Hey everybody, this is Kent. I want to tell you what we’re doing and why. The premise is simple, there are 21 movies under the MCU umbrella, and we ranked them. Pretty simple stuff. The reason why is because Avengers: Endgame comes out a week from now. Last year, when Stan Lee died, Eric contacted me and wanted to do an MCU themed blog. I loved the idea, but I was simply burned out mentally because October is insane for me. So I inevitably did what I usually do, I made excuses with good intentions and wanted to come back to the idea, but I haven’t….yet. Then Chris T contacted me about this list that he wanted to do. This seemed like so much less work, and yet it felt like a jumping off point to get back to the original idea.
Hopefully, we will eventually do some MCU reviews, movie by movie, but this was a fun project to get started with. I want to thank everybody who took the time to contribute to this. This was a lot of fun and I would love to do more things like this in the future. Thank you to Eric, Chris B, Sheila, Glenn, and Chris T. It should be noted, if we hadn’t seen the film, we didn’t rank it. That seemed fair. We hope that you enjoy. I did try to edit this where I saw fit for spelling and punctuation.
Eric S
1. Iron Man. This is what started the whole universe. The best of all the Iron Man movies.
2. Iron Man 2. Other than changing Col. James Rhodes character. I still like the story arc of introducing Black Widow.
3. Guardians of the galaxy. Who doesn’t love Groot?
4. Captain America. Really good writing and sets the stage for Capt’s moral arc and character development.
5. Avengers. Epic in its own right. Bringing all of the characters together for the first time. Really the best representation of the MCU. “ Does anyone know what Schwarma is?”
6. Thor. While I enjoyed this movie, I feel that it lacked in all of the MCU movies
7. Captian America: Winter Soldier.
8. Captian America: Civil war. This movie, while exciting, felt like it jammed characters in the movie just to have them there.
9. Incredible Hulk. I just wish they could have stayed with one actor to play the Hulk.
10. Spider-Man Homecoming: Once again, having so many people play Spidey takes away from continuity.
11. Dr. Strange.
12. Thor: the Dark World
13. Thor Ragnarok
14. Avengers Age of Ultron. From what I know about Ultron, they completely changed his and Vision’s origin. Correct me if I’m wrong.
15. Ant-Man: once again the movie was okay. Did they change the origin story?
16. Black Panther
17. Gardians of the Galaxy: Volume 2.
18. Ant-man and the Wasp
19. Avengers Infinity War. Good story, good action and effects. Star-Lord cost them the win.
20. Captian Marvel. Haven’t seen it, but I’m sure it’s better than Iron Man 3
21. Ironman 3. Just terrible
Chris B.
1. Captain America: Winter Soldier. I feel this movie had the best story and acting. It had darker tones, especially for a Captain America movie.
2. Guardians of the Galaxy.
3. Avengers: Infinity War. Not the best overall movie, but it was just so epic in scale.
4. The Avengers.
5. Iron Man.
6. Captain America: Civil War.
7. Spider-Man Homecoming. Only because I’m a Spider-Man fanboy. Plus Michael Keaton killed as Vulture.
8. Black Panther.
9. Dr Strange.
10. Guardians of the Galaxy: Volume 2.
11. The Incredible Hulk. I think this movie is very underrated.
12. Avengers: Age of Ultron. I would have ranked this higher, but I felt that Ultron was not portrayed as the badass he is.
13. Iron Man 2.
14. Thor: Ragnarok
15. Captain Marvel.
16. Ant man.
17. Captain America
18. Ant Man and the Wasp.
19. Thor: The Dark World
20. Thor.
21. Iron Man 3.
Sheila Blowers & Glenn (The Nature Boy)
1. Dr Strange
2. Avengers
3. Captain America Civil War
4. Captain America First Avengers
5. Ant-Man
6. Black Panther
7. Guardians of the Galaxy
8. Avengers Age of Ultron
9. Avengers Age of Infinity War
10. Ant-Man and the Wasp
Honorable mention – Deadpool (Kent: I included this because originally I didn’t specify what movies counted and didn’t count, so I felt that since this made their original 10, I would give it an honorable mention.)
Chris T.
One of the things that my time in the military taught me, and that I believe strongly in, is that when you review anything, you start with the bad and end with the good. It is always a much better idea to break people/things/plans down and build them back up, rather than ending something on a sour note. So my ranking starts at the bottom and works its way to the top. (Kent: So glad that I read this after I did the exact opposite and now feel like a schmuck. Thanks, Chris, really appreciate it.)
21. Iron Man 3: So how do you follow up the amazing hit that the Avengers movie was? You take one of the best Oscar-winning actors on the planet, Sir Ben Kingsley, and then completely waste both: a) him as a character, and (b) the character he is supposed to be playing. The Mandarin could have been both a complex and cool character and instead, we get the Extremis storyline extremely early in the continuity and a waste of 2 movies potential foreshadowing, with the terrorists and Hammer Industries being funded by the 10 Rings. Guy Pierce is another amazing actor wasted, Rebecca Hall was supposed to originally be the villain, and while I can’t pretend to see how that story would have ended, it would have probably been better than this honking piece of shit. The only things that sell this movie are a handful of pretty cool action scenes, Robert Downey Jr.’s relationship with the kid in this movie, and the fact that they gave Tony Stark PTSD from the events of the invasion in New York. Very rarely do comic book movies acknowledge the trauma that the superhero life would bring, and this is one of the few that does that. I have heard this movie encapsulated perfectly: “This is a decent Shane Black movie, but a shitty MCU movie”. I couldn’t agree more.
20. Thor: The Dark World: So how do you follow up the worst movie in the MCU franchise? You make the second worst movie in the MCU franchise. Thor: TDW isn’t bad as much as bleh. Christopher Eccleston and Adewale Akinnuoye-Agbaje are wasted as villains Malekith and Kurse. They never really are given any kind of motivation or character. By this time Natalie Portman had checked out as Jane Foster and it shows. Kat Dennings is given waaaaaaay too much forced comedy and most of it doesn’t land. Thor worked because it was Shakespearean conflict packaged into a comic book movie and directed by one of the most prominent Shakespearean directors living. This was originally supposed to be directed by Patty Jenkins, who left the project to film Wonder Woman, and I can only wonder at what this movie would have been is she had stayed or if Alan Taylor had had as much time to make it as he would have if he had been first pick.
19. Iron Man 2: Lots of people place this below all of the other movies, and I can see a case to be made for that. Being the third movie in the MCU, Marvel hadn’t perfected their formula yet. Again, as is a common theme at the bottom of this list (and even the top, we’ll get to that later), Mickey Rourke and Sam Rockwell are wasted as the villains. Rourke chews the scenery as Whiplash, who gets kicked by the fanboys for being different than his comic book incarnation (a dude dressed up in fetish wear with whips coming out of his gauntlets rather than in power armor like Iron Man), and Rockwell does as much as he can with what he is given as Justin Hammer. Casting Scarlet Johansson as Black Widow was amazing though, and it is a travesty that she has not gotten her solo movie yet. Overall when I left the theater after seeing this with my wife and friends I was disappointed. They asked me why and I felt (and still feel) like the core of this movie is a man trying to overcome his very real fear of dying (since you know, that is what he currently is doing) and none of his friends trying to make any real attempt to figure out what is going on. They take his business and his suit and make wisecracks when the truth is revealed, but Rhodey and Pepper seem very anti-Tony in this one, in a way that they haven’t since.
18. Avengers: Age of Ultron: So after the success of the first Avengers and following the phenomenal Winter Soldier, everyone was getting pumped for Avengers 2. We had Ultron, and Baron Strucker, and Klaw as villains. Well, see the above for wasted villains. James Spader’s Ultron looked awesome and freaky in the trailers and somehow turned into a pathetic Pinocchio wannabe. The two mutants on the team are now labeled as miracles instead to get around Fox’s ownership of the X-men rights; yeah, okay. Ultron in the comic books is one of the all-time greatest villains the Avengers have ever faced, and here he is reduced in stature to fit well into the earlier entry into the MCU. As well, Avengers set up Thanos as the major villain of the arc and he gets no mention here. Basically, this was what caused me to begin doubting Joss Whedon would ever elevate himself beyond the formula that he has been working with forever.
17. The Incredible Hulk: A lot of the placement for this movie is derived from A) it not being a cinematic universe yet and (B) being something of a standalone movie as we have the only major Avenger recasting. Edward Norton didn’t have a bad take on Bruce Banner, but Mark Ruffalo brings an emotional vulnerability that he did not show. The action wasn’t badly done. Probably the biggest downside to this film was the dropped characters and plot threads: We haven’t seen Emil Blonsky/Abomination since that movie. Likewise, the Leader hasn’t shown up to give us the antithesis of the hulk (someone who gets smarter instead of stronger due to gamma radiation). Betty has disappeared and thus never become Betty Banner; this leads to her probably never dying because of who she married, which makes it hard to ever see any of the familial drama from Greg Pak’s freaking amazing Incredible Hulk run. Not bad, not great pretty forgettable.
16. Ant-Man and the Wasp: I wanted to dislike this more than I do, but I can’t. A good portion of that is the changes they made to Hope. She no longer feels like being a bitch is her main selling point. The 2 biggest problems with this movie are: 1) lack of a compelling villain and (2) it came out right after Infinity War and did nothing to further where that story left off. They gave us a cliffhanger and then opened the next act on completely different characters, prior to the cliffhanger. They could have changed the after credits scene and flip-flopped the two movies and I think this one would have come out much stronger.
15. Ant-Man: I should like this movie a lot more than I do. I love Paul Rudd, Michael Douglas, and Corey Stoll. But this movie straight up feels formulaically like an origin story to me. Not that that is a bad thing considering that Ant-Man doesn’t have anywhere near the name recognition that Iron Man does or that most people familiar with him would be familiar with the Hank Pym version. It just doesn’t strike that sweet spot for me. The humor didn’t land as well as say Ragnarok or Guardians and again, Yellow-jacket is basically just a greedy asshole.
14. Doctor Strange: I am not a Doctor Strange fan from the comics. I appreciate the character’s purpose but I don’t really ever recall enjoying any of his solo stories. But I love Benedict Cumberbatch. I love Mads Mikkelsen, and Scott Derrickson had my number 1 movie on the last top 10 list Kent and I did. Like Ant-Man, I enjoyed it, but it wasn’t by any means my personal favorite. They wasted Mads (if nothing else, using his face to shape Dormammu’s would have made me happy). However, this edges out Ant-Man, because it finally and unequivocally brings real magic into the MCU; not the idea that sufficiently developed technology is magic, but real magic. Which opens us up to a bunch of cool characters and ideas: I would love to see a Midnight Son’s show or movie get off the ground. And, while Ant-Man’s shrinking was impressive, the dimension-hopping, Inception-like imagery was amazing in this movie.
13. Thor: Chris Hemsworth might get my vote for the most improved actor of the OG Avengers. I knew Scar Jo, Robert Downey, Renner, Mark Ruffalo, and Chris Evans could act before they showed up as their on-screen incarnations; Hemsworth was a question mark. Compare his performance here to Infinity War and you’ll see what I mean. Like I mentioned above in the Dark World, this is basically Shakespeare with gods and superheroes. Tom Hiddleston began to kill it as Loki here, and there is a reason he has been the (mostly) only reoccurring villain in the MCU. I liked it a lot more than most of the public, but I have been a Kenneth Branagh fan for a long time.
12. Captain Marvel: Captain Marvel had a lot to work through, against, and around, and landing where it does for me shows that they made a pretty good movie. At the same time, they could have made a great movie, but didn’t. Brie Larsen is a pretty good Carol Danvers/Captain Marvel; too bad we only get about 20 minutes of her. On the other hand, Brie Larsen is annoying as fuck Vers; I basically wanted to punch her every time she opened her mouth. Vers had all of the habits I find annoying in sarcastic, snarky characters, with none of the redeeming qualities. I think the special effects were amazing, especially Samuel L. Jackson’s de-aging. The outer space stuff was pretty cool. From a fan perspective though making the Skrulls the good guys fucked up a ton of story content. And what they did to Mar-vell was a travesty. A fucking travesty. At least they have broken with the old MCU habit if killing the villain in each movie.
11. Captain America: The First Avenger: Stanley Tucci is such an underrated actor. They did something I never would have expected and that was to make Captain America an interesting character. He suffers somewhat from the Superman syndrome: he is too good to be true, the epitome of a boy scout. The creative team and Chris Evans took this and added a nuance to the portrayal, that makes Steve Rogers a hero you want to cheer for rather than mock. As well, his romantic interest with Peggy Carter is one of the most believable in the MCU. Not great, not poor, pretty much the middle of the pack.
10. The Avengers: Justice League take note: if you are going to do an ensemble team justice, either A) introduce everyone like X-Men, or (B) take several movies to make every care for your characters. Half and half just doesn’t seem to cut it. Joss Whedon gave fans what everyone had been waiting years to see: a bunch of well-defined superheroes teaming up to work together. When it came out it seemed amazing; on subsequent re-watches, the plot holes show themselves, the action scenes pale in comparison to later movies, and the plot seems simplistic in a way that most of the other movies do not. Yet, without this one, we wouldn’t have any of the ones that followed.
9. Iron Man: The one that started it all. Revitalized Robert Downey Jr.’s career with an iconic role for him. Simple yet evocative. Funny without being overbearing in the humor. Who would have ever thought that Double Down from Swingers would be the one to launch a multi-billion dollar cinematic universe for Marvel and Disney? Gwyneth Paltrow as Pepper and one of my personal favorite actors in Jeff Bridges support Downey in this, really well, as did Terrance Howard (as much as I like Don Cheadle as Rhodey, they did Terrance dirty). Getting someone of Jeff Bridges caliber to start out your villain roster was a great start as well.
8. Black Panther: I am super glad that this movie succeeded as well as it did. Black Panther shows that Africa has just as much to offer storytellers as Europe does. Sorry if this seems like common sense, but someday Hollywood will get it. On the other hand, the hype train was alive and out for this movie. There was a lot I liked about it, but Killmonger did not rank for me as one of the best villains. He was a feasible or a believable one, but the script didn’t do Michael B Jordan any favors. But Black Panther himself is an alternate take on Batman, one I have enjoyed throughout the comics, and am glad to finally see him here. They did an awesome job on M’Baku as well.
7. Spiderman: Homecoming: They did the smart thing with the first of the new Spiderman movies, and did not turn around and immediately give us a new version of the same origin story. They cast well and also began the recent trend of not killing the villain. Michael Keaton is such an awesome actor, and his version of the Vulture is probably one of the most relatable villains to me in the MCU: the little guy trying to take back from the man. Tom Holland nails the teenage superhero dynamic throughout and this is just overall a fun movie.
6. Guardians of the Galaxy: There are a lot of comic book runs I like: Scott Pilgrim was amazing. Sandman, Fables, Sin City. I loved everything DC did in the Bat family of books from Final Crisis until the Return of Bruce Wayne. Greg Pak’s run of Hulk from Planet Hulk until Heart of the Monster. But my favorite, favorite, favorite superhero storyline hands down, is everything Marvel did in its cosmic space from Annihilation to The Thanos Imperative. After the mega events of Annihilation and Annihilation: Conflict, this run was basically repped by 2 titles: Nova, and The Guardians of the Galaxy. I loved them both, so you can bet I was excited for the movie to come out. After it did I was torn. I love the movie: the cast is great, the comedy is great, and the music is great. I hate what they did with the characters. James Gunn fucked them up beyond recognition. And the worst part is afterword, because of the movie’s popularity, they changed the comic’s character’s to follow the movies versions. For example: in the comics Drax is human, and has a daughter who is a member of the Avengers, almost as powerful a psychic as Professor X, is possessed by a space dragon, and is a lesbian to tick a lot of boxes. Guess we’ll never see Moondragon though since Drax is just an alien now (also in the comics he is the only one to kill Thanos by ripping his heart from his chest). Gamorra has literally killed God’s and is from the future, Starlord is a mix of James Bond and Buck Rogers and suffers from PTSD due to destroying an entire world to defeat a rogue herald of Galactus. Groot might only say I am Groot, but he is the ruler of an entire species, and a scientist to boot. Rocket is pretty much the only character who hasn’t changed, although he knows what a raccoon is. Shit even Ronan becomes a hero, the leader of the Kree race, and one of Starlord’s best friends. Guess we’ll get none of that. And yet the charisma of this movie makes me love it in spite of these changes. The only real negative I can give it is that the action at the end sucks.
5. Captain America: Civil War: This one should probably have been called Avengers 2.5 or 3 depending on how you want to look at it. I like it a lot, it basically asks what would happen if the heroes were also the villains. The scene at the airport is one of the best action set pieces ever, really giving each hero, and group of heroes, a chance in the spotlight. The introduction of both Black Panther and Spiderman were great. Zemo’s motivation and goal were awesome, but the character was a throw-away. Part of what really sells this is the feeling you get from Robert and Chris that a friendship is really breaking down.
4. Guardians of the Galaxy, Volume 2: This sequel fixes a lot of the problems I had with the first movie; the fate of the universe isn’t decided in a fucking dance contest followed by holding hands, but with some genuine action. The humor hit harder for me, with a bunch of stuff from Groot and Rocket, and Mantis and Drax cracking me up every time I see it. Plus, it had Mr. Jack Burton, Kurt Russell, himself as the villain, in basically the only way it would have been possible to do Ego without him looking dumb as hell.
3. Thor: Ragnarok: I have never really disliked the Thor movies, but as an individual Avenger’s franchise thought that it could do better. Thank you Taika Watiti. A lot of my favorite MCU films have mixed humor, music, and action to good use, and the best example of this is this movie. Cate Blanchett looks fine as hell as Hela (pun intended) as well as being menacing to the 2 strongest Avengers. Jeff Goldblum is funny as hell, as is Stan Lee’s cameo. It makes me sad that this is the closest we’ll ever get to live action Planet Hulk, but I can live with that. The bridge fight scene set to Immigrant Song is one of my favorite scenes in all 21 movies.
2. Avengers: Infinity War: The fact that this movie exists and worked at all is a testament to how well the entire series has done. Taking the casts from 18 movies prior and combining them all in a way that doesn’t feel like only lip-service, while ostensibly making the villain the main character, worked out in a way that shouldn’t have been possible. But it did. The Russo’s use Josh Brolin’s performance as Thanos as a way to ground the movie. He’s evil and insane, but not malicious, thinking that he is saving the galaxy by doing what he is doing, making the tough choices. Add on to this his obviously twisted view of love, as characterized by his relationship with Gamorra and Nebula, and we have a compelling villain. He shows up with the Black Order, relegated to punching bags, but at least giving us more super-hero fights than in all the previous movies combined. This would easily be my number 1 if my number 1 wasn’t…
1. Captain America: The Winter Soldier: This was the first Marvel movie, that wasn’t just a super-hero movie. This serves as a credible spy/espionage movie and is one of the most grounded out of the series. Captain America and Avengers made Captain America cool; the Winter Soldier, made him bad-ass. They also took Bucky as the Winter Soldier from a B-Tier very gimmicky villain, and again, made him both bad-ass and sympathetic, unlike how he had been portrayed for many years in the comics. And this movie’s twist was basically the one that defined the future of the series going forward. Basically, it put “Hail Hydra” up there with “Would you kindly” for me. The action scenes were some of the ones I give credit to for ending a string of years of Hollywood’s fascination with shaky cam, and are some of the best in the series, even for not being as much of superhero throwdowns, and the car chases are some of the best ever committed to celluloid. I love this movie a ton; shit it made Cap my favorite Avenger. And I never would have thought that would have been possible back in the day.
All in all, I am just glad that Marvel has given me so many movies to love, and dreading the amount of time it will take to do an actual sit down rewatch of all of them back to back like I do with Lord of the Rings.
Kent
This was written while listening to the Guardians of the Galaxy Mix Vol.1 & 2. I have decided to do this in tiers of quality because I felt like I could easily say nothing from tier 3 could make an argument for Tier 2, and that is how I went about this. Also, I clearly don’t own the rights to this video or any of the music or anything.
Tier 1 – Great films that truly stood the test of rewatchability, which may or may not be a real word.
1. Iron Man
2. Captain America: The Winter Soldier – Honestly, this is like a 1A and 1B thing for me. I am giving Iron Man 1 only because without it, we probably don’t get Winter Soldier. It was the deciding factor. Iron Man told a better and more personal story, and I gravitate to them more as you will see in Tier 2. Winter Soldier was just so much fun and really well done. I wasn’t even looking forward to the movie and I walked away very impressed. One more thing, I know that the other Iron Man films had bigger casts, but this one had The Dude, Jeff Bridges, and he was awesome in this.
Tier 2 – Very good to great tier
3. Guardians of the Galaxy – This was a great showing for James Gunn. He got the right cast here. Chris Pratt got elevated to the next level due to this film and his acting ability started to shine. Zoe Saldana, well I don’t care for her or her character, but nothing is perfect. Batista proved that he could act here, and as a wrestling fan, I was thoroughly pleased. Vin Diesel getting another solid voice acting role here, but nothing beats Iron Giant, just to be clear. Bradley Cooper was a surprisingly fun choice for this. Add in the great Michael Rooker, John C Reilly, Glenn Close, Karen Gillian, and Benicio Del Toro, and this was just a great experience. My only regret is not seeing it in the theater.
4. Doctor Strange – Going from an amazing super cast to something more focused on a singular character, played by the great Benedict Cumberbatch. He had great talent to work with. Rachel McAdams is usually solid, Chiwetel Ejiofor is always a great guy to see, and Benedict Wong was very entertaining. I know that some people didn’t like who The Ancient One was portrayed by Tilda Swinton, and all I can say is that I thought she did wonderfully. I don’t read comics, and therefore I don’t care about the source material. I’m not sure if switching her for someone else would have made the film version any better. This was one of the better surprises for me as a film.
5. Ant-Man – This is the most surprising movie to me. I admit that I haven’t watched many Paul Rudd films. I didn’t think of him as a good leading man. This proved me wrong, and I was super happy. I haven’t seen Michael Douglas in a role that I liked this much since maybe The Ghost in the Darkness. A lot of good supporting talent with Evangeline Lilly, Anthony Mackie, Judy Greer, Michael Pena, and David Dastmalchian. I actually avoided this movie for a bit, but someone suggested that it may surprise me, so I tried it and was super happy to take that chance.
Tier 3 – Entertaining as hell tier. I admit, depending on my mood, any of these movies could go in any order and I’m not going to be upset by it. I am trying to consider so many things, but I am ranking these 6 on simply entertainment value, or dare I say, Kentertainment value.
6. Thor: Ragnarok – I may have this rated higher than most people. I am sure that I have some minor gripes, but I liked Hela (Cate Blanchett), Grandmaster (Jeff Goldblum), Skurge (Karl Urban), Korg (Taika Waititi), and Surtur (Clancy Brown) as fun characters for this film to add to Thor, Loki, Odin, Hulk, Heimdall, and Odin. Just a fun story all in all.
7. The Avengers – I almost included this in the second tier, but repeated viewings haven’t been as satisfying as the first time. What is there to really say about this film? You know why it’s great. Everybody loves seeing the team come together and this didn’t disappoint.
8. Guardians of the Galaxy 2 – This one I had some serious gripes about, mainly in that it killed off so many characters that I liked. Still, I walked away enjoying this. This had a great soundtrack that I am still listening to. I loved the new characters in this one, as well as the actors. We got Mantis (Pom Klementieff), Stallone, Kurt Russell, Chris Sullivan as Taserface, and even Tommy Flanagan of Sons of Anarchy fame.
9. Avengers: Infinity War – Possibly the greatest film cast of talents ever assembled, so there’s that. There’s something incredibly endearing about a giant Peter Dinklage. Watching Thanos just be a badass was beyond satisfying, and I love Josh Brolin’s work. I am curious if this film will hold up well in 10 years. I speculate that it will.
10. Captain America: Civil War – Such a good film that would probably be in Tier 2 if not for the ending. I had to knock it down due to that. This was incredibly fun and Spider-Man’s addition was a lot of fun. I also must say that I enjoy Frank Grillo as Crossbones/Brock Rumlow.
11. The Avengers: Age of Ultron – This is my least favorite of the Avenger films so far, and it’s not bad. I loved seeing Scarlet Witch do her thing. I think that at times I zoned out and wanted to see more Hulk, for instance. I can say that for pretty much every film. I liked Paul Bettany as Vision, he was very good for it. I don’t think this will get out of the last place of Tier 3.
Tier 4 – Minor gripes but all worth watching
12. Captain America: The First Avenger – Probably if I took the time to rewatch this, it may move up 2-3 spots. I already moved it up 2. The cast is amazing here. Hugo Weaving, Stanley Tucci, Toby Jones, and Neal McDonough are all criminally underrated actors. Chris Evans has really grown on me. This deserves a second viewing from me, but I recall being bored at times during this despite all the talent involved.
13. Iron Man 2 – I think I have this potentially ranked too low, but I haven’t seen this recently. They traded Terrance Howard out for Don Cheadle, which I think was an upgrade. Sam Rockwell, Mickey Rourke, and John Slattery are all fun, hell I even like Kate Mara, but this was a mixed bag. Still, Robert delivered and that keeps it slightly better than the movies below this.
14. Thor – I blame my friend Eric B for completely overhyping this movie, along with Fast Five. Wait, maybe I made that too obvious. I meant to write E. Blowers. Yes, now nobody will know who I am referring to. It should be noted that I have since stopped taking his opinion on films seriously. This was a good movie and I liked it fine, but it’s the lowest rated of the movies that I liked. Yeah, I would rewatch it, the actors were solid, but I just didn’t care about any romance in this film. Hopkins, Stellan Skarsgard, Hiddleston, and Hemsworth all gave good to great performances. I have to give a special shout out to Colm Feore because he was Andre Linoge in Storm of the Century and he’s awesome. He played King Laufey.
Tier 5 – I had issues with these films
15. The Incredible Hulk – I am a huge Edward Norton fan, ya know, before his career went to hell. If he stopped acting after 25th Hour, I don’t know if any actor could have had a better success rate. The Italian Job happened, unfortunately, and his career never recovered. Adding Liv Tyler to the mix doing stupid Liv Tyler things didn’t help. Honestly, Tim Roth wasn’t all that great in this either, and I am a huge fan. WIlliam Hurt was cool though. I love Hulk, but this could have and should have been better, and there is plenty of blame to go around if you know the history of this film.
16. Iron Man 3 – This has the best cast of the 3 films, and maybe that took away some of its charm. I’m a huge fan of Guy Pearce, Ben Kingsley, William Sadler, Dale Dickey, and Miguel Ferrer, but the story was meh. Robert did his best to hold this together.
17. Black Panther – I still have no idea how this got Oscar nominations. Well, I do, but I’m not gonna touch it. This wasn’t that great of a movie. It had its moments, but I really only enjoyed Killmonger and M’Baku in this one. Ulysses Klaue was adequate as well. I felt like I was watching a bad hip hop music video more often than an action flick. Too much style, not enough substance.
18. Thor: The Dark World – This was just a big advertisement from Disney saying that they acquired Star Wars. Seriously, that’s all this was. I don’t even consider this part of the MCU but rather a side story for Star Wars.
I haven’t seen Spider-Man Homecoming, Ant-Man and the Wasp, or Captain so I couldn’t properly rank them. I actually just bought Spider-Man 4 or 5 hours ago and see that Ant-Man and the Wasp is on NetFlix, so I will probably revisit this and update it.
That does it for now. If you like or hated what any of us had to say, leave a comment. If you would like your rankings on here, just email me at kent@9deuce.com and I will post it. Once again, thank you to everybody who contributed. If you would like to see something else like this, let me know. Give me ideas and I will try to not be such a lazy bum. Thank you.
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