It’s been a bugger of a month. I have had the flu, and then took the flu shot which had its own symptoms, but before the full effectiveness of that kicked in, I got the flu again. Silver lining has been I have been able to catch up on all the silver screen goodness. And once I had watched Snyders Justice League, Nomadland, Mortal Kombat, and Raya and the Last Dragon, (all of them which I enjoyed), I was gifted with more time to self quarantine my flu. And I’m not sure what sparked the idea but I decided to rewatch and blog about every single MCU film. As some of you may know the movies a split into phases, which are as follows:
So yeah, let’s jump into.
Ironman 2008
Solid. I was never a fan of the genius, billionaire, playboy, philanthropist. But the Ironman movie does everything right in the character development of this hero. Every single character with major lines was also fleshed out and well developed. Apart from the superhero being cool for kids, issues addressed such as geopolitics and the military-industrial complex make it a fun watch for adults too.
The Incredible Hulk 2008
Hulk was a movie I wanted to like but was ultimately very disappointed in. Its ironic the film was analogous to Bruce/Hulk, 2 different people in the one body. First half was intelligent and well developed, but the second half was dumb epic violence. The first half the characters had solid motivations for their actions but in the second half the plot and characters actions were forced to just drive towards a big final fight scene.
Ironman II 2010
When I first watched this movie a decade ago, I was quite confused as there were many moving parts. The movie had the job of not only continuing the Ironman legacy but also building foundations for future MCU films. As a standalone film I wouldn’t give it a good score but now knowing all I know of the MCU and watching this a second time, I think this movie achieved both its goals of further developing Ironman and also SHIELD. Its biggest risk is that it’s got many juggling balls in the air and if you miss catching all of them, its going to be a messy time.
Thor 2011
Straight forward and ticks all the boxes. Maybe ticks the boxes too straightly. I can understand the decisions behind making Thor more relatable by giving him human problems but in order to make an immortal asgardian more relatable he was covered in cliche. By watching a movie a second time, i know what the destination of the plot already is, so I rob it of the charm and tension that would have kept me on the edge of my seat. And so if you already know the destination, the journey becomes all the more important. It has to be more interesting than a character’s personality doing a full 180 in a matter of days with no real soul searching or moments of self discovery. Though despite the flat characters the movie did a great job in world building, crossed all its T’s and dotted all its I’s
Captain America 2011
Simple. Nice guy gets steroids, beats the nazis, ending up frozen in ice for 70 years, fullstop. When a hero is basic and bland, then the plot needs to be interesting, but that was basic and bland too. Well then what about the super villain? Unfortunately he was just as generic as you can get as well.
The Avengers 2012
Now this is gooood. Humor, great one liners, epic power moves. There is little character development, but that is easily forgiven as they achieved the monumental task of letting each character breathe enough and show off their best selves. One of the reasons why superheroes are cool is because they get these cool powers, and this movie made sure to show them off. Despite having to balance so many characters they also did a fantastic job of making a plot that was believable in assembling the team. There were a few cool moments of seeing powers comboing off each other, but wish there were more of them.
As a whole I think this was definitely worth the rewatch. I was surprised to find that despite me thinking I liked Ironman the least, he ended up having the best movies. I wonder if it is because unlike many of the others who are simply just ‘stronger’, Ironman is able to show off new toys and cool new moves on a regular basis. The better movies I think also had better storytelling and having the plot drive character development as opposed to having the bad movies who relied on cliches and had the characters simply doing the obvious move. Looking forward to rewatching Phase 2 and 3 and telling you all about them when that happens. Thanks for reading, have a great week!