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Marvel/Disney has produced thus far, ten Marvel Universe movies. So, how do they rank 1-10? or in my case, 10-1. Well, here's my opinions, and why.
10.) Iron Man 3: This is a terrible movie, hands down. The writer/director/whoever decided that they didn't need to read any comic books with Iron Man/Tony Stark, and decided to do their own thing. I had hopes for this one, because FINALLY, we were going to get Iron Man's true nemesis: the Mandarin! He'd been hinted at in the first film with the Ten Rings, and this should have been an amazing pay off. Instead, we get Tony mostly outside of his iconic suits, outright murdering people, and a flaccid wannabe "Mandarin" being manipulated by a self-Eugenic villain*. So much wasted potential in this flick. The only upside, is that I hope it meant that the PTB took a good hard look, and went, 'no really, let's stay to the source material'.
*Let's address the follow-up that 'corrected' the Mandarin issue, simply and to the point: If you need to film a short-piece after the fact to 'fix' an issue from a multi-million dollar movie that is part of the most ambitious series of movies of all time... you may have done something wrong in the original film. There is no other way to say that.
9.) Iron Man 2: This was the 'third' released of the MCU films, so we knew we were building to something. Mickey Rourke actually could make a good villain, but they didn't know exactly what to do with him it appears, so they mix a couple of characters together, and we get the Crimson Whiplash or something like that. I did like the evolution of War Machine however, and the introduction of the Black Widow, so there is that. Now, while this is 9 on my list, it is still a very solid film, and I enjoyed the heck out of it. The fact it is this 'low', but I still like it, says a lot about how well that Marvel has handled their 'own' properties. Major bonus points for getting Samurai Jack writer/director Genndy Tartakovsky to do the final conflict scene.
8.) Thor: The Dark World: The visuals alone are amazing. Hiddleston's Loki at this point, deserves his own film thanks to this one. He's a very nicely subtly nuanced character, and I truly believe that he was pissed at Freya's death. It shows that he's a complete character, and not just a one-note villain. The fact he's taken over Asgard, shows to me that he has a long-term plan, one that keeps distance between him and Thanos, and a plan to take out the mad Titan himself should things go sideways. Eccleston's Malekith is a good standard Neutral Evil bad guy, and well, Thor is exactly how we comic book nerds want Thor to be. Bonus points to the elder Skarsgård being an 'everyman' glue to the MCU, moreso than even Coulson nowadays.
7.) The Incredible Hulk: I think this movie is undeservedly maligned, mostly because of the '03 Eric Bana Hulk. It's a good 'kickoff' movie for the character, and we all need to give a big 'thank you' to Edward Norton for saving this movie on the backend by doing uncredited re-writes to keep the character grounded in the books. A VERY sad loss that he was not invited back for Avengers as a result. Doubly shitty is that the real reason that Marvel/Disney won't do a sequel follow-up is that Universal holds the distribution rights for this character. I liked the seeding of both Doc Sampson as well as the Leader in this, but both will likely never be seen again :-/ More reason to use both in Agents of SHIELD on TV...
6.) Thor: One of the big two litmus tests of the movie universe: the introduction of 'magic'. They did it wisely and in a good way, the trope of 'magic is just tech/science you don't understand yet'. The only knock on this film is that Thor figures out the humility thing in what seems like a couple of days, instead of over the course of months/years, which could have been handled via a montage. Montages aren't evil, just often mishandled. It felt rushed there. Otherwise, again, another very solid film, that bears re-watching. Loki steals the show as he does in every subsequent film, and is revealed to be a very sympathetic character, which is a hallmark of Marvel comics to begin with.
5.) Cpt. America: The First Avenger: The second big litmus test--will a Lawful Good character be able to work for modern audiences, and hallelujah does it work! Setting it into the WW2 era was smart, but could have gone off the rails cheesy. Thank heavens they talked Stanley Tucci to fill in as Dr. Erskine and Hugo Weaving as the Red Skull. Casting was amazing on this, a good story overall, and... a good use of montage! I have a weak spot for accurate Lawful Good heroes, and despise how they're made "weak" because they have morals. Writing/directing avoided that like the plague, and it sings! This is a very enjoyable film, and has a spin-off on TV with Agent Carter. If only they gave her the Howling Commandos full time too...
4.) Guardians of the Galaxy: Marvel is limited in what they can use, thanks to farming off various parts of their universe to other companies, so this was a total crap-shoot. It works mainly because there's very little to lose to be honest. I've been there from the beginning of the reboot of this with Annihilation on the comics side of things, so I did have expectations, and mostly all of them were met. Only things I didn't like were: the Care Bear 'win' parameters, Rocket still being a ruthless killer, and making Groot into a simpleton. Oh, and Amy Pond. Wow. What a waste of the Nebula character. Otherwise, VERY solid, and I wonder what Yondu is doing back in the 21st C.?
3.) Cpt. America: The Winter Soldier: This wasn't a comic book film; it was comic book characters solving a political intrigue movie. I've a soft-spot for Robert Redford, and am mixed on him not being Red Skull. Having him just be a regular power-hungry politician is more 'real', but having him peel off his face and revealing the true enemy would have been spectacularly true-to-form comic book, and would have merged nicely in with RS being a master villain working with/against, and on par with, Loki/Thanos. A supervillain team-up (and give us the Leader too) would make an amazing roster of movie 'masters of evil'. Alas, missed opportunity. Anyways... tWS is a spectacular film, and I want to see it again, and soon.
2.) Iron Man: The one that started it all. A Hail Mary pass of a film, that works on every level. With the X-Men and Fantastic Four off the table, taking a c-list hero, from a c-list team, and spawning this franchise is nothing short of a miracle. Taking a washed up actor (who has life events that parallel his character) and putting him front and center was a huge gamble, in an otherwise gamble in which Marvel doesn't really lose anything. You don't have any of the other 9 films listed here without this one working first, so it has to be high on the list.
1.) Avengers: The gestalt film. Look, if anyone says that they were clamoring for an Avengers film prior to 2008, they are lying. The set-up of the first five films more or less makes this film impossible to screw up. Add in a fan favorite writer/director who knows good character interaction, and blammo, you have something pretty special. I never in a million years would have thought that an Avengers film would out-perform all other comic book films. I can name a few other properties that should outperform the Avengers, but either they haven't, have failed, or haven't been made yet. I'm an old school Avengers fan (really, gimme She-hulk and WonderMan, and get Beast away from the X-Franchise already), and I'm still gobsmacked by this movie. Simply put, this is so far, the pinnacle of what a comic movie should be--and they did it with a c-list team. Imagine what Marvel OR DC could do with a more popular team with half of this effort?