18. Thor: The Dark World – This and Iron Man 2 kind of
switch out between one another, but I went ahead and put this one at the bottom
because this had aspects that just did not work for me. I find Darci to be
pretty annoying, a villain that was forgettable (yeah, I am aware of the
criticism of the villains in the Marvel Cinematic Universe to be the weaker
aspect of the movies, but this one could have been way better), and a romance
that was fell flat. I have to admit, I did not mind the romance between Thor
and Jane Foster in the first one, but this one just made me wish that they
would split the couple apart, which thankfully they did. I also felt there were
issues with the pacing. That said, I still like the visuals and the moments
between Thor and Loki were great, I also like what we get to explore in Asgard.
17. Iron Man 2 – The sequel to the one that started it all,
unfortunately it was not the movie that we were hoping for. There were a ton of
pacing issues, much like Thor The Dark World. As well, a villain that could
have been really cool, and just seem to lose his momentum as the movie
progressed. This became a movie that was focused more on world building instead
of focusing on the main story, but at the same time, it was understandable and
I can still forgive them for that, plus we got a cool introduction to Black
Widow, and Justin Hammer by Sam Rockwell was a fun addition to the cast. So
yeah, there were a ton of problems, but I had more fun with it this time around
then when I tried to watch it again three years ago.
16. The Incredible Hulk – I don’t mind this one as much as
other people do. I have seen lists on Facebook where people are gearing for
Infinity War and this has become the entry that has been neglected or
disregarded, and the reasons I completely understand. I got to admit though,
this was still an entertaining movie when it came out, and Edward Norton’s take
on Bruce Banner was pretty solid. The final fight between Hulk and Abomination
were pretty cool, and some of the moments of humor were nice, obviously there
has been much better use of humor in later movies, but the jokes they used were
pretty good here. I don’t consider this a complete misfire at all.
15. Iron Man 3 – We could totally go into the biggest pet
peeve of the movie, the villain, the one that actually came off as amazing in
the trailer, and then…..yeah, if you have seen the movie, you know the reveal,
but in case you haven’t seen it, I won’t ruin it here. With that out of the
way, watching this again was nice to see the character of Tony Stark develop in
this one. His experience of saving the world in The Avengers left him with
PTSD. Maybe the fault was that expectations were high after the first Avengers
movie and also the fact we were hoping this would make up for Iron Man 2.
14. Thor – Until 2011, the only superheroes we got for the
still small Marvel Cinematic Universe was Iron Man and The Incredible Hulk. I
was not familiar with Thor as I never read the comics growing up, or new much
about any of the superheroes unless a movie came out of them, so going into
this I wasn’t too sure what to expect. It was a solid movie, I really liked the
production design and also the score that accompanied the movie. It was a solid
entry.
13. Avengers: Age of Ultron – Following up on the first
Avengers has to be a difficult task to complete, as you can tell, this didn’t
make my top 10 in Marvel movies, but honestly, I wouldn’t scratch this off in
any way, it was very entertaining and I actually enjoyed the villain in this.
This has a ton of aspects that I thrillingly enjoyed. Also featured one of my
blink and you’ll miss moments that made me laugh. So yes, this is flawed, but
ton of great moments that make this one that I can put on and just watch for
fun.
12. Captain America: The First Avenger – This was not
anticipated at all by me, but the trailers did kind of spark my interest, but I
wasn’t too sure what to make of it going in, but this was a movie that really
surprised me. I really enjoyed the World War 2 setting with sci-fi elements
thrown into the mix, kind of had that vibe of The Rocketeer. Also features one
of my favorite villains, not because of motives, but just because of the design
and the performance.
11. Spider Man Homecoming – Andrew Garfield’s turn as Spider
Man kind of decreased my interest in another Spider Man movie, not because I
thought he was a bad actor, but just the direction and everything about that
reboot series, so yet we got another reboot, but they made the right choices
with the rebooted character, in particular Spidey’s story in his first solo
movie, which is to ditch the origin story and focus on his growth in this
Avengers world. Also, this movie featured a twist that shocked me and the rest
of the theater when we all first saw it. The approach to this movie was very
entertaining, and still holds up now.
10. Guardians of the Galaxy Vol. 2 – This features one of my
favorite opening credit sequences. Seriously, if you aren’t at least smiling at
that sequence, then I don’t know what to say. I have talked much about this
already so I won’t go too much into it, but this movie was a ton of fun to
watch and re-watching it in preparation for Infinity War, I found myself just
having a blast.
9. Doctor Strange – I remember everyone talking about how
excited they were for Doctor Strange, and once again, someone that doesn’t read
comic book, I didn’t get the fascination when hearing about the character, that
was until I saw the trailer, and what this would introduce to the MCU. This has
the most inventive special effects for a movie, yeah we have The Matrix and
Inception with similar effects, but that doesn’t diminish the wonder I feel
when seeing these things on the screen. Actually, this featured the best use of
3D in a very long time.
8. Ant Man – This movie ended up on my top 10 of 2015, it
was a surprise to me as I wasn’t thinking there would be much out of it. My
mind was still gearing towards Iron Man, Hulk, Thor, and Captain America. They
introduced Guardians of the Galaxy, but I felt this was when they really
started to crank out the more obscure characters and try to see how they would
be received. This really delivered in so many ways. I really enjoyed the
concept of the film, which was a heist movie with superhero elements. You can
never go wrong with the use of Michael Pena’s character.
7. Captain America: Civil War – I don’t know where to start
with this, this was a movie that featured so much, and the buildup of the
universe is what made this entry worth it, and featured many things that made
me think, like which side would I put myself on. Also, it introduced me to a
character that I immediately became excited to see a solo movie for, that was
Black Panther. What came before it is what made me emotionally invested, how
were these characters going to come out of this, what would result. Yes, this
featured the most forgettable villain, but for this movie I feel that was okay
because the movie wasn’t about the villain but about the conflict and how
everyone became challenged because of this conflict. Yeah, I have another
Captain America movie that beat this even though this was excellent.
6. Black Panther – I already said it, I was looking forward
to Black Panther’s solo movie after his debut in Captain America: Civil War.
The world of Wakanda was breathtaking, and just awesome to look at, and is
another example of how amazing the world building for the MCU really was. It
also featured very intriguing characters that you would like to see solo movies
for. This features a very good music score and a very good message. This felt
like a very unique solo movie. If you asked me if I thought this would become
so popular that it would become number three in the all time box office in the
US, I wouldn’t have believed you.
5. Thor Ragnarok – As you can tell, the Thor movies weren’t
among my favorites in the MCU, at least until this one came out. This was the
movie that got me more invested in the character and really enjoyed the
adventure that he was on. Everything about this felt very fresh thanks to the
director. Everything about this movie was very unique. Also, the ending was a
bit of a surprise for me as I didn’t think it was going to end the way it did.
But everything about this movie was just a blast to watch. A part of me wants
to find the original script and read it to see what was scripted and what was
improvised.
4. Captain America: The Winter Soldier – After Iron Man 3
and Thor The Dark World in 2013, I figured I had the direction on where everything
was going heading into Avengers Age of Ultron. Not only did this prove me
wrong, but it managed to destroy any possible idea I may have had. This was a
movie that really surprised me in so many ways, first off by the action, by the
direction and by the story. I never thought about the idea of SHIELD becoming
corrupt from the inside. The first Captain America movie was a solid entry, but
the sequel went from a fun adventure movie to a political thriller, even made
me think about what I would do in these kind of situations. Yes, Civil War was
excellent, and I juggled as to which one I liked more between this and Civil
War, but in the end I liked this one more as this one surprised me way more as
to what to expect.
3. Iron Man – The one that started it all, still among one
of my favorites. I went in not expecting anything, and walking out being blown
away. As you can read in my last post, I did not find out about the end credit
sequence till about a couple of weeks later. Here is a question for everyone,
when and how did you discover the end credit sequence? This movie had great
action, and gave us a lot of cool attitude, and I also really enjoyed the
soundtrack to this. This was a great set up and we didn’t even know how big
things would go from there, but the fact they started off right is what makes
this excellent.
2. Guardians of the Galaxy – Up to this point, the only
Marvel movies we had were about Iron Man, Hulk, Thor, and Captain America. This
was the first time that they featured any other Marvel characters, and there
were probably many that didn’t know what to expect going in. I went in the
first weekend because it was a Marvel movie but also the idea behind it really
caught my eye, kind of reminded me of a Star Wars movie. Did they expect this
to be the hit that it became to be? So many questions, but this was the first
time we were introduced to new characters and were not featured any of the
bigger known characters. Actually, this was a group of heroes that were not
very well known, but I don’t count as I said many times before, I didn’t read
the comics growing up. But this became a big hit and blew many away, myself
included, and not only that, it is one of those that you can rewatch again and
again just because.
1. The Avengers – This is my favorite Marvel movie (before
Infinity War, but we will see where we place that afterwards). We had many
superhero movies before, but this was the first time that we had this kind of
movie where you combined superheroes from other movies. This was something that
was not done before, and that was what made this exciting. Not only that, it
was an incredibly entertaining movie, with tons of laughs. I was among those
that was concerned with them replacing Edward Norton with Mark Ruffalo, as I
enjoyed Edward Norton as Bruce Banner, but Mark Ruffalo did a great job. What
made this work was we had a director that knew how to make each character
interaction work, every laugh worked because of this. I enjoyed coming back to
the theater each time I could to see this because of how entertaining it was.
Well, there you go, this is my personal ranking of the
Marvel movies. I hope you enjoyed it. I will post my review of Avengers
Infinity War sometime after I see it.
