Well, but I think we're getting away from one of the most important things we should be doing here at DTF. One of the things that is such a core of this forum's very being and identity. What we really should be doing here is...ranking them!
Here's mine:
1. Avengers: Infinity War - What a huge undertaking. And so well done. It is amazing that such a huge film could somehow feel short. They really brought all the pieces that have been building over the years together in such a satisfying way.
2. The Avengers - Speaking of bringing the pieces together, this first effort in assembling the hitherto separate team did such a masterful job. We've had so many movies that it's easy to forget what an undertaking this was and how well they knocked it out of the park.
3. Spiderman: Homecoming - Such a fun and satisfying take on the character of Spiderman. It's just so much fun that it's hard to not love it. There's nothing groundbreaking about it, but it still works.
4. Thor Ragnarok: This was such a left turn for the Thor subfranchise, but it absolutely worked. It was so goofy and quirky, and so fun and cool at the same time. The only problem I had is that the scale of Asgard as a world and how quickly and easily it got exterminated seemed off. Rather than making Hela seem so formidable, it just made me feel like Asgard was not all that. And that cheapened the stakes that seemed so high when Thor had his visions in Age of Ultron. This film seemed to unintentionally undermine that a bit. And yet...it's still awesome.
5. Iron Man - The stakes weren't that high, and the "villain" wasn't that great. But that's okay. As an origin story, it worked. And it was so solid an origin story that the entire MCU has been able to build on it for 21 films.
6. Age of Ultron - Yeah, I'm probably in the minority for ranking this so high, but I liked it and can't really find any flaws. Well, actually, here's one that is a common beef I have with a lot of modern stories: the timeline of events was too tight/short. Ultron needed to go into hiding for at least several months to secretly build the infrastructure for his plan on Sokovia. The movie itself didn't need to be longer. But they just needed to show more passage of time to make it more realistic instead of everything happening virtually instantaneously.
7. Captain America: The First Avenger - I struggled with where to put this one, but I guess it goes here. Good way to take the traditional origin of the character and make it fit our modern world. And it really set up a solid character in Steve Rogers.
8. Iron Man 3 - Say what you will, but I really liked this film. It had its flaws. But the false Mandarin plot was brilliant, IMO. And the subplot of Tony's fragile emotional state after the battle of NY was really important and pretty well done.
9. Doctor Strange - Um...yet another Marvel character I never really liked or cared for that was brought to screen in a way that made me like and care for the character. Lots of fun effects. I again have the same timeline criticism though. It needed more passage of time to make it more believable.
10. Captain America: The Winter Soldier - I don't love this one, but it was good. And the consequences for future films were pretty big.
11. Guardians of the Galaxy - I probably don't have to sell anybody on how much unexpected fun this movie was. The 12-year-old humor crossed the line too many times for this to rank higher, or it could be perhaps top 5.
12. Captain America: Civil War - Good idea, but for some reason, this one just fell a bit flat for me. The two sides weren't really fighting and didn't really even want to. The stakes were supposed to be high. But they didn't really feel that high.
13. The Incredible Hulk - Didn't immediately love it. But looking back, it was pretty good.
14. Ant Man and Wasp - Intentionally low stakes, and that was fine. Intentionally funny, and good at it. This film intentionally did what it set out to do.
15. Black Panther - Not bad by any stretch. But I don't love it either.
16. Ant-Man - Same. But Black Panther was better.
17. Thor: The Dark World - Oh, Thor. I loved you in the comics. I love you as a character in the films. But I don't love your solo films. But that said, I do like them quite a bit.
18. Iron Man 2 - The second installment in the Tony Stark saga worked just fine. Tony was figuring himself out. Cool. Just wasn't as much fun as the films that rank above it.
19. Thor - It wasn't bad. But I had high expectations, and this film didn't come close to meeting them.
20. Guardians of the Galaxy Vol. 2 - It certainly had some cool moments. But easily my least favorite of the bunch. And all the stuff that had little or nothing to do with Ego was far more interesting and fun than what the bulk of the film was about.
Topic: Marvel's Movie/TV Universe v2 (SPOILERS) (Read 251455 times)
