-hating film critic strawman. But unfortunately, he’s right. These days, Marvel sucks.

You might have loved No Way Home in the theatres, but have you rewatched it since then? Try rewatching it. Not finding a funny clips compilation on TikTok, not fast-forwarding to Zendaya’s gorgeous face. The entire movie from beginning to end. Now that the jokes aren’t fresh, now that the action set pieces aren’t new, now that post-credits scene has revealed the next superhero…is it as good as it was the first time you watched it? Think of the Disney+ TV shows; I enjoyed seeing Sam and Bucky cuddle in a field of flowers, and I gasped when I found out it was Agatha all along. But I have no desire whatsoever to rewatch those shows. That tells me that Marvel isn’t enjoyable anymore; to me, the mark of good art is art you want to experience again.

I’m a comics nerd. I used to go to Marvel movies because they were adapting the best storylines and characters from one of the most expansive fictional universes ever created. Now they’re scraping the bottom of the barrel, and I go because I liked that actor in another thing or because I want to make sure my favourite doesn’t die. I go because I’m used to it. But life is too short for bad art when there’s so much good art in the world! I won’t do Marvel the disservice of comparing it against The Godfather, because they are not ‘Academy Award for Best Picture’-bait films, they are blockbusters meant for your entertainment. But movies meant to entertain can be fantastic. We rewatch Heath Ledger’s Joker saying, “Hit me, hit me” in The Dark Knight not to see if Batman will hit him, but to watch him say it. The Lord of the Rings trilogy has nearly a dozen battles with the exact same setup and weaponry, but they’re all interesting and engaging for the character and plot, not for some green-screened background. Mad Max: Fury Road didn’t bait the rest of the Mad Max franchise or bring back any old side characters, but nobody watching it cared because it’s a fantastic movie.

I’m not saying all of Marvel is bad. The jokes in Guardians of the Galaxy are still hilarious and Black Panther is just as engaging when you know Killmonger’s secret. Thor coming into his powers on the Rainbow Bridge in Thor: Ragnarok gives me chills every time, and I still cheer whenever I watch the Hulk punch a Leviathan in The Avengers. It’s heartbreaking to me that their projects started floundering under their own weight just as they started bringing more diverse stories to screen. I loved Ms. Marvel. From the soundtrack of Desi pop to the joy every single brown actor took in representing their culture in a context they never thought they’d be able to, I thought it was fantastic; the best adaptation to my favourite comic I could have asked for. Then I rewatched it and it wasn’t nearly as good, because they were so burdened by having to reference other heroes, the multiverse, and the superhero police force that they lost Kamala’s story. It’s so disappointing seeing Marvel hire all these fantastically talented creators of colour and order them to make garbage and CIA propaganda.

Why is Thor: Ragnarok one of my favourite movies of all time, but you couldn’t pay me to watch Thor: Love and Thunder, despite their casts and creative teams being identical? Why is it that I’m a bad movie connoisseur (if loving the Spy Kids franchise is wrong, I don’t want to be right) and left Doctor Strange: Multiverse of Madness halfway through? Could be: all the best comics have been adapted already, the overworked and underpaid VFX artists, the studio’s fear of spoilers restricting actors from the context of their scenes, the staleness of the formula after 15 years – take your pick. Personally, I blame it on Marvel creatives realizing we’ll keep showing up no matter how good the movies are. Since DVD sales are now negligible and streaming only increases revenue through new subscriptions, they don’t care if on rewatch people realize the movies are terrible. They aren’t making any more money from a good movie than they are from a bad movie, so it’s more cost-efficient to put some famous people in front of a green-screen than to put effort into your script.

The solution may be a boycott, but the practical solution is to raise your standards. I’m not telling you to watch deep Oscar-bait films like Women Talking (despite the fact that it’s a fantastic movie), but there is still genre fiction out there where the creators actually care about the art they’re making, instead of the money they’re making off of it. Watch William Jackson Harper in The Good Place instead of in Ant-Man and the Wasp: Quantumania. Watch Michelle Yeo being stunning in Everything Everywhere All At Once instead of being underappreciated in Shang-Chi. Watch Florence Pugh and Zendaya in Dune Volume II instead of whatever Super Secret Avengers or Spider-Man 84: Homewrecker nonsense they’re planning now. Or find even smaller productions with less famous names; personally, I’d recommend Reservation Dogs. There’s too much good genre fiction in the world to waste your time with a studio that has stopped caring if you like their movies because they know they’ll get your money either way.