The Big Picture: Ranking the Marvel Movies

MrBaskerville

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It would be easier for me to do a short top 3:

1: Iron Man 1 (I guess)
2: Iron Man 3
3: Avengers (entertaining enough, though not sure i would ever want to watch it again)
Captain America 2 might also be included, but i haven´t seen it, but it sounds promising.

And then the rest would have to be a bottom 7, ranked from least terrible to worst. I´m still surprised at how much Captain America 1 gets praised, i thought it was a typical Joe Johnston movie, meaning it was so forgetable that i barely remembered anything from it 5 seconds after it ended. The Thor movies would be easier to endure if all the characters weren´t so boring. The only interesting part of those movies is Thor and Lokis relationship, but they never really utilize this, instead it´s just a lot of boring fluff and confusing plotlines.

All these Marvel movies are probably the reason why i´m so burned out on superhero movies, they started out with so much promise in Iron Man 1, but it´s just been one big dissapointment from there and it seems to be getting somewhat worse (Unless Captain America 2 is as cool as it´s supposed to be). I think the best superhero movie in recent times was last years Wolverine, if only the terrible last 20 minutes of the movie could be changed into something better (Ninjas on motorcycles didn´t really fit the tone and it turned out that the plot didn´t make any sense after all).
 

SixShooter

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IM0:
9-Thor:Dark World
8-Iron Man 3
7-Iron Man 2
6-Hulk
5-Iron Man
4-Thor
3-Captain America
2-Captain America Winter Soldier
1-Avengers.
 

Nuxxy

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I am so glad to see so many fellow Escapists ranking Iron Man 1 right up there. It is still my favourite. I can't consider the movies out of their sequence - so much depended on Iron Man 1 and it delivered. It was tense, it was fun, both Tony Stark and Iron Man are equally cool, and because of that it really felt like you were with Tony in this crazy adventure his life had taken.

My list:
1) Iron Man
2) Cap 2
3) Avengers (though it's not really fair to judge it on it's own)
---
Everything else is ranked in below it, with Iron Man 2 the most disappointing.

On the topic of Iron Man 3 and the Mandarin - how many here have seen the "All Hail the King" 1-shot? It's the first one with a possible significant impact on continuity.
Trevor Slattery finds out that the 'real' Mandarin is not happy with and his imitation. The Mandarin (Killian/Slattery) in Iron Man 3 is an intentional misuse - and a chance to introduce the character and give him a reason to make his presence known publicly.
 

Gorrath

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Gunnyboy said:
Gorrath said:
Gunnyboy said:
Winter Soldier - white military industrial complex villain
That issue certainly presents itself in the IM series and in the Hulk, but the villains in Winter Soldier were Hydra, not the amorphous "military industrial complex". None of the villains presented in Winter Soldier worked in the military industrial field. I've made the exact same criticism you are but I don't think it fits with Winter Soldier.
Cap's entire arc is about SHIELD's covert ops, and their new weapons program designed to kill threats before they happen. The HYDRA aspect undercuts that point, but he was intent on stopping it before he even knew SHIELD wasnt what it was.
Usually when the MIC is referenced, it's referring to someone creating the products for sale to a government. As you say, this is in every IM movie, as we get Obidiah Stane, Justin Hammer and Aldrich Killian, all of whom directly work for/own companies that make weapons. Hydra/Shield doesn't make those weapons, and while you could make an argument that the customers of weapons contracts count as part of the MIC, then we are left labeling any villain who works for the government as a MIC villain. I think Hydra is a big enough departure from the Iron Man trio to not count as MIC villains. MIght be splitting hairs though.
 

Gorrath

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Yojoo said:
Gorrath said:
Yojoo said:
I don't really consider The Incredible Hulk to be part of the MCU any more. Nothing from that movie has been acknowledged in any way I'm aware of by any of the other films. And Tony Stark's cameo in the post-credits scene is clearly anachronistic, since Stark wasn't part of the Avenger program at all until the Avengers film. If Mark Ruffalo's Bruce Banner calls up Liv Tyler for a chat in an upcoming film, I will be extremely surprised.
Hate to be "that guy" but the events of the Hulk movie are mentioned in The Avengers when Black Widow is trying to recruit Bruce to the team. Specifically, they talk about the destruction of Manhattan. Still, I'd rather forget that awful film too and just roll with Mark "Best Hulk Evar" Ruffalo. As for IM3 hate, check my post above this reply. I honestly don't think it was the comedy that made it so mediocre, it was the rehash of the same ideas we got in IM1-2.
I actually remembered that conversation between Black Widow and Banner. I don't really consider it a reference to the Hulk movie so much as simply a reference to Hulk as a character. I mean, Hulk necessarily has destroyed stuff in his background, nobody is pretending that Avengers was Banner's first adventure.

The Incredible Hulk ends with Tim Roth as the Abomination getting thrown in some hole, likely one controlled by SHIELD. Obviously the Tesseract was a more important item for Fury to devote study time to, but surely a monster that could match the Hulk punch-for-punch was worth examining? After all, Tim Roth's character started his path to becoming the Abomination by taking serum that was originally intended to replicate the Captain America juice. If such studies were being conducted, why were they abandoned? It makes no sense within the continuity, which is part of the reason why I no longer consider it as such.
While I think their conversation was intended to be a direct reference to the Hulk movie, I do follow your reasoning. Certainly that particular plot has not made much sense in the greater continuity (I personally feel like it was a bad movie, the only bad movie of the continuity). But with Stark showing up for the post credits scene to talk about The Avengers and the Hulk's campus rampage showing up on TV in IM2, (IM2 runs concurrently with the Hulk movie). There's also a Marvel one-shot where it was revealed that Coulston actually sent Stark to Ross in an attempt to get The Abomination for The Avengers.

I think there's just too many tie-ins to consider The Incredible Hulk non-cannon, as much as I'd like to.
 

Evil Smurf

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Wow, okay. Honestly I thought X-Men First class beat them all. It is good to know that I've seen the best film in the Avengers universe though.
 

Extragorey

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People are aware of the existence of Marvel's One-Shots, right? Those short clips of tie-in scenes released on the Blurays of the respective movies. Most of them are pretty insignificant, plot-wise, but the one-shot accompanying Iron Man 3 ("All Hail the King") actually reveals the existence of the real Mandarin in the MCU.

Anyway, I've liked all the MCU movies so far, but mostly just as action flicks. Very good action flicks, but still just action flicks. The only two the really stood out for me were Iron Man 1 (Tony Stark is undeniably the biggest personality on the Avengers) and The Avengers for its outside-the-box witty dialogue and screenplay.
 

Gunnyboy

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Extragorey said:
People are aware of the existence of Marvel's One-Shots, right? Those short clips of tie-in scenes released on the Blurays of the respective movies. Most of them are pretty insignificant, plot-wise, but the one-shot accompanying Iron Man 3 ("All Hail the King") actually reveals the existence of the real Mandarin in the MCU.

Anyway, I've liked all the MCU movies so far, but mostly just as action flicks. Very good action flicks, but still just action flicks. The only two the really stood out for me were Iron Man 1 (Tony Stark is undeniably the biggest personality on the Avengers) and The Avengers for its outside-the-box witty dialogue and screenplay.
All Hail The King is a complete joke,and pure fan bait after the backlash online. It's rubbish, and no amount of retcon will change that.

daibakuha said:
Gunnyboy said:
You're right, because relegating asian roles to bad guys is such a good thing. He's a "yellow menace" villain. The might as well have a villain called Captain Communism and have him speak with a Russian accent while espousing the views of his communist homeland.

These films sell to an international audience and sometimes when you adapt the source material you have to change it to not fucking piss off all the people in a country you want to see the film.

Captcha: Can't have nice things. Sounds fitting.
So now Asians can't be villains? How isn't THAT racist? This is just corporate nonsense to appease a market. It's safe filmmaking, something the original Iron Man really wasnt'.


There's no reason you can't have a villain trying to end the West's imperialism, military intervention, financial dominance. He could have been like Lau from The Dark Knight, but with the rings and physical threat.

Gorrath said:
Usually when the MIC is referenced, it's referring to someone creating the products for sale to a government. As you say, this is in every IM movie, as we get Obidiah Stane, Justin Hammer and Aldrich Killian, all of whom directly work for/own companies that make weapons. Hydra/Shield doesn't make those weapons, and while you could make an argument that the customers of weapons contracts count as part of the MIC, then we are left labeling any villain who works for the government as a MIC villain. I think Hydra is a big enough departure from the Iron Man trio to not count as MIC villains. MIght be splitting hairs though.

SHIELD was the one building those weapons though. They got the tech from Stark, to fix their Helicarriers. It's their weapons, and they were trying to sell the council on making them active.
 

vid87

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I feel like being immersed in the shop-talk and rumor mill about these movies, especially about how many movies so-and-so has left in their contract, is starting to actually affect my enjoyment of them - Cap 2 offered some nice cameos and curveballs, but most of them were hinted at or suggested at some point and I just couldn't feel as surprised as I'd like to be, which sucks because rumor mongering is fun. I think that's why I wasn't able to realize/admit right away that Cap 2, on a thematic and meaningful level, has a lot more going for it than Avengers.

As for Winter Soldier himself, I think it's actually a smart move not to dwell on him too long - 90% of audiences already knew who he was and dragging that out would've been cheap and made us miss the bigger game-changing picture (even if, again, it wasn't that surprising).
 

Gorrath

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vid87 said:
I feel like being immersed in the shop-talk and rumor mill about these movies, especially about how many movies so-and-so has left in their contract, is starting to actually affect my enjoyment of them - Cap 2 offered some nice cameos and curveballs, but most of them were hinted at or suggested at some point and I just couldn't feel as surprised as I'd like to be, which sucks because rumor mongering is fun. I think that's why I wasn't able to realize/admit right away that Cap 2, on a thematic and meaningful level, has a lot more going for it than Avengers.

As for Winter Soldier himself, I think it's actually a smart move not to dwell on him too long - 90% of audiences already knew who he was and dragging that out would've been cheap and made us miss the bigger game-changing picture (even if, again, it wasn't that surprising).
I agree completely. The Winter Soldier had plenty enough screen time to come off as a credible menace, but there was no need to bang on about him. His character arc followed the path it needed to, especially with his actions at the end. He may not have played the biggest role he could have in the film, but that made way for the interesting spy-plot and the relevant themes regarding Old School Cap vs the modern world. A three hour punch-up between Steve and Bucky would have grown tired quickly.
 

Gorrath

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Gunnyboy said:
SHIELD was the one building those weapons though. They got the tech from Stark, to fix their Helicarriers. It's their weapons, and they were trying to sell the council on making them active.
What makes you think SHIELD actually manufactured those Helicarriers? We do see them in dry-dock beneath SHIELD headquarters, but it makes no sense at all for SHIELD to have licensed tech from Stark and then built the systems themselves. But let's say for a second SHIELD was responsible for the actual manufacture of the carriers. In that scenario, they wouldn't be part of the military industrial complex at all, as the MIC is defined by being a joint venture between government, military and private companies. Without the corrupt interplay between government and private contractors, I hardly see how this is an allusion to the MIC. The IM villains were private citizens trying to control weapons manufacturing and war for profit, which is the essence of MIC. The winter soldier villains were all government people engaged in espionage and a power coup for world domination. I just don't see the thematic connection to "war for profit". Hell, one of Hydra's stated goals is to end all war.
 

thetenet

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Iron Man 3 the best of that series, it is a terrible movie, fill with an unconvincing PTSD to justify Stark's having some half thought conflict, most of the movie the Iron Man suits doesn't appear, and the final battle is unexciting. It seems the Iron Man suit is the least used thing is its own movies,
 

Lyvric

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I agree with most of movie bob points but some of the tops I'd change.

1) The avengers was a difficult concept that was finally done right and fun. They included characters that weren't filmed like hawkeye and black widow and the hulk got a bit of justification. Cheesy one liners and action helped make any mistakes feel organic and it was a good movie to just relax to.

2) Iron man 3: It's a side that shows that hey people, Tony is still human. Some super heroes day to day can be relatable yet still can get it together to save the day. The mandarin decoy was hilarious and mistakes characters made led up to later scenes being more interesting. It's about not being perfect and it amazingly works.

3) Captain America: winter soldier: I might rank this higher once I see where it goes. I think many people hold it high as it's still fresh. Don't get me wrong, It's a good movie but there's a few things that bug me. It's disappointing when the main name of the movie is a bad guy who kind of gets the shaft and it does leave a massive cliff-hanger for other movies. Otherwise is a nice, dark take full of great action and leaves people wanting to know more about lesser known marvel heroes.
 

truckspond

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My list would be more along the lines of

1) The Avengers (It just works and Loki utterly OWNS the picture!)

2) Captain America: Winter Soldier (In typical Marvel fashion the trailers and sneak peeks show everything while giving nothing away. Seriously: You NEED to watch this movie!)

3) Iron Man 3 (Again, the trailers and sneak peeks showed everything but gave nothing away. When I saw it at the cinema I was honestly not expecting the key plot twist!)

4) Iron Man (The original movie that really got the whole Avengers thing going.)

5) Thor (Good action and semi-decent plot but not much purpose aside from establishing the character and the gatekeeper manages to wipe the floor with the other characters in every scene he is in)

6) Captain America: The First Avenger (It's cheesiness wears off REALLY fast!)

7) Iron Man 2 (Awesome action but with plotconviniance-um having a psychological and physical effect on the main character you can't really suspend your disbelief to last the whole film)

8) Thor 2 (While still a decent action movie it just does not work in terms of the plot.)

9) The Incredible Hulk (A movie is NOT supposed to be shot like a comic book is framed. Let's just leave it at that!)
 

Flunk

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Did anyone notice at about 1:25 there is a clip of the incredible Hulk running through want is supposed to be New York City at the Apollo theater but looks nothing at all like it? I recognized the location right away, it's Yonge Street in Toronto, Ontario, Canada. The huge sign for the Zanzibar Strip club is a dead give-away and if you're familiar with the area all the other stores line up too. That is except for the fake Apollo marquee.

Hollywood is so cheap and lazy these days. I haven't seen all these movies so I'll just rank the ones I have. I rate all the others as not being worth seeing, because I only have so much time.

Iron Man 3
The Avengers
Iron Man 1
Iron Man 2

I might go see The Winter Soldier. It looks ok and it tyes into that Agents of Shield show I've been trying to watch.
 

MegaSuperUberMe

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Iron Man 3 is way too high, it should be number 9. It is badly written all around, riddled with plotholes the size of Bermuda triangle, sub-plots come and go as they please without any real resolution, the action is weak, the Big Bad is even weaker, characters make many idiotic dissensions, Tony acted like a complete idiot throughout the whole movie, his PTSD is resolved in a completely retarded way and it's too damn cheesy even next to other Marvel movies. It is an objectively bad movie