Even its most staunch supporters must admit that the MCU’s best days seem long behind it. The franchise’s most recent efforts have underperformed with critics, audiences or both, to the point where even well-received efforts like Thunderbolts* struggled to break even at the box office. Sure, Marvel can still command our attention like few other franchises can, but the days when they had absolute dominance over the entertainment landscape seem like a thing of the past.
Still, things aren’t as bleak as they might sound. The MCU’s batting average is still great, considering only five of their projects have rotten scores in the popular review aggregator Rotten Tomatoes. Of those five, a few are far more frustrating than others, considering all the hype and anticipation they had. Indeed, while you could very much tell some of these were inevitably bound to be underwhelming, others came as a genuine surprise. This list will rank every rotten MCU movie and show based on how disappointing they were. We had such high hopes for a few of these, and seeing the finished product was outright heartbreaking.
5
‘Iron Fist’ (2017-2018)
Created by Scott Buck
Poor Iron Fist. The black sheep of the MCU, the show is probably everyone’s punching bag, a testament that too much of something great is never a good idea. Finn Jones does a solid job as Iron Fist, but the entire show feels and looks like an outlier; the production values are cheap, the plot feels out of place in the overall MCU, and the performances carry an air of amateurishness that is hard to shake off.
Then there’s the matter that Iron Fist has never exactly been a popular character. No one was actually asking for an Iron Fist show, so when it turned out to be disappointing, hardly anyone cared. In fact, many just saw it as a confirmation that, outside of Daredevil, the Netflix MCU shows were mostly skips. In the years since its cancellation in 2018, Iron Fist has maintained its status as an unnecessary experiment that pleased no one — neither MCU fans nor ardent Iron Fist loyalists were particularly enchanted by the show or its treatment of the legendary hero. Iron Fist was disappointing, but then again, we all expected it to be.
4
‘Eternals’ (2021)
Directed by Chloé Zhao
Following her Oscar-winning, minimalist drama Nomadland, Chloé Zhao did a full 180 and ventured into the MCU. For her superhero debut, Zhao went with the Eternals, one of the MCU’s lesser groups, and assembled one of the franchise’s most interesting casts, including Oscar winner Angelina Jolie, Oscar nominees Salma Hayek and Barry Keoghan, and fan-favorite actor Richard Madden.
The result of taking Zhao’s well-known contemplative approach and trying to blend it with Marvel’s formulaic, action-driven, joke-by-the-minute approach was Eternals, quite possibly the most misunderstood film in the MCU. The film is not bad; it’s simply different, more talky and emotional, character-driven rather than plot-driven. It’s also undeniably uneven, with a screenplay that struggles to balance its more humane instincts with the demands of a superhero tentpole. Yet, Eternals is still not a bad effort; it’s not disappointing because it actually offered something worthwhile, a refreshing change of pace amid the typical Marvel fare. Time will only be kind to Eternals, and it wouldn’t be surprising if it is soon reclaimed as a standout gem of Marvel’s late age.
3
‘Ant-Man & the Wasp: Quantumania’ (2023)
Directed by Peyton Reed
The Ant-Man series was never peak MCU entertainment. Sure, Paul Rudd was delightful — when isn’t he? — the supporting cast was stellar, and the films had fun with the hero’s gimmicky powers. However, in the MCU’s grand scale, the Ant-Man movies were always small peanuts compared to the other, universe-threatening adventures, and there was nothing wrong with that. It was nice to have a hero be focused on smaller fights without forcing him into space or whatever. However, for some reason, the MCU thought it would be a good idea to introduce the next big bad, Kang the Conqueror (Jonathan Majors), in Ant-Man’s third movie, a choice everyone could tell was wrong except for Marvel.
Thus, Ant-Man and the Wasp: Quantumania was saddled with a responsibility it should’ve never had in the first place. Even if the movie had been as good as its predecessors, it would’ve still been merely “okay” by the MCU’s standards. Unfortunately, it was actively mediocre, with a dumb screenplay, bizarre creative choices, an abundance of the silly humor that so many dislike from the MCU, and a villain who seemed desperate to stand out yet barely even registered. Rudd is as charming as ever, and the supporting cast, most notably the iconic Michelle Pfeiffer as Janet Van Dyne, make a considerable effort to elevate the whole thing. In the end, though, Quantumania was just a disappointing mess of shoehorned, sloppy ideas. Its failure to set up the MCU’s next big bad also meant it was an underwhelming closure to Scott Lang’s trilogy, becoming yet another case of the MCU sacrificing its characters’ development in favor of setting up future movies.
2
‘Captain America: Brave New World’ (2025)
Directed by Julius Onah
Sam Wilson’s (Anthony Mackie) first solo outing as Captain America was a highly anticipated event for many. A constant figure in the MCU for over a decade, Wilson would finally step into the spotlight on the big screen with Captain America: Brave New World, which would also feature the debut of Harrison Ford as Thadeus “Thunderbolt” Ross. The film also saw the return of some truly underrated figures, most notably The Leader (Tim Blake Nelson) and Isaiah Bradley (Carl Lumbly).
What should’ve been a huge turning point in the MCU instead became yet another disappointing entry. Brave New World tried to be many things at once and failed at all of them, becoming more a sequel to The Incredible Hulk than a logical progression to Sam’s arc from The Falcon and the Winter Soldier. Out of any entry on this list, Brave New World has perhaps the most wasted potential, considering the actors and characters featured. Consider that this film is the big-screen debut of the Red Hulk; however, the film doesn’t do right by the character because it is still a Captain America movie. Yet, because Red Hulk and Harrison Ford were such a big part of the marketing, the runtime is almost evenly split between him and Wilson, meaning Sam often seems like a supporting player in his solo movie.
1
‘Secret Invasion’ (2023)
Created by Kyle Bradstreet
No project in the MCU has been more disappointing than Secret Invasion. The storyline is among Marvel’s most iconic and had massive repercussions in the comics world, changing the status quo for a while and featuring significant changes to many prominent characters. Many fans believed a storyline like Secret Invasion was important enough to spread over a whole MCU saga, so it was something of a surprise when it instead became a Disney+ show. Still, the prospect of a show led by Samuel L. Jackson with such a spectacular supporting cast was enough to give fans hope for a quality project.
Instead, what we received was a tonally confused, uneven, and often infuriating mess that made every single bad choice it could. Secret Invasion undid much of Nick Fury’s arc, fridged Maria Hill (Cobie Smulders), ruined Rhodey’s (Don Cheadle) characterization, and sacrificed Talos (Ben Mendelsohn) for pure shock value. Then there is its poor treatment of a stellar cast. How do you waste Emilia Clarke, Olivia Colman, and Kingsley Ben-Adir at once? Secret Invasion is arguably the single worst thing the MCU has ever done, not just for its lackluster execution but for how badly it fumbled an iconic storyline that had the potential to change the franchise for good. No movie or show even comes close to being so disappointing.