With the release of Thor:
Ragnarok this past weekend, Marvel has closed the book on what is perhaps
their best year of releases to date, as ‘Phase Three’ of the company’s
aggressive release schedule has proved to be the studio’s most creatively
fertile period. We’re 17 films deep into the Marvel Cinematic Universe, and far
from being burned out on these films, I find I’m enjoying them more than ever,
the films becoming funnier, deeper, and more visually inventive with each
passing year.
In May of 2016, just as this third phase was about to begin,
I published a list ranking what were then the 12 films of the MCU. Now, a year
and a half later, and with some of the company’s best films having debuted in
the intervening months, I wanted to update those rankings and add thoughts on
the five films that have come out since. I’ve written entries on each of those
movies, adjusted the rankings accordingly, and edited the original text to
better reflect my current thoughts. I have also included links to either my
original written reviews of each of the movies or to the Weekly Stuff Podcast
episodes where Sean Chapman and I discussed, so you may see how my thoughts
have evolved over time.
So without further ado, continue
reading after the jump to see my updated rankings on the films of the Marvel
Cinematic Universe…
The black sheep of the MCU, The Incredible Hulk is not without its merits – Edward Norton makes
a decent Bruce Banner, the animation on the Hulk himself is solid, and the film
admirably managed to reboot the character in mostly-interesting fashion without
resorting to a rehashed origin story – but with the film having been more or
less swept under the rug when Joss Whedon and Mark Ruffalo expertly re-tooled
the character in The Avengers, it’s
hard not to look at this one as the most forgettable, inessential moment in
Marvel’s cinematic canon. Whatever good things Louis Leterrier and company did
with the character, Ruffalo and Whedon (and, later, Ruffalo and Taika Waititi) did
them so much better that it’s kind of impossible to go back to this movie and
see it as anything other than a necessary bit of throat-clearing before the
definitive version of the cinematic Hulk would come along four years later.
16. Iron Man 2
The most critically reviled film of the lot, Iron Man 2 gets a lot of flack it
probably doesn’t deserve, for although there are absolutely flaws – this is one
of the most structurally bizarre superhero films ever made, and the climax
somehow manages to feel even smaller in scale than the underwhelming third act
of its predecessor – this sequel really does have it where it counts. Robert
Downey Jr. is just as fantastic as ever, and the exploration of a fully
self-destructive Tony Stark, while probably not taken as far as it could go,
makes for genuinely compelling superhero drama. Gwyneth Paltrow is equally
terrific – no duo in the MCU has ever managed to match the chemistry of Tony
Stark and Pepper Potts – and Don Cheadle was inspired recasting as James
Rhodes, whose transformation into War Machine here is a lot of fun. I’ll even
defend Sam Rockwell’s Justin Hammer, who might not be the most intimidating
villain ever to grace a superhero movie, but is, to me, one of the most memorable
to ever come out of the MCU. Jon Favreau’s last Marvel at-bat wasn’t perfect,
but if he ever wanted to return to the fold, I for one would welcome him with
open arms, because warts and all, Iron
Man 2 remains a blast. (And as the kickstart for my love for all things
Scarlett Johansson, encouraging me to explore her past filmography and seek out
just about anything she did in the future, Iron
Man 2 will always hold a special place in my heart).
15. Thor
Although I absolutely love Chris Hemsworth’s portrayal of
Thor throughout the MCU, along with the broader Asgardian mythology, I’ve
always regarded his first solo outing as one of Marvel’s lesser efforts. The
film comes out swinging where it counts – Hemsworth, Natalie Portman, Stellan
Skarsgard, Kat Dennings, and especially Tom Hiddleston, one of the biggest
breakout stars of the MCU to date, make for a pretty stellar ensemble – but you
can also feel the growing pains in Marvel dipping its toes into full-on
fantasy, as the story tends to move in fits and starts, the integration of
SHIELD feels mostly clumsy, and the action climax is the most flaccid in all
the Marvel films. Still, for introducing us to this side of the universe, and
for establishing the sibling rivalry between Thor and Loki, Thor’s inaugural
outing is nothing if not a solid early effort.
14. Ant-Man
Given the almost ludicrously troubled production history
behind this one, it’s sort of amazing Ant-Man
came out coherent at all, let alone one of the more pleasantly surprising
moments in the MCU to date. The film feels a little too lightweight overall –
the plot, an obvious rehash of the first Iron
Man, is the most lacking of any MCU film – but Paul Rudd, Michael Douglas,
and especially Evangeline Lilly are so good, their characterization and
chemistry so sharp and enjoyable, that it’s impossible to walk away from this
one without a pretty sizable smile. And with the ‘macro’ photography used to
depict the world as seen by Ant-Man, this is also one of the most visually
striking films Marvel has yet produced.
Less of an ‘event’ than the first Avengers was, and with moments where the whole thing threatens to
sink under the weight of too many characters and too scattered a plot, Age of Ultron is nevertheless a pretty
substantial pleasure, with Joss Whedon’s sharp character writing back in
full-force. Whedon handles the top-tier characters just fine, but it’s those
heroes who don’t get solo outings – namely Black Widow, Hulk, and Hawkeye – who
shine brightest this time out. Scarlett Johansson, Mark Ruffalo, and Jeremy
Renner easily steal the show, and given that we don’t get to see them quite as
much as Cap, Iron Man, or Thor, that is just fine with me. Age of Ultron feels less like a culmination than it does a stepping
stone, but if it’s a stepping stone to an MCU where the cast feels richer,
deeper, more diverse and more human than ever before, then that’s fine by me.
Those who dismiss this film have no heart. How can you not
smile when Thor hangs up his hammer on the coat rack? When Kat Dennings greets
of the God of Thunder and asks him “How’s space?”, only to hear Thor respond
that “Space is good”? When Natalie Portman reacts to Asgard with one of the
widest, most infectious smiles ever glimpsed in a superhero movie? When Loki
transforms himself into Captain America just to annoy his brother? The Dark World is one of the most
joyous, unabashedly comic-booky comic-book movies ever made, an absolute riot
from top-to-bottom, and if its story feels a little lightweight, the film more
than makes up for it in inventiveness and charm. I love this silly movie, and
if you have a pulse and a sense of humor, you should too.
11. Iron Man 3
With Iron Man 3, Shane
Black got the keys to one of the biggest and most anticipated superhero films
yet, and he used the opportunity to make something that pretty well resembles a
Shane Black movie, through and through. A comic espionage variation on the
usual Iron Man bombast, this third
outing has a pretty incredible sense of voice and style, and a tremendous
exploration of Tony Stark’s underlying demons to boot. I can absolutely
understand how the Mandarin twist might be infuriating to some – if nothing
else, it renders what looked like a major event picture into something much
smaller-scale than expected – but judged on its own merits, I think it all
works just fine, and as the first post-Avengers
MCU film, Iron Man 3 proved there
was plenty left to do with characters who may have started to seem more or less
definitively explored.
10. Doctor
Strange
This is a slight film in many ways, its characters and world
less fleshed out and lived in than in other Marvel films, and its script
veering a little too close to origin story fundamentals for comfort. It might
even be easy to argue that the film is an exercise in style over substance if
the style weren’t so damn inventive that it becomes, in fact, the very
enjoyable substance of the most visually ravishing and creatively staged film
Marvel has ever pulled off. Even if I wish the script weren’t quite so thin, I
cannot help but love just how far director Scott Derickson managed to push the
film’s weird blend of magic and mysticism in the aesthetics, and how much that
transforms a fairly rote story into a pretty rousing adventure. Benedict
Cumberbatch proves that the obvious choice is sometimes the correct one, and by
the time he shows up in that full, amazing costume – one of the best ever
created for a live-action superhero production – the film has settled into a deliriously
enjoyable groove that leaves me wanting a lot more from the Sorcerer Supreme.
One of the most fundamentally passionate movie ever made
within the MCU, Guardians of the Galaxy loses
a few points from me for an overly MacGuffin-oriented plot and a few narrative
hiccups, but gains a whole lot more for what a wonderful cast of characters it
boasts, and for the absolutely overwhelming sense of love for the material that
is poured into each and every frame. Visually ravishing, James Gunn’s film is
as tonally assured and emotionally rich as any superhero film ever made, and
establishes a rock solid foundation for future interstellar Marvel adventures.
It may not hold a candle to Sam Raimi’s first two Spider-Man films, but it doesn’t have
to. The goal of Spider-Man Homecoming was
rehabilitation, and it not only leaves Spider-Man
in much better cinematic shape than he’s been since 2004, but charts a new
creative path for the character vastly different to anything filmmakers have
tried before. Tom Holland’s Peter Parker is an actual teenager, who has friends
who feel like actual teenagers, who goes to a school that looks and feels like
an actual modern high school, who has an appropriately-aged Aunt and lives in
the kind of apartment of a person of their socioeconomic status would actually
inhabit. Homecoming is all about
updating Spider-Man for 2017, and that charge towards authenticity is a big
part of what makes the film such a delight. It also makes the film quite a bit
slighter than many other MCU films – Homecoming
is almost aggressively small-scale
at times, feeling more like a really polished TV pilot than a $150-million film
– but its charms are outsized, its cast is stupendous (Michael Keaton has the
single most menacing scene an MCU villain has ever achieved), and its heart is
very big indeed. For the first time in over a decade, Spider-Man feels vibrant
and sustainable on the big screen, and I cannot wait to see what comes next.
7. Iron Man
The film that started it all, Jon Favreau’s Iron Man undoubtedly gets extra points for being the MCU’s starting point – none of the other films on this list would be in any way possible without the achievement of this first installment – but it is also a damn fine film in its own right, and at the time of its release, it was nothing short of a revolutionary blueprint for what superhero films could be. At a time when comic-book movies largely seemed ashamed to be comic-book movies, Iron Man boldly declared that it was okay to embrace the silly and the fanciful, all while proving one needn’t sacrifice character depth or emotional stakes to do so. Robert Downey Jr. brought his career roaring back to life in what still remains the greatest and most significant match between actor and character in the annals of live-action superhero history, and in so doing ushered in an audience that would be fully on-board and enthusiastic for the Marvel deluge to come. Marvel has gone on to do many bigger things, it has rarely done anything better.
I love this movie. I love this movie so, so much. Joe
Johnston took the opportunity to do a superhero period piece and effectively
turned it into one of modern Hollywood’s great adventure throwback yarns, a
much better Indiana Jones film than
the actual Indiana Jones film that
came out three years prior. But moreover, this is of course a great Captain America film, made with a deep
and abiding love and understanding for its title character, who emerged from this
film the most fully-formed, dynamic, and interesting hero the MCU has to offer,
proving that just because a hero has a strong, unflappable moral center,
doesn’t mean he cannot also be fascinating and three-dimensional in his own
right. If you want to understand just how wrong Zack Snyder has gotten Superman
in his recent DC movies, look no further than to The First Avenger for a lesson on how a seemingly simple American
symbol can actually contain a rich reservoir of emotion, entertainment, and
depth.
Remember what I just said about The First Avenger mining such rich pathos out of a seemingly
simplistic character? Take all of that and multiply it tenfold for The Winter Soldier, which brings Captain
America into the modern era, complete with many of the ethical complexities of
our time, and manages to make the character’s strong, moral heart beat stronger
and in more compelling ways than ever before. As filmmakers, Joe and Anthony
Russo are among the major discoveries of the MCU to date, as The Winter Soldier is sturdy, confident,
and gripping in ways most Hollywood blockbusters, Marvel or no, can barely even
dream of. And in welcoming in a host of new and returning characters from the
larger MCU – Black Widow, Nick Fury, Falcon, etc. – The Winter Soldier proved Marvel needn’t wait for big ‘team-up’
films to put pieces of their broader ensemble together and watch the sparks
fly, a revelation that paid off big time with Civil War (more on that in a bit!).
4. The
Avengers
It’s almost impossible to remember how enormous a risk The Avengers seemed when it was
announced. It’s like trying to put oneself in the shoes of viewers in 1937,
when Walt Disney was planning to make the world’s first animated feature, or in
1997, when James Cameron built a 90% scale model of the Titanic for a romantic epic,
or any other act of cinematic folly that seemed destined to be too big a dream
to ever fully pay off. But with the groundwork laid so carefully and lovingly
in the Phase One films, and with the inspired hiring of dyed-in-the-wool comic
aficionado Joss Whedon to tie the whole thing together, The Avengers turned out to be everything one hoped it could be and
more, a rich and entertaining intersection of great characters and great
performances, bolstered by some of the sharpest character writing ever to grace
a superhero epic. The Avengers understands
the conventions of a team-up film deeply, but it also makes better use of those
possibilities than I think anyone predicted it would or could, with the action
climax in New York remaining one of the shining pinnacles of the MCU to date, a
confident and jaw-dropping cinematic miracle. The Avengers remains a high mark not just for Marvel to continue
aiming for, but for anyone in Hollywood focused on franchise-minded filmmaking,
a watershed moment for the industry as a whole.
3. Thor: Ragnarok
Plenty has already been written about the many, many things Thor: Ragnarok does well. It has a big,
amazing cast and, to a person, uses every actor well, with Tessa Thompson, Cate
Blanchett, Jeff Goldblum, and even director Taika Waititi himself (as
Rock-person gladiator Korg) all threatening to steal the show from the
established heroes. Waititi directs the proceedings with a wonderful sense of
visual invention and a deep reservoir of character-based wit. Mark Mothersbaugh’s
synth-driven score is one of the MCU’s best, and the film’s use of Led Zepplin’s
Immigrant Song in two key sequences
is positively inspired.
All of these things are true, and yet what truly pushes Ragnarok so close to the top of the pack
for me is how firmly it foregrounds the notion of consequence in its
storytelling. That’s something all 3 of the films at the top of this list do
wonderfully, and is what separates them not just from other MCU films, but
Hollywood blockbusters in general. Without getting into spoilers, it is
sufficient to say that by the end of Ragnarok,
Thor and his world are in a very different
place than they started, and the journeys Thor, Loki, Hulk, Valkyrie, and
others go on over the course of the narrative feels organic and substantial. Waititi,
of Polynesian descent, even manages to build the film’s thematic framework
around considerations of colonial legacy, concerns the film refuses to simply
brush away. And when the end credits roll, no reset button is hit. No status
quo is returned to. Ragnarok is a
delirious amount of fun, but it’s also built on real stakes and consequences,
and that makes it one of the most memorable and meaningful films Marvel – or any
studio dabbling in superhero fare – has produced so far.
Speaking of consequences, it doesn’t get much more
substantial than this, the film that kicked off Marvel’s Phase Three with a
clear intention to shake up everything that had been built over the previous
films. Civil War is in many ways the
apotheosis of Marvel’s shared universe strategy, putting most of the MCU’s
major players together not in conflict with an external big bad, but with each
other, and directors Joe and Anthony Russo soar in playing with all the
possibilities that affords. The marquee battle at the airport is the most
inventive action sequence the MCU has so far produced, having a ridiculous
amount of fun in letting all these well-established powers and personalities
clash on such a grand stage.
And yet, I come back again to the idea of consequences. I
think the film’s script, by Christopher Markus and Stephen McFeely, is wickedly
smart, finding an organic and believable line in the sand to draw between
superhero camps – how much collateral damage is too much to stomach – and then
creating a villain who exploits that schism not to destroy or take over the
world, but to punish the ostensible heroes whose adventures inadvertently
killed his family. As sprawling as Civil
War is, its narrative is ultimately surprisingly intimate, hinging on the
personal experiences, beliefs, and differences between team leaders Steve
Rogers and Tony Stark, and pushing Chris Evans and Robert Downey Jr. further
than they’ve ever had to go in these films. It’s a film that packs a punch not
because large sections of the world are destroyed, but because no character
walks away unscathed, emotionally, physically, or otherwise. And just as Ragnarok leaves the cosmic status quo in
a new and different place, Civil War leaves
all its earthly pieces scattered, making for one of the few superhero films that
left me not only roused, but genuinely shaken.
More than any other Marvel movie, this one snuck up on me –
so much so that it’s the only film on this list, or maybe even in its entire
genre, that reduced me to a blubbering mess by the end, all three times I have
seen it. Vol. 2 takes the raw
essentials of everything the first film did well, cuts out most of the fat, and
improves exponentially by diving deeper into every one of its weird and
wonderful characters. More than most Hollywood sequels, this one not only
allows its characters to grow, but predicates every inch of its storytelling on
that growth. The larger cosmos isn’t the concern here – it’s the hearts and
minds of these previously obscure characters we’ve come to know and love, and
the people we meet when the (absurdly joyous) opening credits roll are not the
same people we know by the time the end credits start. Like Ragnarok and Civil War, it’s all about consequence and change, and I would argue
the emotional journey undertaken here is richer and more profound than anything
else the MCU has to offer.
It is also, of course, incredibly funny – perhaps the funniest superhero film ever made
(though Thor: Ragnarok has certainly
given it a run for its money), layered with so many jokes that you’ll likely be
laughing at all new ones on subsequent viewings, or chuckling at old ones in
different ways. But what writer/director James Gunn understands so
fundamentally is that the emotions we feel watching these films fall on a
spectrum – that humor and sadness and all the pathos in between aren’t so far
apart, and that once we’ve bought into these characters on the wavelength of
comedy, we’ll go along with them to just about any other emotional precipice as
well. Gunn takes us to thematic places as wide-ranging as childhood trauma, parental
neurosis, familial loss, and the depths of guarded, toxic masculinity, and it’s
the humor that helps open the door to each and every one of these conversations.
It all culminates in the very best scene Marvel has ever
staged, a Viking funeral in space that brings half a dozen character arcs to a
spectacular yet simple culmination, each on-screen figure reaffirming the value
of their own worth and their crazy makeshift family, scored impeccably to a
tremendous Cat Stevens song. No other Marvel movie has reached this deep, and
in terms of sheer emotional response, nothing else they’ve done has soared so
high. The film’s final shot is that
of a talking CGI raccoon shedding a tear of mingled joy and grief, and it had
me crying as well. If that isn’t emblematic of the kind of magic Marvel can
conjure at its very best, I don’t know what is.
Follow author Jonathan
Lack on Twitter @JonathanLack.
Great list!!
ReplyDeleteMy ranking would be
1. Winter Soldier
2. Iron Man
3. Guardians of the Galaxy
4. Civil War
5. Ragnarok
6. Guardians Vol 2
7. Avengers
8. First Avenger
9. Ant-Man
10. Dr. Strange
11. Ultron
12. Homecoming
13. Iron Man 3
14. Thor
15. Incredible Hulk
16. Iron Man 2
17. Dark World
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