The 4 lowest rated MCU movies since Thor: The Dark World

In order of lowest rated first:

1. Captain Marvel
2. Black Widow
3. Ant Man & The Wasp
4. Black Panther

Even if you set aside The Avengers Movies, and The Guardians movies, that still puts them at the bottom of the pile under 7 movies with 5 white different male leads.

If all of those movies had been great, I would be welcoming the Marvel Diverse Universe with open arms. But the proof is in the pudding. Clearly when you prioritize check boxes over story telling and talent, then the product suffers.
Now to be fair, Ryan Coogler was clearly qualified for the job, and Black Panther just barely makes it on to this list. Part of the reason that movie sucked was also the terrible CGI at the end, which has to be firmly laid at the feet of Disney, who clearly didn't believe in the movie enough to allocate the proper budget. It is still striking that all 4 of these films sunk to the bottom though. It's hard to say why Ant-Man and The Wasp turned out not so good, I think Peyton Reed may just be a bit of a pedestrian director and was exposed by having to carry this one totally on his own.

But Captain Marvel and Black Widow clearly showcased what happens when you hire directors who just aren't qualified for the job. Cate Shortland was hand picked by Scarlett Johansson, and initially didn't even want to take the job. Imagine how many directors are clamouring over each other to get the shot at a Marvel movie?
Now I am not saying she is a bad director. There was clearly some good character work in Black Widow. But that it not enough to pull of this kind of movie. In an interview she said "the action scenes give the audience a break". That quote demonstrates she just does not understand the genre, and certainly has no love for it. A lot of the blame has been laid at the feet of Marvel for shoehorning in ridiculous CGI action scenes that clashed with the tone of the movie. But that is the fault of the director. Sure, Marvel has all of the machinery to handle the special effects and choreagraphy, but it is up to the director to integrate that into the story and give their unique flavor. I get the impression that Cate Shortland just had no interest in the action scenes and left it up to the studio to put it all together.
Take Taika Waititi for example. He didn't have any experience with big budget special effect action movies, but the action in that movie was clearly elevated by directorial choices he made.
The Russos talked at length in interviews about making the crazy action scenes in the Avengers movies as grounded in physical reality as possible. Because they actually cared.

So we have Shang Chi coming up, a movie directed by a person whose main qualification it that he is Asian. Eternals directed by an Asian Woman who didn't seem to have much of a CV to speak of. Captain Marvel directed by a black woman. I mean, it's good that Marvel are putting their money where their mouth is and putting "diverse" people not just in front of the camera. But is it going to make the movies good? Kevin Feige said that Marvel are working very hard to make the MCU as good as they can, and are not taking their foot of the gas. But this really looks like taking the foot of the gas. If he had taken this approach to phase one, would there even be an MCU now? Almost certainly not.

It's noteworthy on the other hand that spider-man, Doctor Strange and Fantastic 4 all have white male directors. No one ever really talks about Taiki Waititi being aboriginal do they? I wonder why. Along with Thor 4 and Guardians of the Galaxy 3, I would put money on those being the best Marvel movies to come out in the next few years. It's almost like Feige regards the rest as practice school.