Since John & Wai have now waded into the waters of the Marvel Cinematic Universe, I figured now would be a good time for the more MCU-inclined amongst us to give their takes on the first 3 phases of the MCU (thus far).
What was your favorite film of the series, your least favorite, the most surprising? You don’t have to rank all 19 films, but I’ll provide my personal picks as a springboard for the convo!
CA: Winter Soldier (Great flick…But where was Steve Rogers?!?)
1.Captain America Winter Solider
2. Captain America Civil War
3. Thor Ragnarok
4. Guardians of the Galaxy
5. Iron Man
6. Black Panther
7. Spider-Man Homecoming
8. Infinity War
9. Captain America the First Avenger
10. Dr. Strange
11. The Avengers
12. Iron Man 3
13. Guardians of the Galaxy Vol. 2
14. Age of Ultron
15. Thor
16. Ant-Man
17. Iron Man 2
18. The Incredible Hulk
19. Poor Thor the Dark World
As far as the most surprising, it has to be Guardians of the Galaxy right? I remember hearing that they were going to make a GotG movie and thinking “really?”, but wow, did they do well with that source material or what?
All of the MCU flicks have been a bit surprising in that pretty much all of the film’s (except for Spidey, Hulk, and maybe Cap) were built around characters that were B-list (or lower) in terms of recognition/popularity.
But I agree, GOTG might have been the biggest risk. Not only are these characters that very few people knew, but they were totally treading on Star Trek/Wars’ territory with the space opera stuff!
My ranking of the MCU movies seems to change every time I do it. The first Avengers was number 1 for a long time. It was an amazing feat to put all the characters together and make it work. But since then we’ve seen ten other movies do it and some of them are quite frankly better. I think as I see Black Panther again it will rise up the ranking.
It’s also soo tough because even the “worst” films still have good drama, action, casting, jokes, etc that I could watch at any time. That’s the most impressive feat about this series is that after 19 movies they haven’t had a total dud.
Captain America - Winter Soldier
Iron Man
Guardians of the Galaxy
Avengers - Infinity War
The Avengers
Thor
Spider-Man: Homecomming
Captain America: Civil War
Black Panther
Captain America: The First Avenger
Iron Man 3
Avengers: Age of Ultron
Iron Man 2
Ant-Man
Thor: Ragnarok
Dr. Strange
Guardians of the Galaxy Vol. 2
The Incredible Hulk
Thor: The Dark World
I’m also a big comic book fan and love Winter Soldier because it draws heavily on two of my favorite Marvel comic book runs from the last 15 years. Ed Brubaker’s run on Captain America and Johnathan Hickman’s Secret Warriors.
First of all, I am totally ranking all nineteen films… just you try and stop me.
Captain America: Civil War
Guardians of the Galaxy
Captain America: Winter Soldier
Spider-Man: Homecoming
Captain America: The First Avenger
Avengers Assemble
Thor: Ragnarok
Black Panther
Iron Man
Guardians of the Galaxy Vol. 2
Iron Man 3
The Incredible Hulk
Thor: The Dark World
Avengers: Age of Ultron
Avengers: Infinity War
Doctor Strange
Thor
Ant-Man
Iron Man 2
I think my biggest surprise was actually Iron Man. I went to see it with a friend who is a big comic guy, whereas I wasn’t so much outside of the standards of Batman, Spidey, and X-Men. I thought Iron Man was a shit Batman and was expecting the film to be a bit of a dud. I went because no one else was interested in going with my friend and he didn’t wanna go alone - I’m a big supporter of ensuring people get to see stuff they wanna see, even if I have to suffer to keep them company - I’ve seen Nickelback twice, Shinedown once and suffered through fucking Super Hero Movie just because friends were excited about them but wouldn’t go alone… on the flipside, it’s also how I discovered CHVRCHES were one of the best live bands on the planet and got involved in promoting local punk gigs in my twenties, so you take the bad with the fucking awesome… Anyway, I digress; I always thought Iron Man was shit, but loved RDJ in Kiss Kiss Bang Bang and a bunch of other stuff so was willing to suffer through another Daredevil, Fantastic 4, or Spider-Man 3, just to see Downey being awesome.
I agree that even the “bad” MCU films have merit. Even Thor 2 functions as a perfectly acceptable popcorn flick. The difference between the worst & the best is that the best MCU joints function both as blockbuster action flicks AND good films.
The movies like Avengers, Guardians 1, Cap 2 & 3, and Black Panther I can re-watch on a regular basis (which comes in handy when FX does one of their MCU marathons)!
Not the biggest superhero movie fan but I’ve seen a lot of the films just to see what the fuss is all about. Favourite one is between Guardians of The Galaxy & Thor Ragnorak which I’d give 8/10. Most the others are a solid 7/10 to 7.5/10. Some are at a 6/10 but nothing that I’d say would surprise anyone EXCEPT for Black Panther which most people, for some reason, say was amazing.
The Iron Man trilogy is pretty solid. Even IM2, while having some story problems features great performances by RDJ, ScarJo, Cheadle, & Sam Rockwell.
There’s something about the “Marvel House Style” that works. Sure some of the film’s (particularly in Phase 2) can get formulaic…But there’s never really been a downright terrible MCU movie.
It’s a marvel (put that in the PAT) that no one else other than maybe Star Wars has been able master the “connected universe” formula.
Imagine the public reaction to the announcement of an “Ant Man” movie, a “Captain Marvel” movie or a “Guardians of the Galaxy” movie ten years ago. In retrospect it’s crazy how much goodwill Marvel has built with the MCU, especially considering that (correct me if I’m wrong) the last movies featuring Marvel Heroes to come out before Iron Man were: Spider-Man 3, X-Men: The Last Stand and Fantastic 4: Rise of the Silver Surfer.
Even after all the good movies, I never expected guardians of the Galaxy to to get over. After that one was a hit I thought “Disney can do no wrong, ant man, Dr strange, captian marvel, why not”
Another thing that’s amazing is how high Spider-Man: Homecomming is on everyone’s list. Homecomming was the third Spider-Man reboot in 15 years after five other movies (most of which were very successful critically and at the box-office).
For Marvel to take the character and make another fillm with him which felt both unique and at home in the MCU with a C-list Spider-Man villain is a tremendous accomplishment. Homecomming is definitely my favorite Spider-Man film because it’s a great high-school movie first.
Not including Incredible Hulk, it shouldn’t be included IMO.
So best was Civil War which to me was an amazing feat. It set up Infinity War, it was a great adaption of a terrific arc from the comics and it showed they can juggle a huge cast of characters without sacrificing anyone as a throw away character. Least favorite was Iron Man 3 but even that still was a decent film. Just mediocre.
Biggest suprise rankingwise to me was where Avengers and Captain America wound up. And its not because they weren’t fantastic, its just that so many better films in the universe have pushed them down. The biggest suprise in theaters was definitely Guardians of the Galaxy. I thought it was going to be awful. I was so very, very wrong.
I’d be willing to argue that Iron Man 2 is “downright terrible” and only saved because of the fantastic cast. The story is nonsense, Favreau is off his game after nailing it with the first one and it just feels like a place holder, put there to remind everyone the MCU is a thing after two years without a film from the studio and another year to wait before the next instalment which is being fronted by two unknowns and is based on a character that runs the risk of being entirely unrelateable - it just really feels like Marvel desperately trying to remind the world of that one character they loved so much and hoping it’ll curry favour with the audience for them, at least to me it does.
Could we call that “Marvel House Style” the “Marvel Method”, just to bring it all back around?
Has Star Wars really mastered the connected universe though? I mean, sure there’s always been cartoons floating around and before Disney bought Lucasfilm there was a huge extended universe outside of the films, but other than Rogue One, have they really succeeded on a grand scale with stories not connected to the Skywalker family? From my perspective - as someone that has never really ventured outside of the main films - I would say no, but I’m willing to be proven wrong. It’s actually one of the reason’s I’m so interested in Solo as a film; if it fails miserably then this experiment with films outside of the main episodes may come to an end - I’m hoping that doesn’t happen.
Just gonna throw this out there too - Kevin Smith’s ViewAskewniverse, while not on the same level of an MCU, DCEU or Star Wars, sold us separate stories within the same universe, connected together by characters outside of the main story for each film (Jay and Bob were only really main characters in Strikes Back) or simply references to events in other films (like Chasing Amy referencing scenes/characters in Clerks) and did so in a manner that is far more satisfying to most fans of those films than the connections presented in the DCEU, for instance. It is much smaller scale though and not close to the box office success of anyone else that has attempted it - well or not.
How do people feel about the MCU affiliated TV shows? We’ve not got into those here yet. I can legitimately talk about the MCU for days without stopping.
