Age of Ultron should have been so much better.
I largely try to avoid the internet cliche of crapping all over other things other people obviously enjoy, but I found the entirety of MCU to be an interminable bore.
With one notable exception. Thor Ragnarok was brill. Brill enough to warrant this otherwise snooty post.
(My partner enjoys these things thus my fate here was sealed. In fairness, some were ok, but others were so dreary I deeply regret being forced to stay until the end. I guess Guardians Vol I would be my distant 2nd)
The first Avengers really stands up to multiple viewings, and actually gets better with time, as you can really appreciate a lot of the camera shots, and the challenge of filming a group movie with so many stars.
I went Iron Man 1, Avengers 1, Winter Soldier, but there are a lot to love.
Ragnarok is the best of the Thor movies, and is a pure popcorn fest. GoG movies are a lot of fun too, but don’t make the top 3 for me.
Black Panther is really, really good, and probably deserved its Oscar nomination (with field of 10 understood), and Boseman/Jordan Jr. are really good. It didn’t make my cut because I felt the other 3 were just a cut above for comic fans. Winter Soldier is still IMHO the best MCU movie.
If you like Shane Black movies (as I do), Iron Man 3 is a lot of fun.
Civil War is good for 2 reasons - Spidey and Black Panther. As the introduction of Tom Holland and Spidey to the MCU, he’s fantastic. Boseman is even better, and when you think he did all his marvel movies with colon cancer, it’s even more amazing - RIP.
Homecoming is great, with Tom Holland as a perfect Spider Man, Ned as a great sidekick, and a fantastically villainous performance by Michael Keaton.
Infinity War/Endgame are great too, though the soulstone sequences just don’t work well for me in a comic book movie. They are important, but not as well executed as they could be. As the capstones to 20+ movies however, they are quire impressive.
Endgame is better than Infinity War, if you ask me–specifically because IW was mostly just fightsfightsfights and EG had more character moments and a fun central conceit. That said, Endgame is LONG and it benefits from familiarity with basically every movie in the franchise. A lot of the fun is in callbacks and cross-movie character arcs.
Just 5 choices is hard because you can’t even dip your toes into all the main branches of the MCU and then finish with Avengers IW and Endgame.
I saw all of them. To me they’re all on a decent to great scale, where they gain from being part of a universe, but sometimes lose from having a feeling of something you’ve kinda already seen before, with the best ones being both great and escaping that sameness feeling. Great entertainment, if that’s all you’re looking for.
And if you’re an old school Marvel comics fan, IW and Endgame are just mind blowing.
I co-sign all of this. Probably rate Black Panther a bit closer to it, though.
But disagree with all this. I enjoy the lower stakes of the Antman movies and really like Paul Rudd and his crew. I don’t know why exactly, but Dr. Strange clicked with me. I don’t even like Cumberbatch ordinarily.
The ending to Dr Strange I like, defeating the villain by making him go crazy in a Sisyphean trap. Otherwise it was unremarkable to me. Like a second tier Iron Man, since it follows so much of the same broad character arc.
FWIW, I did like a lot of Doctor Strange a lot (and love Cumberbatch), but I was always put off by how standoffish and generally what a wang he is initially. Which, like, I get is the point, but those kinds of interactions always rub me the wrong way. There’s some amazing worldbuilding there, and the final “fight” is brilliantly done.
That’s my favorite moment in the MCU and might be why I rate it so highly. The whole ending is basically a subversion of the typical MCU ending and I remember thinking it was neat. But, it does hit a lot of the same story beats as the first Iron Man—which I had not seen when I first saw Dr. Strange—so I can see the average viewer being less enamored with it. the visual effects were great too, though.
To expand on my voting more, Ragnarok is the only MCU film I think is legitimately great. Black Panther comes next closest but is merely very good. Same for Infinity War. I rewatched Dr. Strange a few times so I rate it next highest. I like the Ant Man movies a fair bit, but I don’t have a great urge to re-watch them. The others run the gamut from okay-to-subpar, with a few exceptions (i.e., the bad ones).
These films are really more experience movies or like a long-running, high budget TV show. Many do not work so well in isolation or hold up as particularly good films on their own. It’s in the aggregate that the MCU is interesting and enjoyable. For me, it was a tradition to see them in theatres around the holidays with my sister and the odd other family member, so they mean a bit more to me as things my sister really enjoyed and so some of her enthusiasm transferred to me around the holidays rather than as truly amazing films on their own.
Best MCU Movies That Can Stand Alone With Little To No Knowledge of Any Others:
- The Avengers (2012)
- Guardians of the Galaxy 1
- Thor: Ragnarok
- Black Panther
- Captain America: The Winter Soldier
- Ant-Man
- Iron Man
Best MCU Movies That May Require Sequenced or Supplemental Viewing:
- Iron Man 3 (requires The Avengers)
- Captain America: Civil War (requires one or both of Age of Ultron and Winter Soldier, maybe both)
- Infinity War + Endgame*
The rest range from bad to fine, but I enjoyed watching almost all of them, mostly because I saw them with my wife and my best friend, and a lifetime of comics nerdery has biased me to enjoy them. I have warm, fuzzy memories of even the bad ones.
*I think one’s enjoyment of Infinity War and Endgame is positively correlated to their enjoyment of the MCU as a whole. Not all of the previous movies are required to understand them, but god damn you’ll be lost if you start with those.
Just watched Spiderman: Homecoming. It was pretty good, Keaton was a very human villain, made it much more interesting. Some parts felt rushed, the finale where Spidey saves Keaton was well done. I wonder if the second Spiderman movie is worth it. The trailer looks like it is again a bit bloated like some of the MCUs
Also, an honorary mention to those phone cam recordings of movie theater audiences going nuts in that one scene in Endgame. Characters enter, stage left. Probably boring to people who have not seen any of the MCU movies, but damned if that wasn’t one of the most beautiful and moving moments shared with friends and strangers and fans of heroes punching bad guys through walls.
I like Far From Home a lot. The gimmick slowly revealed with the villains in that one is maybe a little too clever to actually stand up to any serious thought (and I say this knowing full well “But it’s a comic book movie!”), but the character beats for the field trip segments are just so good, and Holland, Zendaya, and Batalon are all so fucking charming.
Plus that great scene where Captain America and Tony are arguing and Cap says Tony won’t have the guts to dive on the grenade when the time comes.
Avengers still for me. It may not be the best MCU movie, but it’s still my favorite for presenting the comic Marvel universe in a film. Everything about it is consistently good.
Black Panther comes so close, but I absolutely hate the poor CG final fight between Poser models on a videogame bridge.
Guardians of the Galaxies for me. I would have been happy only voting for it, but it made me vote for two more. So Winter Soldier, which was ok, and Dr. Strange, simply because I love Dr. Strange and love Cumberbatch.
My problem with the MCU movies is the stories aren’t particularly strong, so the appeal seems to be that you get to see your favorite superheroes on the big screen with expensive CGI action scenes. Kinda cool, but not so much that they become a top viewing choice for me. I think I’ve seen seven of the movies listed, and only a few of those at the theater.
I remember trying to watch one of the Avenger movies on TV and it started with them fighting in some kind of big battle and the heroes were running around doing their thing, and it was just boring after a couple of minutes.
That’s not really the appeal for me. I’d never heard of Captain America before except for Stephen Colbert mentioning him all the time on his show. I’d definitely never heard of Iron Man when that movie came out. For me what makes them rare is that outside of James Bond, it’s tough to find good, competent exciting action movies. The first Captain America wasn’t that, by the way. It was pretty boring, and such a huge chunk of the beginning and end of that movie was completely pointless if you view it on its own. But that setup the sequel in which I really cared about the character in his fish out of water story, a hero outside his time. And that’s one of the keys to a good action movie: the audience has to care about what happens to the characters. That’s why The Matrix was one of the rare good action movies, and quite a few of these MCU movies are the same to me. I certainly don’t miss the days when, as an action movie fan, I had to settle for the likes of Michael Bay movies, or Roland Emmerich movies.
I have a nagging suspicion that @newbrof wants to undermine Captain America: the Winter Soldier by changing its name into the bizarre “The Return of the First Avenger”. 🤣😂😒
GotG did nothing for me. It is another run-of-the-mill space opera IMO.
Endgame is only 1 year old? Man, 2020 feels like 2 years!
this list looks good. Started watching Return of First Avenger, had it on BluRay for a couple of years. So far so good, but it was a bit late at night, I had to pause. Not sure if I already watched it or only trailers of it. I have this condition, have I told you about it?
So Black Panther is definitely next on my list to watch.
I want to see Endgame, but I have to rewatch Infinity War as a refresher, so this will cost some bucks. Maybe Civil War first.
Captain Marvel was on many top ten lists, but not in this forum. So I should skip it…
On the Winter Soldier BluRay was a trailer for Guardians 1, I need to watch it again, it had really good pace.
I think it’s pretty awesome and has a ton of great moments, but it didn’t quite squeeze into my top 5 from the franchise. It features the most of Samuel Jackson as any of the movies, and he’s one of the best parts of the MCU :)