When Disney and Marvel announced their Phase 4 slate of releases, What If...? Was something I was certainly looking forward to. After experiencing Phase 4, my expectations were lowered a great deal but I was still interested in checking it out and seeing what kind of else-world stories we might be getting. After watching the entire season, the ensuing disappointment reared its ugly head yet again.
Most of the episodes had What If scenarios superficially executed, filled to the brim with one-liners and jokes that seldom had an impact made worse by the fact that the pacing and runtime hardly gave whatever plot points they were trying to push room to breathe. A rollercoaster ride of either it's just fine or meh. The lack of creativity was also disappointing but not surprising.
To make matters worse, the voice acting was sub-par for the majority of the season with performances feeling as if they were lazily phoned in by the Actors who played the characters in a much better way in their respective Live-Action outings. The soundtrack was mostly generic for the majority of it even though they have a plethora of good tracks from the past to choose from which they hardly did.
The animation was nice, though, even if I wish they would have gone full 2-D with it. At first, I didn't like it but got used to it and was glad that the 3-D stuff wasn't wonky or janky but rather smooth and fluid with some episodes showcasing beautiful stuff and thrilling fight scenes. The faces of some characters, however, could have used a lot more work.
A couple of episodes did stand out, though, and made the entire experience not feel worthless which, ironically, ultimately made it frustrating that why waste all those other episodes mucking around and playing them for laughs and giggles when stuff like this is far more impactful. The Doctor Strange one is my favourite, which surprise surprise works best since it's focused and The Ultron one which gave everyone who was disappointed by Age of Ultron's depiction of that character something to enjoy, even if I wish it was focused more on Ultron and less on other characters.
It all culminates in a mixed bag of a finale which had some truly shoddy writing to justify what happens even though the concept itself was pretty cool. In better hands, I could see this working wonderfully and that's pretty much the running theme of Phase 4 so far. In better hands, there is so much potential but seeing it all go to waste because of poor decision making when it comes to hiring writers and directors... it's just sad and frustrating to see a franchise I loved screw itself up like this.
All in all, it's not the worst thing Phase 4 has put out. Most of the episodes, despite me railing on them above, still had some nuggets of entertainment in them which hey, if you just wanna have just some light forgettable fun, they'll most likely work. A couple of good episodes do make it worth it to check it out at least if you are or was a fan of MCU. Also makes me excited for Multiverse of Madness... please be good *fingers crossed*. It just sucks to see the wasted potential. And if I were to rate Season 1 of What If...?, I'd give it a 6/10.
