... and then they pull back as soon as they might be about to say anything interesting, or take anything but a very-boring stance on any position. Looking at y

... and then they pull back as soon as they might be about to say anything interesting, or take anything but a very-boring stance on any position. Looking at you, Falcon & Winter Soldier. And Wandavision, for that matter. And several of the movies—friggin' Spiderman: Far From Home, ugh. Even Black Panther ends up feeling like a missed opportunity that almost went somewhere interesting, had all the pieces in place to, then... just didn't, I suspect in part because it would likely have required a less-well-proven-in-superhero-movies story structure, so would have been riskier. The second one revisits that a little and tries to recover some of the potential the first one just left lying on the floor, but damn, that first one could have been great, period, not just "decent for a Marvel movie". It's almost better when they don't even hint that they might be trying to convey a message or have interesting themes, because then it's frustrating when they inevitably fail to follow through. It's so bad that when one of the films manages to have even fairly-safe themes and actually treats them half-decently and takes well-worn, safe positions on them (the Guardians films) it puts them at the very top of the Marvel pile, so far as that aspect is concerned, at least. They tease messages and interesting themes more often than they really commit to them, unfortunately.