Captain Marvel returns to the Marvel Cinematic Universe in the latest blockbuster to hit the screens - but how will The Marvels stack up against previous superhero films? Brie Larson’s previous turn as Carol Danvers in 2019’s Captain Marvel was a box office smash, despite the best efforts of trolls who reportedly tried to “review bomb” the movie with negative reviews in a sexist backlash against the star.
That may help to explain why the movie was given such a low score from audiences using the movie aggregator site Rotten Tomatoes, while it was broadly liked by critics. Captain Marvel received a healthy 79% on the “Tomatometer” - which is based on multiple reviews from critics - but an audience score of just 45%.
That was easily the lowest score awarded by audiences to any Marvel movie. The next worst MCU film according to audiences was The Incredible Hulk, which scored a fairly respectable 69% following its release in 2008. And while it’s clear that some audience reviewers simply thought Captain Marvel was a bad movie, many cited “feminist” or “woke” themes as a reason for their poor reviews.
In the latest movie, Ms Larson is joined by Iman Vellani (Ms Marvel/ Komala Khan) and Tayonah Parris (Captain Monica Rambeau) as they battle to save the universe and defeat the trolls. While Captain Marvel received the lowest audience score on Rotten Tomatoes, it was this year’s Ant-Man and the Wasp: Quantumania that was most disliked by critics, scoring 46% on the Tomatometer, despite an audience rating of 82%.
And according to critics, the best MCU movie was Black Panther, which was also the first superhero film to receive a Best Picture nomination at the Oscars. It received a score of 96% on the Tomatometer, but audiences were less enthusiastic, awarding it 79%. However, the movie’s depiction of a black superhero lead did anger racist trolls who vowed to review bomb the internet. Perhaps tellingly the sequel didn’t attract the same sort of trolling and received an audience score of 94%.
According to audiences, the best MCU movies are Spider-Man: No Way Home, and Shang-Chi and the Legend of the Ten Rings which were both released in 2021 and both scored 98%. Combining the average scores of both audiences and critics reveals that Spiderman: No Way Home is the best of all 32 live-action MCU films
The movie saw Toby Maguire and Andrew Garfield reprise their roles as previous iterations of Peter Parker to join the latest version, Tom Holland in a multi-verse epic that scored 93% on the Tomatometer and an overall average of 96%. As for the most popular Marvel character, average scores from multiple films featuring the same superhero show that Spider-Man is the biggest hit with both audiences (93%) and critics (92%) alike.
