Ranking the Meh-CU

At the end of last year, Tony Laplume posted his ranking of the Marvel universe.  I couldn't agree with some of his choices, especially his mini-review of Black Panther that seemed really off-base to me.  But it got me thinking about how I would rank those movies.

The problem is that I don't really love any of them.  They pretty much rank from fine to OK.  Basically it's a universe of meh for me.  I think it's because I've almost always been a DC guy as far as superheroes go.  I grew up with Superfriends, Batman 66, the Christopher Reeve Superman movies, and the Michael Keaton Batman movies.  So I was always more about Batman and Superman than any Marvel characters.  Captain America and Spider-Man were the only Marvel characters I really had any interest in.  The Hulk I didn't really like because it's basically the story of a smart guy who turns into a big, dumb monster.  Not really something I'd like.

I did like the first two X-Men movies and first two Spider-Man movies.  But if the whole "Marvel Cinematic Universe" never happened, I wouldn't have really given a shit.  But for the hell of it, let's try to sort the pile of meh that is the MCU into what's less meh than others.

23.  Thor Ragnarok:  A lot of people love this because it's "fun" but I found it a lame bastardization of the great Planet Hulk comic and a complete 180 in Thor characterization that continued into the last two Avengers movies.  It turned the character from serious into a parody.

22.  The Incredible Hulk:  It's not really a bad movie.  It basically follows the same overall formula as Iron Man that became the basis of most every Marvel origin movie.  There's the reluctant hero who faces off against someone who is his dark mirror opposite.  And mayhem ensues!  But since it only made like $250 million and not $500 it was viewed as a failure and largely ignored with Ed Norton being replaced by Mark Ruffalo.

21.  Avengers:  Age of Ultron:  This movie makes the same mistake a lot of imitators have made by worrying too much about setting up the future that it doesn't make all that compelling of a story in the present.  It's impossible not to see this as just a placeholder since Marvel wasn't ready for the whole Thanos/Infinity Gauntlet thing yet.  I guess the good thing for Marvel is it broke Joss Whedon enough that he left Marvel and tried to "save" Justice League.

20.  Guardians of the Galaxy, Vol 2:  I didn't see this in theaters and when I watched it on Labor Day weekend in a motel I found myself getting bored and reading stuff on my phone instead of watching the movie.  As far as Marvel movies go, was there any reason for this to exist?  If you don't watch it, you're not missing much, especially with Gamora being rebooted in Endgame.

19.  Doctor Strange:  This was the first Marvel movie I didn't watch in theaters.  Because...I just didn't care.  Dr. Strange was never a character I had any interest in.  As far as overall MCU stuff I guess it does matter with the Infinity Stone thing, but otherwise isn't important.

18.  Thor: The Dark World:  Like GOTG2, it's a pretty bland sequel.  And like Dr. Strange, except for the Infinity Stone stuff there's nothing important overall.  Like the first one, Loki really steals the show.  I guess that's why they felt they had to change Thor so much for the third one.

17.  Spider-Man Homecoming:  I liked the first two original Spider-Man movies by Sam Raimi and didn't really care about the Andrew Garfield ones.  This one...meh.  It's put together all right, but as I said when I reviewed it the first time, there doesn't seem like many of the traditional Spider-Man elements in it, like the Daily Bugle, J Jonah Jameson, Harry Osborn, Norman Osborn, Gwen Stacey, or Mary Jane Watson.  There's an MJ who's not Mary Jane Watson and a lot of Iron Man.  And a May who's an AILF and Michael Keaton as a blue collar version of the Vulture.  So that's something.

16.  Avengers: Infinity War:  A long, dreary slog that's largely devoid of plot logic.  I went through all that in my grumpy review of it.  I mean, why not just use the Time Stone and go back to kill Thanos?  Or at least keep him from from getting all the stones?  At that point time travel wasn't really part of the MCU but...

15.  Avengers:  Endgame:  But now we have to fall back on that deus ex machina of time travel to fix things because otherwise how could we?  Another long, dreary slog with the forced death of Iron Man and the even more forced departure of Steve Rogers.  Some people have probably seen it fifty times by now, but once in the theater was enough for me.  And that was largely to avoid spoilers.

14.  Iron Man 3:  Like the other sequels listed so far it's not so much a terrible movie as it's just not great.  Tony Stark on the run in a small Tennessee town, cut off from his tech was a neat idea but could have been done better.  The twist with the Mandarin was kind of lame and the final battle just dragged on too long.  But it was cool to see Guy Pearce in a big superhero movie, though he probably could be playing a hero instead of a forgettable villain.  As far as the MCU this had a bigger contribution to the TV universe than the movies.

13.  Captain Marvel:  This might be higher (or lower) if I'd seen it more than once.  Marvel had ample chances to be the first one to do a big female superhero movie, but they didn't come up with this until after DC's much better Wonder Woman.  It's too little, too late, much like the forced "girl power" scene in Endgame.  And turning Nick Fury losing his eye into a joke was pretty lame after 11 years of movies.

12.  Iron Man 2:  I know Tony Laplume thinks this is the best MCU movie but rewatching it, I found it meh.  It did help launch the larger MCU by giving Nick Fury more than a cookie scene (just barely) and introducing Black Widow, but a lot of the MCU service feels forced.  Like I said to Tony, "Mostly what they actually contribute to the plot is giving Tony Stark a shot to alleviate his radiation poisoning and some old files of his father. A nurse and UPS driver could have served the same function." Not really a great movie in my book.

11.  Thor:  This introduction of Thor is pretty good, but Loki is the one who really steals the show.  Before Thanos, Loki was the only memorable villain Marvel had ever created.  Coulson and especially Hawkeye are wedged into the story though neither (especially the latter) is essential.

10.  Spider-Man Far From Home:  This would probably be lower if not for the cookie scene with J Jonah Jameson--played by JK Simmons even!  Between that and actually making Peter and MJ's relationship more like Peter and MJ's traditional relationship it felt more like a Spider-Man movie even with the globetrotting.  Mysterio was actually a better hero than villain, but the callbacks to Civil War and Iron Man were neat--the latter featuring Ralphie from A Christmas Story!  Still not as good as the first two Raimi movies.

9.  Captain America: Civil War:  What really should have been called Avengers 2 1/2 since it's only vaguely a Captain America movie.  Most of the movie is just MCU servicing by breaking up the Avengers and introducing Black Panther and Spider-Man.  But on the heels of BvS by less than 2 months it did a lot of the same things but in a far less clunky way.  The last-minute introduction of Spider-Man was especially forced, which made sense with how close it came to not happening at all.  Zemo is a decent villain, albeit an underused one.

8.  Ant-Man:  The long-gestating Edgar Wright movie finally came to the big screen--without Edgar Wright for the most part, though he got a writing and EP credit.  I saw a video on YouTube that hilariously compared this to Iron Man and it really does follow that formula, only the hero is an ex-con not a billionaire.  Like Iron Man succeeded largely thanks to Robert Downey Jr, this movie works mostly because of Paul Rudd being able to walk the tightrope between action movie and family movie and managing to make a criminal likable.

7.  Ant-Man and the Wasp:  A Marvel sequel that is fun and mostly focused on its own little corner of the MCU, though the cookie scene does have a huge impact on Endgame.  Bringing back Hope's mother was something I was surprised they didn't do the first time, but I guess they wanted to spend more time setting up that quantum realm thing.  And adding another old Batman movie alum to the MCU with Michelle Pfeiffer!  Ghost is less forgettable than most Marvel villains and in this case not even really a villain so much as someone trying to save herself.  I'm really trying to justify this but really this could have been a few spots down.  Whatever.

6.  Guardians of the Galaxy:  I didn't know much about this property beforehand, but a talking raccoon who shoots huge guns was enough for me.  It's a fun movie and obviously had huge implications for the MCU as the first "cosmic" movie to move things beyond Earth.

5.  Captain America:  The First Avenger:  This was probably higher until Wonder Woman.  This also largely revolves around a World War, only the second one.  But nothing in this movie really rises to the level of Wonder Woman crossing No Man's Land.  And the tepid, half-assed HYDRANazis were kind of lame.  Ooh, we wouldn't want to offend anyone by using actual Nazis.  You know, like all those failed movies like two Indiana Jones movies, Schindler's List, The Sound of Music, and so on and so on...But Chris Evans really does a good job of portraying Captain America as everything people associated with the character.  Someone compared it to the Christopher Reeve Superman and that seems apt.  Red Skull is an OK villain, following the Marvel formula of the dark mirror universe version of the hero.  

4.  Avengers:  This was an OK movie, but as I said when I reviewed it, it felt like a 2 1/2-hour team-building exercise.  There was really no deeper meaning to it.  Good guys fight largely faceless bad guys.  And good guys prevail.  Hooray!  Which is fine as a popcorn movie.  The scenes of heroes fighting each other were kind of pointless, but otherwise it was fine.

3.  Black Panther:  The first Marvel movie that actually had any social relevance.  Until then they all revolved around white males, many of whom with superpowers.  The only two black heroes, War Machine and Falcon, were sidekicks.  Like with female superheroes, Marvel got shown up by DC and so finally did what they could have done years ago.  And while the plot largely follows the traditional Marvel formula, it introduces us to the whole new world of Wakanda that seems like an alien planet even though it's on Earth.  Killmonger is one of the better Marvel "villains," a villain who is in a way a hero as he wants to right the wrongs done to black people over the centuries.  In the era of Trump and police shooting black kids routinely, who can blame him?  There's also some fun and humor provided thanks to the banter between T'Challa and Shuri and the hapless CIA agent played by Martin Freeman.  Andy Serkis chews a bit too much scenery, but overall it's definitely one of the best MCU films.

2.  Iron Man:  By itself this probably should be lower, but you have to give it props for what it started.  Had it failed, so many superheroes would still be largely forgotten, confined to only comics and maybe animated features.  The movie introduces the Marvel formula of a hero who's kind of a goofball and is forced to face off with the dark mirror universe version of himself.  In this case it's Obediah Stane, his longtime business partner.  Robert Downey Jr. doesn't have to do much more than play himself as a screw-up who becomes a hero.  Watching old shows like The Simpsons or MST3K, it's kind of funny when they make jokes about Downey Jr's drug problems.  Remember that?  Kids who've grown up with the MCU would probably never have thought this was a guy who would probably be in prison if he were poor and/or black.

1.  Captain America:  The Winter Soldier:  This is largely held as the best MCU movie.  It's a fairly good thriller more than a superhero movie.  Other than the unconvincing romantic plot it's a well-done movie that really brings Captain America into the modern era.  It's just too bad they couldn't have done it before the first Avengers so the character might have been better acclimated before taking on aliens.  As far as the MCU this had a much bigger impact on the SHIELD TV show but it did introduce the new Captain America, or the Falcon, and re-introduced us to Bucky.  And Robert Redford is probably the best Marvel villain to that point not named Loki.

So there you go, that's my list.  For as much as it really means.