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#also... age of ultron feels like it had so much potential just utterly wasted and its kinda sad
fiendfluid · 3 years
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my brother is gently forcing me to re/watch the mcu and its killing me but also it is so much fun to just scream at the movie while he tries to explain the dumb shit
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rickrakontoys · 6 years
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Pre-Infinity War MCU rankings
How I'd rank the current 18 movies, from my least favorite to most favorite, with some brief thoughts:
18. The Incredible Hulk (5/10): I barely remember this one... and I dont like Hulk's look here. Liv Tyler gasps all her dialogue. Ed Norton did an ok job I guess, but I didnt get much of a lasting impression.
17. Iron Man 2 (6/10): I remember being extremely annoyed by Tony and his behavior, and the blatant Avengers setups. Least we got War Machine out of this. Whiplash could have been great if he didnt have to share the villain role with Justin Hammer. (Also, without this mess, we wouldn't have gotten Jon Faverau's amazing film "Chef", which was made in response to his frustrations making IM2)
16. Thor: The Dark World (6/10): Forgettable plot and villain. Some chuckle worthy scenes. Not sure what else there is to say. You could tell the movie was butchered trying to fit Loki into the plot. There is barely any chemistry between Thor and Jane.
15. Thor (7/10): Decent intro to the characters and world of Asgard. But the movie looks strangely cheap, especially the New Mexico town. I never felt Thor and Jane could be a thing, despite their performances being good. The cast all around was terrific too (Hopkins as Odin is great). Loki was a great, tragic villain though. Thor breaking the bifrost is immediately undone by the Avengers...
14. Iron Man 3 (7.25/10): I enjoyed the deconstruction of Stark and common comic book tropes. What they did with the Mandarin was pretty ballsy and I respect that. I don't even remember the true villain's name... Having Tony deal with PTSD was also interesting.
13. Ant-Man (7.25/10): Surprising that this worked at all. Pretty fun ride, if a tad generic. Cool shrinking visuals. I look forward to the Wasp.
12. Doctor Strange (7.5/10): Again... plot is generic as hell. Forgettable villain. But very cool visuals. And I love the leitmotif and main theme music.
11. Avengers: Age of Ultron (7.75/10): I loved Ultron but felt he could have been a bigger threat. The middle of the movie plods... badly. Some wasted potential for sure. The third act action is comic book action nirvana. You could tell the movie was meddled with by the studio... I don't blame Joss Whedon at all for the film's shortcomings. He was obviously frustrated with it too.
10. Spiderman Homecoming (8.25/10): Gives us a great young spidey and a terrific villain. Seriously... Michael Keaton makes this movie work. The scenes with Peter and Tony are good. The supporting cast is good too. I wish they gave spidey a more memorable theme song for the movie.
9. Captain America: The First Avenger (8.25/10): I don't know why this movie resonates with me more than with other people. The look of the movie is gorgeous. The themes sincere. The music is wonderful. The performances are memorable. This movie showed us that Chris Evans was the perfect man to play Captain America. Hugo Weaving gave us a menacing yet charismatic Red Skull. One too many montages though. "The Star-Spangled Man with a Plan" is seriously catchy! Classic Disney songwriter Alan Menkin helped write it... no wonder!
8. Guardians of the Galaxy (8.5/10): How could a movie with a talking raccoon and a senient tree man be this good? Its all about the building of a family of friends, borne from people with broken pasts. Ronan is utterly forgettable, hence why I rank it here. The supporting cast is otherwise stellar. And the soundtrack... now thats how you integrate it into a movie's soul.
7. Guardians of the Galaxy Vol. 2 (8.75/10): Took the characters of the first movie to new places. Elevated them, broke them down, made them weep. The jokey dialogue can get grating. But thematically wonderful. Lots of small touches that gives life to even the most minor of characters. Everyone has an arc! Ego is a fascinating fellow, and seems genuinely likeable, until the revelation of his madness. The Sovereign are pompously silly and didn't amount to much of a threat (though I dont think they were supposed to be). The cinematography is sublime. The colors intense and vibrant. The soundtrack used impeccably. Just a wonderful piece of cinema. Others may disagree about it, but I rate it highly. It feels like a personal film by James Gunn.
6. Captain America: The Winter Soldier (8.8/10): Truly great and heartfelt while being relevant to the current times. A movie that brought Cap to the modern age, while haunting him with a spectre of the past. It just works on so many levels. Alexander Pierce didnt leave a big impression as the villain despite being played by Robert Redford. Could have been more intimate exploration of Cap and Bucky's relationship. Despite being called "The Winter Soldier", the focus is more on the fall of SHIELD... At least this gave us Falcon and some cute chemistry between Steve and Natasha.
The TOP 5 were very hard to place...
5. The Avengers (8.8/10): That this movie worked at all is a miracle. That it was actually infinitely watchable is amazing. This was the sign that the MCU ahead was heading to good things. The cast was excellent together. The dialogue refreshingly snappy. It made Loki into a staple of the MCU. The Avengers theme was memorable. Lots of fan service without it being intrusive... the middle act can be a bit slow, but it is otherwise nicely paced and tonally even. The look of the movie can border on TV production values at times... but it manages to overcome any shortcomings by being so darn fun.
4. Captain America: Civil War (8.8/10): This movie broke down our well-known heroes and gave us a villain in Zemo that is mysterious, tragic, and understated. Revenge permeates the themes of the movie, but the true heart of the movie is friendship and Cap's desire to hold onto the final relic of his past, Bucky. Motivations are clear between most of the characters and neither side of the conflict is right or wrong. Some Avengers are just along for the ride, but everyone nonetheless has a moment to shine. New characters are introduced (mostly) seamlessly (T'Challa is woven into it naturally, Spidey... not so much but he leaves a great first impression). The airport battle was a fantastic bit of fan service fun before the gut wrenching emotionally driven climax. The final showdown between Cap and Iron Man was like watching two parents fight over a child. This is a comic book movie that had ideas, and though it didn't totally follow through on some concepts like the Sokovia Accords, it did give us an emotional rollercoaster that built upon our pre-existing attachment to the characters. This movie was a true culmination of all that came before.
3. Thor Ragnarok (8.9/10): This movie felt the most fun and thoroughly enjoyable out of all the MCU. It may not be thematically challenging or very deep, but it isn't trying to be. For pure intentions, it accomplished what it sought to: make a fast and funny Thor-Hulk buddy comedy, and reinvent the God of Thunder as a likeable, dunderheaded oaf. Hela seeths with sultry menace. Korg is simply a treasure. Valkyrie is a drunken badass. Grandmaster is.... Jeff Goldblum. The score is the best in the MCU, instantly setting the tone. Led Zepplin's Immigrant song used twice to great effect. Quotable, hilarious dialogue. Korg. Taika Waititi injected new life into the MCU after a few serious installments. This reminds me of the goofy "fun" episode of a series before the finale. I love this movie!
2. Black Panther (8.9/10, bumped up after my second viewing): Epic world building and a villain that outshone the hero for once. It may have its flaws in plotting and pacing (the first hour is meandering), but what it tried to do is highly admirable. The supporting cast is great. The look of the movie is utterly beautiful. The action scenes are the least interesting part of the movie oddly enough due to bad execution and dodgy CGI. It has plenty of ideas regarding Wakanda and its place in the world, and the duty to use great power to help others. Killmonger should have been the chief focus beside T'Challa... You can tell Ryan Coogler made this film with his full heart. This is the only MCU film to make me tear up. With a few tweaks it could have been the best of the MCU.
1. Iron Man (9.5/10): Nearly everything here works. Robert Downey Jr. is perfectly cast, and turned Tony Stark into a household name. There is genuine chemistry between him and Pepper. Obadiah Stane is a likeable yet menacing villain (Jeff Bridges playing a bad guy?! He's terrific at it!). The action scenes are exciting and not too overdone. The score is energetic (why isn't Iron Man's leitmotif from this movie used more often?!). This movie wasn't bogged down with setting up a universe. It was allowed to be its own thing. But from this success, all the rest followed.
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Thor: Ragnarok review
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Thor has had the worst track when it comes to the MCU. His first outing was an okay-at-best adventure that took place with a cast of boring, unfunny humans instead of on Asgard where cool shit happened. When you start out your trilogy with someone like Kenneth Branagh directing and even he can’t make it cool, you know you’re in trouble. Then we come to his appearance in The Avengers, where he does decent but still gets outshone quite a bit by the rest of the cast. Then we get to Thor: The Dark World, one of the worst superhero films ever made… the less said about it the better. Then comes Age of Ultron and Thor’s overall role is negligible, especially with his weird cave dream sequence which doesn’t amount to too much. All of this build’s Thor up as one of the least-interesting Avengers, which is a damn shame, because Chris Hemsworth plays the role with such charm and enthusiasm, it’s sad to see his efforts go to waste…
...And then comes Thor: Ragnarok, and it blows all that bullshit out of the water by doing a soft reboot to the whole Thor series. Sure, the bullshit before is still canon, but Thor got dumped by his human girlfriend so we don’t need to put up with those fucks anymore, the movie takes place mostly in the cosmos which were the best parts of the other Thor movies, and best of all we have a director who knows what we want to see and gives it to us with cheesy 80s and Jack Kirby aesthetic: Taika Waititi. More than anyone before him, he seems to really GET what makes Thor so cool in the first place, and what makes comic book movies cool in general. The other Thor movies are naught but a whimper to this film’s epic Led Zeppelin metal scream. But how? How did this film fix the fatal flaws of the films that came before?
First let’s give you a rundown of the story: It has been two years since Thor has left Earth. His girlfriend has dumped him, he has found no Infinity Stones, and as soon as he returns to Asgard he finds out Loki has hijacked the throne and hid his father, Odin, on Earth. And just when things don’t seem like they could get any worse, Odin dies and releases the wicked Hela, his firstborn child who was banished long ago for being an evil bitch. She makes it to Asgard and starts trying to dominate everything, while Thor and Loki end up on the planet of Sakaar… though Thor is stuck fighting in gladiator battles while Loki, who through temporal bullshit showed up a week earlier, has sucked up to the grandiose ruler known as the Grandmaster and landed himself in a cushy position. Soon enough Thor is up in the gladiator arena against his old pal, the Hulk, and from here Thor tries to figure out how he can get back to Asgard and whoop Hela’s ass. Can the mighty Thor manage this impossible feat, or is Ragnarok finally upon him?
The reason this movie works so well is that the film has moved away from dull Earth settings and into cosmic realms with a heavy 1980s sci-fi and Jack Kirby influence. Earth was not a very interesting setting for a character who is supposed to be a mighty physical god; the earlier films never really played to his strengths, as evidenced by the main villains being meek and unimposing in comparison to a swaggering viking like Thor. This is not much of a problem here, where all the foes Thor matches up against are more than able to measure up. Over the course of the film he does battle with the fire demon Surtur, his evil death goddess sister Hela, and of course the not-so-jolly green giant himself, Hulk. These are foes that actually give Thor a realistic challenge, and while there are obviously still scenes of Thor fighting mooks, there are actually antagonists that can put up solid fights themselves. It’s a real breath of fresh air!
Speaking of the characters, and continuing on with how moving away from the structure of the old film’s was a good thing… the previous supporting casts of the Thor movies were one of the greatest weaknesses. They were good actors (and Kat Dennings) in awful roles. But in THIS film, we get a supporting cast worthy of Thor! Gone is the dull Natalie Portman and the horrendously unfunny Kat Dennings characters that have bogged down the films in the past! Say hello to the new supporting cast of characters, with the badass Valkyrie and the charming goofball Korg! Valkyrie is an awesome, badass, worthy partner for Thor, who has a solid backstory and good characterization for her first film. Korg is just an absolutely lovable doofus; played by Taika Waititi himself, he exists mostly to add a bit of levity to the proceedings, which is easy to do as he is a hulking rock monster with a very soft, pleasant voice. These two are highlights of the movie, worthy newcomers and allies to Thor, and I hope they pop up more in the future. The interactions they could have if they meet up with the Avengers would be astounding.
Of course, we also have villains to take into account here, and it’s a bit of a mixed bag. Not in terms of quality mind you, because the performances are all well-done, it’s just that the villains tended to be underutilized. Hela is the chief example; yes, she has plenty of scenes where she’s badass, Cate Blanchett is perfect as her, and by fucking god that scene where she kills all the valkyries in flashback is one of the most gorgeous scenes I’ve ever seen in superhero cinema. But she’s a bit underutilized and barely deals with Thor until the very end of the film after their brief meetup. Still, she gets some cool fight scenes, so it does even out a bit, I just feel she deserved some more attention, especially with her interesting backstory. Surtur is quite a victim of this problem too, as instead of serving as a big bad, he’s relegated to a plot device after his defeat in the opening – a plot device I shall not reveal any spoilers on. Needless to say, he’s cool in his appearances, but he could have done a lot more. Thankfully, these two characters could possibly return, as their final scenes do leave things a bit open-ended.
But there is one antagonist who I can heap nothing but lavish praise upon: The Grandmaster. This is Jeff Goldblum dressed in the gaudiest clothing imaginable just… Jeff Goldbluming it up. He is absolutely perfect, hilarious, delightfully weird… it is everything I could have wanted from Jeff Goldblum in a Marvel film. There is not a single scene he’s in that’s unenjoyable, and I can’t wait for him to show up again so he can potentially interact with his equally scene-stealing weirdo brother, The Collector. Benicio Del Toro and Jeff Goldblum weirding it up onscreen together… It would be the stuff legends are made of. But yes, Goldblum, he’s a highlight of the film.
Now on to the returning characters: Odin is okay. Anthony Hopkins does a great job playing Loki pretending to be Odin, but his death scene is a bit rushed when taken out of context of the Thor series as a whole. It starts so near the beginning and wraps up the arc from the previous Thor film so quickly I just ca- oh, wait a second, Thor: The Dark World sucked ass, so why do I care if it’s stupid plot points get thrown out the window? Then we have Loki, who here just goes through the heel-face revolving door so many times it’s hard to really tell whose side he’s on at any given moment. As usual, his interactions with Thor are fantastic and enjoyable; they really do feel like bickering brothers who deep down do love each other, and Loki also gets some of the most hilarious moments during the Thor vs. Hulk gladiator fight. He’s solidly done, and Tom Hiddleston also gets a few scenes where he gets to ham it up, which is a big plus.
And then we have Doctor Strange, in a very brief cameo appearance that builds off the stinger of his film… and this scene is fucking awful. It’s supposed to be some goofy, lighthearted jokiness but it’s just so forced, awkward, and shoehorned into the film; it’s clearly only there to beat you over the head with the fact this movie takes place in a shared universe with other heroes. To be perfectly frank, the entirety of Thor and Loki’s trip could be cut out of the film with zero effect on the plot. It is just utterly irrelevant fanservice. The joke about Loki falling for thirty minutes though, that was funny, and it almost makes the scene worthwhile. Credit where credit is due, I laughed.
And now, the big one: Hulk. This is Hulk’s absolute best film appearance yet. He talks, he gets some personality to him, he gets good chemistry with Thor, and all his fight scenes are a blast, finally pitting Hulk against worthy foes (hey, he and Thor both finally get to fight people who are a good match)! And if you think Hulk’s the only one getting in on the fun, Banner shows up too and gets in on the fun; after two years stuck in Hulk form, Banner is a bit loopy, and gets tons of goofy, manic lines and great chemistry with Thor. Ruffalo is at the top of his game here; let’s see him keep this up in his next appearances.
Every fight scene is awesome, the score by Mark Mothersbaugh is awesome, every time “Immigrant Song” kicks up it’s the absolute peak of awesome… there’s nothing about this film that doesn’t scream “AWESOME!” Okay, well, there are a few things, as I’ve mentioned, but the pros heavily outweighs the cons. The awesome 80s Saturday morning cartoon sci-fi aesthetic fits Thor like a glove, giving him an enjoyable identity rather than the gloomy, overwrought, and often half-baked tone that has plagued his films in the past. This is a Thor film worthy of being a Thor film, and while I can’t say this is Marvel’s best film yet (I still like the Guardians of the Galaxy films and Civil War more), this is easily top ten best Marvel movies material, and one of this year's finest superhero films, and this is a damn good year for superhero movies! This one gets a recommendation for me, especially if you love throwbacks to the awesomely trashy and cheesy 80s sci-fi of the 80s… and boy fucking howdy do I love that shit.
This is science fantasy at its most fun, and I pray to all the gods of Asgard that Taika Waititi gets to keep the reigns of Thor for the foreseeable future. This man knows how to show us a good time; let’s let him keep doing it for a while longer. We need a bit more making up for the first two crappy Thor films, y’know?
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