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(FINISHED) Infinity Countdown: WhoBob reviews every single MCU movies before Infinity War


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It seems like the perfect time to rewatch every single MCU movies before Infinity War comes out and I know it's going to be an awesome time. Just a reminder that MCU is far away from an amazing estabilished universe. Many choices they have made over 10 years were so jarring or really annoying. Not the mention a lot of MCU movies follow a noticable formula and tone, so that criticism will get more noticable as I keep reviewing these movies but so far I appreciated what they have done and so many characters they have introduced turned out to be badasses. If there's one thing that it does better than any other movie/tv universes, they set up something but that barely distracts the overall quality of their works and they end up being really good stand alone stories. Well there are exceptions but still. 

I'm really excited for this project of mine because It's been a while since I have watched any of these movies and I wanna discover what made them special (good or not so good) again. It starts this sunday. Why sunday? Because that's when my midterms end. Yeah... 

be hyped.

EDIT: It's done ;) even tho it took like 1 year...

Edited by WhoBob
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7 minutes ago, SOF said:

so are you gonna cover every movie and/or tv shows?

Just the movies. I don't have time to cover all TV shows before Infinity War. Perhaps I'll do TV shows of Marvel another time.

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Coincidence that you decided to do this one day after I said I was reviewing the DCEU films?  I think not. (smirk) 

Just kidding man, can’t wait to read!

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28 minutes ago, Leedles said:

this is where you reevaluate Thor Ragnarok and realize it’s bad right?  1f914.png

You will see countless appreciation threads for Thor's ABS.

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Before I start this review, lemme just say that every single review contains spoilers from the movies. So If you haven't seen at least one of them, I suggest you to skip the reviews of the movies you haven't seen this.

Alright, lets begin this amazing cinematic universe with the first movie that planted the seeds. Without this movie's success, we would have nothing. NOTHING!!!

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Airdate: May 2, 2008

Directed by Jon Favreau

Not gonna lie, this wasn't the first MCU movie I saw but this movie feels so different from what we are getting now. Everything started with this and oh boy, this was such a blast. When I watched this movie first, I remember liking it but didn't find it as great as everyone says. Probably because of the fact that I saw Avengers before this and Avengers felt very big and action-packed that this felt a bit flat in comprasion. But after seeing it the second time, I realized the whole slow build up to Tony becoming Iron Man felt so satisfying to watch. 

This movie started off with Tony Stark being Middle East to show his new weapons and then getting hit by one of his weapons, which caused him such a big injury. From the opening scene, this movie had a great start. It showed us exactly how Tony is kind of a sarcastic snobby dude but during the scene with the guy making a peace sign, he commented that what would us do without peace. And after he was blown up, we went back to 36 hours earlier and there's an awards ceromony and they showed a clip of Tony's backstory and some of his personality. He's a genius scientist who makes weapons for the military, his dad helped building weapons during World War 2 and because of that, some of his work influced the guy to make weapons as well and he worked with Obadiah Stane to do that. He's patriotic and of course, that convinced him that making weapons provide peace for his country. However, he didn't show up to get his award. He was gambling during the ceremony and this gave away Tony's flaws as a person. It's not like he doesn't care about the peace in the wrodl but he is kind of a reckless person that wants to glorify himself and have fun without a caree. And he is such a playboy. After he interviews with one of the reporters, they had sex. I love that he's your typical rich guy. The one that gets the ladies, be sarcastic and egotistical. But that's not all of his traits. He has a heart but he can be kind of a screw up and a pain in the butt. We later get introduced to Pepper Potts who is Stark's secretary and has been helping Tony whenever he needs. Pepper is such a fresh character for many reasons. One thing is that she's not some damsel in distress or a naive girl in this story. She's the one that keeps Tony in check. Without her, Tony wouldn't survive as much in this world. She doesn't take crap from Tony but she does have feelings for him and thinks he has a good heart. There's also Rhodey, who is played by a different actor for some reason. He's Stark's friend who keeps him in check as well but later we learn that he works for military. We got solid introdictions to Tony's supporting characters and we cut back to Tony being healed by a guy named Yinsen. Sadly both of them were captured by the terrorists and the terrorists wanted Stark to build new weapons he built for the military. Tony realized that his weapons actually caused more harm than good. This played a big role in the movie and that made the movie unique on its own. It's not just some superhero acton movie. It's a commentary on how weapons can be destructive to human kind and when weapons gets into the wrong hands, people die. Tony was a character that did care about the world but he didn't care how saving the world works. He just built weapons and didn't care about what happens to them. Due to being held hostage by the terrorists, Tony thought that he wasn't going to survive even after he builds weapons to them. So he built his own suit with Yinsen to escape but Yinsen sacrificed himself to do it. We did learn a bit more about Yinsen before he died. He had a family but his family was killed by the terrorists and he had nothing left o lose. Sarificing himself was the only way to see them again and help Tony escape. Tony attacked the terrorists and he managed to escape and went back to USA.

What movies does it so well is that it makes the origin story for Stark interesting. We already have enough origin stories of the heroes' loved ones getting killed and yeah, Tony's parents were murdered as well but his parent's murder isn't really important to the story. Even after his parent's murder, Tony didn't turn into a hero quickly. I liked that he was a big screw up that made his weapons taken away by the terrotists and wasn't aware of it until he was blasted by them. It's true that Yinsen became someone Tony cared about and he died but before that, what drove Tony to be a superhero was to fix his wrongs. Stopping dangerous people from accessing any other dangerous weapons. When he decided to shut down his industries and pissed off Stane, he started to make a more upgraded version of his original suit. We knew that Tony was a genius person but it was compelling and fun to see him having misteps with working the suit. He might be smart but even the smartest people had some backfire from their creation. After he finished his suit, he started to fly and that was when I started to smile. The whole build up to this was so impressive that the moment I saw him becoming Iron Man and flying away with joy and happiness, it entertained me as heck. I cared about him and I was happy for him that he managed to be successful with his suit. As usual Tony had some missteps and crashed his place. Classic destructive Tony.

Tony later went to a charity and Pepper showed up there and this was when Tony and Pepper's chemistry was developed. They were kind of awkward with each other but it was obvious that they had romantic feelings with each other and the dance scene was just so adorable and kind of humorous. We were introduced to Phil Coulson, WHO IS THE MOST IMPORTANT MCU CHARACTER EVER AND IF YOU TELL ME OTHERWISE, I'LL HUNT YOU DOWN, who works for S.H.I.E.L.D and talked to Pepper about his work. Phil doesn't play a big part in the movie but he is an important character of this universe and he's the one that set up the whole universe, along with Nick Fury in the ending credits. After some awkward dance, he learnt that his weapons were recently shipped to Middle East and those caused so much harm to many families. This pissed off him and he went straight there to stop the terrorists. The whole scene in Middle East was pure action and I was on edge of my seat throughtout. I loved that there were terrorists but the whole musics weren't painted as them. There were many innocent muslims who were attacked by the terrorists in the movie and it made me appreciate that Tony isn't just fighting for Americans. He fights for anyone who is in danger. I live in a country with muslims and the terrorists attack them just as much as they attack Americans, If not more. So I was glad to see not all muslims weren't painted as terrorists. Tony managed to save the innocent muslims from terrorists and he attacked their basement. This was exposed by the military and tried to hunt down Tony. Tony later informed Rhodey that the guy it the suit was him and he made it stop. fter that, the terrorists got Tony's first suit. Later Stane went to take the suit and killed the terrorists. We went back to Tony trying to take his suit off and Pepper caught him. Pepper didn't like Tony doing it because it could lead to Tony's death but Tony told her that Iron Man is his purpose in life. That was when Robert Downey Jr. shines as Tony Stark. He was already a great choice for Tony but that part was acted very well by him that I realized that nobody can play Tony like him. This was the scene that showed how heroic Tony wants to be. Not because of some pride, because he wants to bring peace to the world and fix his problems. It is true that this was still Tony making weapons for peace but this time, he was fully in control to stop people from getting anymore of his weapons. He is the weapon this time and he's aware. 

Pepper was told by Tony to hack into his company's files to see who shipped the weapons to the terrorists. Pepper found out that it was Stane who sold the weapons and ordered the terrorists to kill Tony. Pepper came across to Stane and luckily managed to get away from him. Then we went to Stane hiring the best engineers to make his own suit and this was when I found Stane to be such an intimidating villain. One down side of Stane was that he wasn't as interesting villain to make me care for his character but thanks to Jeff Bridge's acting, I found him to be threatening and scary. And getting in Tony's home and taking away Tony's arc reactor from his chest was cherry on top. Tony managed to get his original arc reactor that made Pepper removed and he took Iron Man suit to fight Stane, who became Iron Monger and tried to attack Pepper and hurt S.H.I.E.L.D. agents. At the very least Coulson was alive YAYYYYYYYYYYYYYYY.............. We entered Tony and Stane fighting, which some people said was the weakest aspect of the movie but I thought the whole climax was built up nicely and the action was pretty solid. Compared to Iron Man, Iron Monger suit is much stronger but how Tony managed to put a fight with him was his brian and his experiences with the suit. But the real reason why Iron Monger was defeated was thanks to Pepper overiding the arc reactor below them. This proved that even normal people like her can be heroes. Stane died and Tony told the press he was Iron Man, what an iconic way to end a movie. The end credits was Tony meeting Nick Fury and Nick Fury telling him about Avengers project.

This movie was nothing but a joyful start to this wonderful universe and it didn't try that hard to set up the other movies. S.H.I.E.L.D and Coulson fit the whole movie and Nick Fury's introduction didn't feel forced. And the best of all, this movie managed to stand on its own. It was a great story of a man who had ideas to bring peace and justice to the world but didn't get the consequences from trying that. This was a cool superhero origin for Iron Man, who was kind of an A list superhero in Marvel comics but didn't get the full recognition to the whole world. This movie turned him into one of the most popular superheroes and none of this would happened without Robery Downey Jr playing Tony and a good script, budget and direction. This movie didn't impress me that much during the first time but after watching it again, I can totally say this movie aged much better. 

MCU movie ranking:

Iron Man - A

 

The Incredible Hulk review is coming tomorrow!

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Iron Man's real good because aside from the post credits scene it's its own film not concerned with setting up any of the other films.  also it's really entertaining!  but it's not the best Iron Man film.

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this movie felt sooo strange, man.

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Airdate: June 13, 2008

Directed by Louis Leterrier

After seeing this movie again, it makes me wonder how much this was a big impact on the stories of MCU movies. This was mostly an origin story for Bruce Banner becoming Hulk and that's about it. No implications of this movie was ever brought up in the future movies, I believe and other than Ross appearing in Civil War, nothing. I gotta admit that this feels way more different than any other MCU movies and yeah, I did say the same thing to Iron Man but this movie is something else. This is probably the most depressing and moody MCU movie to date and other than a few funny scenes, this movie is really serious, dark and sad. Kind of your monster horror movie and to me, that's how a Hulk movie should be like and I don't know if this overall moody tone would be included If they made this movie couple of years later. Nevertheless, It's interesting that this is the only Hulk movie that got somewhat a positive reaction from the fans and it's the most forgotten MCU movie. I gotta say that this movie was also better on the second viewing but I can totally see why this is kind of forgotten. Mark Ruffalo has been such a terrific actor to play Bruce and Edward Norton didn't have much chance to shine much in this weird CGI fest. Nevertheless, he was a decent Bruce Banner.

This movie started with a pretty cool title sequence that quickly explains what happened to Bruce Banner. Ross was experimenting on Bruce. It failed badly and he got turned into Hulk. He accidentally injured his girlfriend Betty Ross who never got mentioned in other MCU films and we sadly got Bruce paired up with Natasha and it was a huge mistake. Then Ross kicks him out from Betty's hospital room without even trying to capture him before he attacks some houses and then moves into another country? That was odd. We later saw him living in Brazil and trying to control his temper. He started to work in a bottling factory, he accidentally got his blood hit one of the bottles, Stan Lee drank that bottle, Ross noticed that, he sent his military people to hunt down Bruce and I think that was the only time Stan Lee actually moved a movie plot forward lmao. Bruce got noticed by the military, lost control and managed to escape from them. Man, the chase sequence was so thrilling and exciting. Gotta love that they used a classic monster trope of not showing the monster in the full form, instead they made us see people getting attacked. The music was amazing, okay, the music was INCREDIBLE (obvious pun) in the movie. Ross explained what happened to Bruce to a sokldier named Blonsky and he quickly turned him into a super soldier without considering how damange he could create and oh boy, he did. Bruce woke up and couple of minutes later in the movie, he saw that Betty got a new boyfriend ot just a male friend? At least that didn't piss him off. Bruce went to a pizza shop and later on, he disguised as a pizza delivery to to enter military files to see datas of the experiment, so he can show it to Mr. Blue who can help him healed. Bruce found out the files were gone but then he came across to Betty and he escaped from her. Walking in the raining scene started and then THE FEELS, you know what I'm taking about. God, I felt so bad for him in the scene. He was turned into a monster, people wanted to hunt him down and he didn't want to hurt Betty.

I'm not too crazy about Bruce as a character but he's one of the most tragic comic book chracters ever and the movie played that part so well. If you are a big Hulk fan, you'll definitely love how themes of Hulk were portrayed here. Of course that didn't stop Betty, she found Bruce and she told Bruce that she took the files. Suddenly they found Bruce's location and they attacked him a second and we saw Hulk in the full form. And yeah, the CGI on Hulk was okay but honestly, it was a bit let down compared to how Iron Man looked amazing in CGI. This was a pure fun action scene though. I kept rooting for Hulk to smash these military losers but then Blonsky got cocky and got too close to Hulk, that led to him getting hurt but he made it out alive. Idiot boy. Betty got in the middle of the fight and Hulk managed to protect Betty and escaped with her. We later found out that Betty's (ex?)boyfriend or friend was the one that called Ross about Hulk but here was what I liked. Usually third wheel boyfriends of our hero's crush gets jealous of the hero but It was good to see him actually seeing what kind of a hero Hulk is and what kind of a monster Ross is. Betty knew it and she felt disappointed him him over the years. And couple of hours later, we wouldn't have a nice moment with Hulk and Betty without rain. Seriously, rain is the overall thing with Hulk but that was also kewllll. sorry If this is not a professional review. Bruce was back to being him and later we saw Bruce and Betty trying to have sex. Umm, Betty, what about that boi that you were seeing him? Is he still your boyfriend or are you just friends with him? :P Sadly Bruce can't have sex because that made him too excited to become Hulk. Oh come on, Hulk, sex is all about excitement, Hulk would be very kinky. Okay, that got too immature, thanks MCU.

Bruce and Betty met Mr. Blue and Mr. Blue temporarily healed Bruce. Bruce found out that Mr. Blue has been using his bloods to cexpreiment on them. Looks like we have another curious dude that will cause more harm. Humanity will never learn from its mistakes. And knowing Ross, he just couldn't give Bruce a break. He managed to capture him, Blonskey showed up an he threatened Mr. Blue to turn him into another Hulk. Okay, Blonskey just calm down, you are addicted with power. Yeah, after this, the movie lost its momentum for me. I really liked how they went with making Hulk alienated from his normal life and I wish Ross would be the end game for Bruce like he was Red Hulk in the comics. It would have been much more compelling If Ross turned himself into Red Hulk to stop Hulk from being to dangerous but later him losing control of Red Hulk in him. Instead it was Abomination and he sucked. I didn't care much for what the heck was his deal? What I got from him is that he was 39 and he looked older, he took super soldier serum to feel more powerful, that was about it? Not the mention his design was bad. Hulk didn't look half-bad but Abomination was kind of laughable. Bruce saw Abomination attacking people to fight with Hulk. So he jumped and hit the ground and that totally wasn't used as a comedy in Thor: Ragnarok. Don't worry lads, he was fine, he was turned into Hulk and he fought wth him in a quality CGI festival. Can't compalin too much because the climax was fun but still, CGI was weak. Hulk stopped Abomination and almost killed him before Betty told him not to. He escaped and Tony arrived that he's collecting powerful people. The movie ended and why the hell Ross wasn't arrested for his crimes? Explain it to me, movie.

Well, that was The Incredible Hulk for ya. Rewatching it again, I surprisingly found more positives to be found here than negatives, even though the story and the special effects could have been improved. I loved that this was a serious horror/thriller wanna be movie with gorgeous music and engaging character origin. It does make me sad that this movie wasn't that impactful in other MCU movies because some seriousness could been a benefit for couple of movies that suffered from too much humor and this movie didn't feel matter much like no mention of Betty or what happened to Abomination afterwards or why did Ross get away from his crimes? I don't know why Edward Norton walked away from this universe forever because of this movie but honestly I still prefer Mark Ruffalo and you don't really this movie to understand Hulk in the later movies. If you still insist to watch this, fine by me. This was a decent serious Hulk movie but I wish it could have been so much more than being forgotten by people.

MCU movie ranking:

Iron Man - A

The Incredible Hulk - B

 

get ready for Iron Man 2 tomorrow to see If that movie is still the worst MCU movie to date or was I wrong?

 

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oh boy, this movie. The movie was some people considers this to be their least favorite MCU work and very inferior to the first movie and I gotta say, they are still right.

Don Cheadle, Robert Downey Jr., Gwyneth Paltrow, and Scarlett Johansson in Iron Man 2 (2010)

Airdate: May 7, 2010

Directed by Jon Favreau

One great thing about this episode was that at the very least how it set up future movies was quite well done. I really enjoyed Scarlett Johanson's introduction as Natasha Romanoff/Black Widow, Nick Fury was involved more in this movie and S.H.I.E.L.D.'s backstory was kind of explained here. Not enough Daddy Coulson here tho. :( If it weren't for those aspects, this movie wouldn't have been meant much.

Interesting to see that this movie started off with the main bad guy of this movie, Whiplash and man, he could have been so much more and I'll get to that soon. His introduction was solid enough. Unlike Stane in the first movie, he was fleshed out a bit as the villain of the story and I got interested in him from the beginning. His father died and he's gonna make Tony pay for this because of what Tony's father did to him. That's actually a good set up for a compelling villain but sadly, it all went downhill after his good introduction. We jumped into 6 months and Tony became more famous than ever with him revealing he's Iron Man. He went to Stark Expo to introduce himself to the whole work and be narcisistic like Natasha thought of him. After Tony gave his presentation, he looked at his blood and it semed he's being poisoned from his power source. Meanwhile he was dealing with the goverment because Tony refused to work with them or share his technology. That is actually an interesting idea to tackle for this movie Tony's slowly dying and he gotta make sure the future is in the right hands. After Iron Man 1, it was hard for him to trust the goverment again. Sadly they didn't raise the stakes for Tony's actual fallout enough and the movie didn't end up being impactful. Don't get me wrong, there were some good character development for Tony and Robert Downey Jr. still rocks as Tony. Unfortunately, I couldn't care less about the whole exceution of the plot.

Tony quickly promoted Pepper as the head of Stark Industries and Pepper had no clue Tony was dying, Natasha was hired, despite Tony not knowing much about him, he kind of pissed off his rival Justin Hammer and so on. He joined a race and Whiplashed showed up in the race to beat Tony's butt. When I first saw Whiplash in action, I saw that he looked really badass and he did so much damage. He was kind of menacing during that scene and that was probably the only time he looked like that in the whole bloody movie. Luckily Tony stopped him and Whiplash got arrested. Of course Justin Hammer noticed that and he made an escape plan for Whiplash to make him more suits to compete with Tony. Anddddddddddd that's when this movie lost any interest for me. That worst part was I shouldn't have. It's always interesting to see the movies exploring the bad guys and this movie had enough screentime to show us both Justin Hammer and Whiplash. That should have been enough to flesh both of them out. Unfortunately, all of their scenes were so boring to watch. It was all Whiplash desperately wanting his bird and Justin Hammer being pissed off to Whiplashing toring his work apart. A movie is as great as its villain and this movie failed to develop both of the vilains. This is upsetting because despite his character being kind of one note, Stane was a scary villain and he had less screentime than Hammer and Whiplash. Why we couldn't get a sympathetic reason for Whiplash's dad's story or Justin Hammer's competition with Tony? Instead we dealt with one bird obsessed man and a hothead business man. The actors were pretty good but the characters were bland. Onto what Tony was up to.

Without a care in the world, Tony started his birthday party and got too drunk to endanger people. And there's another idea was tossed away. This movie has great ideas to actually surpass the first movie but it chosed to ignore them. I dont even know why. Tony being alcoholic is an important part of his character and this was a great opputunity to build that up. He had a father who was distant from him due to his other work, he suffered in the hands of the teorrirsts, he lost the man that saved his life, his friend Stane backstabbed him and in this movie, he was dealing witht he fact that he was gonna die from poisoning. It could have been interesting to see Tony hitting rock bottom with alcohol and the movie exploring that, along with his upcoming death. But nope, they ignored that with some unfunny piss jokes. Rhodey (with an all new all different actor) came to stop him. Okay, I liked Rhodey here. He's a soldier and a good friend of Tony but he knew that Tony was hurting himself and others, he didn't believe that Tony was worthy of Iron Man suit. So he took one of his to fight with him and that was actually a good fighting scene, there was actual tension between them. Tony let down Rhodey and that argument as good. He even managed to alienate Pepper from him because of his recklessness. At the very least, the movie didn't completely forget Tony hurted both of them, even though it could have been nicer to see Tony feeling like a huge crap before he apologized to them. Tony was noticed by the bloody Nick Fury and man, I loved Nick Fury in this movie. He was pretty entertaining and sarcastic. Tony also found out Natasha was actually a spy on him. They all went to Tony's house and Tony found out his father was one of the founding members of S.H.I.E.L.D. and he actually deported Whiplash's father because of him wanting to make profit from this. That part was actually a let down. So even though what Tony's father did wasn't right, Whiplash's father didn't turn out to be a misguided person or something sympathetic like that. And there was an actual possibility that he gave his son hiplash a hard time. I wish we could have actually seen more of Tony's father not turning out to be a great visionary like people thought he was. Even when he wasn't right for deporting Whiplash's father, it was understandable why he had to do it. So that was it for the holy big bad of this movie. Talk about bummer. And it was even more bummer that Tony's dying problem was solved so anticlimactically. Not gonna lie, Tony's father's message to Tony was sweet but that was the only praise I can give it to Tony's arc.  Tony discovered a new element to generate his arc corter thanks to his dead father's hidden puzzle and that was it? It would have been a bigger deal to see him slowly dying from fighting Whiplash and then seeing Tony recover from poisoning after defeating him. But the movie didn't care much about raising the stakes. 

Justin Hammer got to see one of Iron Man's suits thanks to Rhodey and he offered Rhodey to add weapons to the suit. Then we saw Hammer showing his new autopilot suit machines with Rhodey as War Machine controling them. But Whiplash managed to take control of the suits without dealing with Hammer's bodyguards and he tried to attack people and Tony after he showed up. The whole climax scene was fun, especially with the whole fighting scene with Natasha, Happy and the bodyguards but at the same time, the climax felt weak and not satisfying since the movie didn't build up anty personal stakes to the climax. Natasha managed to give Rhodey the control of ar machine back, Tony and Rhodey fought with Whiplash and won. Whiplash planed bombs to all of the suits, Whiplash died I think and Tony arrived just in time to save Pepper before one of them blew up. They argued about Tony not telling her his death but nevertheless, they kissed. Hammer got arrested and I believe nobody in the audience cared for it. Tony showed up to S.H.I.E.L.D. H.Q. Natasha reviewed Tony poorly but nevertheless Tony won't stop fighting. Tony and Rhodey got medals. Post credit scene had Thor's hammer. That's it with Iron Man 2 folks.

Man, this movie was a big let down. All the ingridients were there to make this movie even better than the first movie and the movie chosed to ignore all of it for what exactly? Some immature jokes, bird talk and Tony being a bigger jerk than usual with barely any karma for it? The movie did have some enjoyable action and cute moments and I did laugh a few times but the storyline felt empty and unsatisfying. I don't exactly know what went wrong with Favreau after directing such a terrific origin story for Iron Man. A sequel should have surpassed the first movie but this movie did the exact opposite, despite all the potential it had. Luckily, this movie didn't stop MCU. It just ended up being kind of a mediocre MCU movie.

MCU movie ranking:

Iron Man - A

The Incredible Hulk - B

Iron Man 2 - C+

 

Tomorrow: God of Unworthy

 

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sorry for the delay of this review, I was too tired yesterday that I didn't have energy to write the review. Now I can finally write the review of 

Anthony Hopkins, Natalie Portman, Idris Elba, Tom Hiddleston, and Chris Hemsworth in Thor (2011)

Airdate: May 6, 2011

Directed by Kenneth Branagh

Aside from Iron Man 2, the MCU movies that are considered weakest are the first two Thor movies and honestly, I found some enjoyment in those two movies when I saw then at first. Perhaps Thor: The Dark World was too generic of a superhero movie, so I can understand criticism of that movie but for the first Thor movie even after rewatch, I remembered why I really liked this movie. 

this movie starts off with Odin telling kid Thor and Loki the story of Asgardians battling against Frost Giants and taking away their power supply The Casket, so they could never rule The Nine Realms. Kid Thor wanted to be king of Asgard, so he can fight with them and he was excited to be the king, Loki joined the hype train because Thor did too and that sort of sets up the whole relationship between Thor and Loki. Going back to present, Thor was almost ready to be the king but it seemed someone in Asgard allowed couple of Frost Giants to get The Casket. Too bad for them, The Destroyer showed up and destroyed their sad existence. Thor was pissed off that they tried to get back The Casket, his father told him to let go of this because that'd create a bigger danger for Asgardians but Thor didn't listen him and he took his greatest warriors and Loki to battle against Forst Giants. This set up Thor's character perfectly well. His whole ideology was that he could defeat any simple threat with a war and he was too impatient and stubborn to see the consequences of his actions. Honestly, despite the fact that Odin was right that battling against them would create a bigger danger, I can see Thor's point of view that they did attack their kingdom, so they started the whole mess. Thor and his friends went to Frost Giants' planet Jotunhiem to talk to them but they insulted Thor, so Thor kicked their butt. The action scenes in Jotunhiem looked incredible. I was on edge of my seat and it kept me invested that Thor was caausing so much problem. During the battle, one of Frost Giants tried to freeze Loki's arm but it didn't effect him and he was shocled that he didn't get injured from that. After couple of exciting action scenes, Thor did not make the situation better and Odin arrived just in time to put a stop to this whole mess. Frost Giants refused to accept the peace offering because Odin was a murderer, strangely enough this was never explored in the movie, only in Thor: Ragnarok. Idk if I should consider this as a flaw because this did benefit Thor: Ragnarok but it's just a minor flaw, so I suppose I can let it slide. Odin was disappointed in Thor and Thor managed to piss off Odin with him being disrespectful to him. Odin exiled Thor, took away his powers and he threw his hammer on Earth, so anyone worthy enough can take the hammer.

Thor crushed in Earth and came across to Jane Foster who is astrophycisist, Darcy who is her best friend and Erik Selvig who took care of Jane after her father died. A lot of people said this movie lost its touch after Thor was stuck on Earth and honestly I wasn't that bothered by it. Sure it would be more cool to see more of Marvel's cosmic side but Thor needed to go to Earth, how else you can make an Avengers movie without him arriving to Earth first? Also this is his development in the entire movie, so it's important for him to visit Earth. I can see some comic book fans having a problem with how Thor is portrayed in the movie because comic Thor isnt some reckless idiot from what I've heard. He's more of a God trying to understand what it means to be one and his exploration of humanity. While him being God isn't the focus of the movie him discovering humanity is included in the movie and I gotta get praise for the movie to tackle that. I liked that the humor came from Thor not understanding how Earth works, so him throwing the mug on the floor and him arriving to the pet store to get a horse was really hilarious. We also got some glimpse of Thor and Jane Foster having a romance all because Jane saw Thor's abs and honestly who wouldn't be fascinated by his gorgeous abs, yes homo. Loki discovered that he was actually part Frost Giant, part Asgardian and he was picked up by Odin, so Odin can use Loki to offer a peace between Asgardians and Frost Giants. Loki was angry about all of this, all of a sudden Odin went to his Odin sleep, oh okay... Loki easily became the king of Asgard and his friends didn't like how it happened all of a sudden. Thoe's hammer crashed into Earth as well, it was noticed by S.H.I.E.L.D. and Thor wanted to get it back from them. He threw a fight with them (this was also the introduction of Hawkeye but he didn't get to do much in the movie, so his appearence was all for nothing and that sucked) but he noticed he couldn't lift the hammer and he got upset by that, S.H.I.E.L.D. arrested him, Loki secretly arrived to tell him his father was dead and later on Erik took away Thor from S.H.I.E.L.D. Thor felt broken that he was no wrothy anymore and you could actually see his pain here. He was believed he was destined to be a great warrior and a king and after all of that was taken from him, he had no idea what to do anymore. I like seeing superheroes having identity crisises and this movie did a good job portaying that. It's also note worthy that Chris Hemsworth plays a great Thor. Maybe a different Thor from the comics but he acted like a god and a stubborn prince throughout the movie and I don't see anyone else playing Thor as amazing as him.

We went back to Thor and Erik sharing drinks, as a result Erik got drunk and he and Jane left him in the van and talked to each other. This was actually my favorite part in the whole movie and perhaps one of the strongest scenes in MCU movies, I'm not even joking. The scene explored not only Thor and Jane Foster's dynamic, this gave us more depth into Thor and Jane's characters, as well as cosmic side of Marvel. The whole scene felt sweet and genuine and it made Thor care more about humanity. Thor's friends went to Earth to find Thor and they luckily found them. We also got a reveal of Loki being the one that allowed secret gateaways to Frost Giants because he did not trust Thor as a king, he always felt jealous of Thor being noticed more and after the reveal of him being a hybrid, he couldn't take any secrets anymore. Ironic coming from a guy who lies to people but this was a great depth in Loki becoming the villain of the story and it was weird that he was the first MCU villain to get an actual depth and that came in one of the most forgotten and underrated MCU movies. It also helped that Tom Hidderson played a cunning and manipulative Loki well. Loki noticed that Thor's friends betrayed him as well as Heimdall taking them to Earth, so he sent The Destroyer to destroy Thor and his friends. Thor's friends found Thor but the danger arrived and Thor's friends were unable to stop him. Thor got a good character development by sacrifising himself to Loki, so he can't hamr any more lives again. Loki almost killed him and then Thor got worthy again. He got his hammer back and he stopped The Destroyer and arrived to Asgard to stop Loki. The whole climax was build up well and the stakes actually felt personal. Loki and Thor not only fight, they talk about their relationship and how Loki felt no longer brother to Thor but he once wanted to be equal to him. You could see Loki and Thor's pain from fighting but Loki was still the bad guy, so Thor knew what to do to stop Loki. He broke the bridge between Asgard and the other realms. Odin woke up to save Thor and Loki from the destruction of the bridge but Loki threw himself into the worm hole. Thor and Odin talked a while and Odin said he was finally proud of Thor but Thor was upset that he could never see Jane again but we all knew that he'd go back to Earth again for Avengers, so... This movie ended with a post credit scene of Erik meeting Nick Fury and Fury showed Tesseract to him, thus setting up the bigger picture of MCU but then Loki showed up and gained control of Erik.

I really like this movie more than most seemed to do. I can understand why many had troubles with caring for a God named Thor and some scenes being on Earth but I found myself invested in Fish out of Water (or as I would like to call it, God out of Clouds) story and Thor finding humanity in himself. I loved Jane, Erik, Loki and Odin so much, the action scenes felt fun, the visuals were stunning and I liked how this movie felt like an epic tale at times. I noticed that camera angles were turned a few degrees down and I don't exactly know If this was intentional to the story or it was the director's style and perhaps I gave this movie a bit more credit but that could mean that living among Gods and aliens is such a bizzare and unbelieveable thing, so the whole world kind of turned upside down. Erik even talked about how childish and unbelieveable the situation is but as the movie progesses he believes more in these weird situations. I actually don't have much complaint to this whole movie. Darcy wasn't even annoying and Eaerth scenes didn't feel out of place. I could see the complaint of Frost Giants being kind of generic villains but Loki as the big bad, so I wasn't bothered by it. I can't find myself giving this movie a high score however because while it was an interesting movie, It didn't exactly blow me away or it wasn't that compelling. But I still find myself caring for what happened in the movie.

MCU movie ranking:

Iron Man - A

Thor - B+

The Incredible Hulk - B

Iron Man 2 - C+

 

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Alright, it's time to discuss quite possibly my favorite superhero, next to Spider-Man. ❤️

captainamerica_lob_crd_01.jpg

Airdate: July 22, 2011

Directed by Joe Johnston

If there's one superhero origin movie that I find the most underappreciated is this one. Yeah yeah, some weak guy takes steroids and becomes a boy scout superhero but I always found Captain America to be more interesting than that. This movie is certainly not the best version of him because Russo brothers turned him into a much more complex and flawed hero but this one still did a great job at exploring what is Captain America and what It means to be one. My favorite superhero movies are the ones that explore the grey era of the world and not all heroes and villains are just good or evil for sake of it. But sometimes we do need a glimpse of hope and there are people that are just pure good and pure evil and this movie gets it well.

In some other superhero movies, making cliched good and bad guys would feel empty and bland but this movie worked out because the time they lived in was crappy. Wars damage people and break their spirit. Everyone fights for something and people need to survive this horrid event. They need a spirit and that's where Captain America comes in. This movie is all about making some ordinary boy named Steve Rogers and making him the symbol of hope, freedom and justice. This movie took place in World War 2, quite possibly the biggest war of all time. People are dying, there are sinister people trying to push their agenda with extereme violence and people lose their loved ones. It started off with some Nazi soldier named Schmid finding Tesessact, which plays a bigger role in Avengers. After that, we cut back Steve trying to get into war with everything he can. He even was changing his identity and the place he lived in to do that but people never accepted him because he had physical problems. That quickly explained how Steve Rogers to me and honestly I can relate to him in some level. I'm a weak person physically and I feel like I'm a loser at times because of that. Everywhere I look, people are stronger and taller than me and I feel inferior sometimes. I shouldn't feel like that but sometimes I can't help it. I survived so many diseases and injuries and I get tired of seeing the doctor everyday. Although part of the blame goes to how I treat my body badly sometimes. Steve Rogers gained my sympathy not because of the fact that he's weak and he is useless. He's weak but it doesn't let him stop the people that wanna do badly. He hates bullies hurting people and no matter how their backstories are tragic or their agendas are different bullies, are unacceptable. One line did kind of bothered me. He said he doesn't wanna kill people but when we are done halfway, he said when he could kill some Hydra agents. Yeah, that part was weird but still they are Nazis (and I'll fight anyone who says Hydra isn't Nazi because they are, no matter how their history predates Nazis and some of they have different goals for evil. But they have Nazi salutes with both arms, they want world domination,  they are obsessed with science for weapons, they are racist, homophobic and sexist people. They are always meant to be Marvel's Nazi versions and you can't tell me otherwise), so they do deserve to die. Nevertheless, he's mostly good with heart and I wish that was with more people. Nobody is perfect, not even Steve but you can be a good person.

After Steve got into a fight with bullies, Bucky arrived just in time to save his butt. I always loved Steve and Bucky's relationship. Bucky is kind of a cocky and sarcastic person but he's always nice to Steve and he doesn't make him feel inferior. He does call out his stupid actions but that's what friends do anyway. After Bucky and Steve went in their ways, Steve met a doctor named Dr. Abraham Erskine and the doctor said he was definitely a good fit for the war. He finally became a soldier, sort of but he had to finish some exercises. He met Peggy Carter who was an agent and trained people and Steve had a hard time talking to her because he didn't really understand women. I already loved their relationship from that. Steve is kind of a shy and awkward dude and he wasn't exactly good with the words, especially on women but he does respect Peggy and Peggy likes the fact that Steve is just an honest, awkward and adorable dude. Although the sergent isn't exactly impressed by Steve, Steve did show off his personality. When the doctor threw a fake bomb, Steve quickly jumped into the bomb without realizing it was fake. He was already a great pick for the super soldier program. Erskine turned him into a super soldier but one of Nydra agents shot him and took one of the serums. We had our first chase scene which was super exciting. I loved that despite the fact that Steve could run so fast, jump high and be strong, he did hit his body in some places. He caught the Hydra agent and afters ome fight, he accidentally dropped the serum on the floor and he commited suicide. Now that super soldier serum was gone, the army couldn't make any more serums. And Steve was still disqualified from being a soldier. But his heroic efforts made it to newspaper and one person turned him into the symbol of freedom. The musical number "Star Spangled Man with a Plan" was probably the best description of Captain America. He wasn't chosen to fight in battles by the army again but his noble and heroic efforts made him a brand. A brand to give people hope and make them fight for their country. All Steve did was acting, fighting in stages and showing his goodness and strength. There were even Captain America comics released with the iconic cover of him punching Hitler in the face. The movie was very self aware that Captain America is kind of a bait for people to give hope and goodness but back to what I said, we need some hope in this world. If Superman shows us the best version of ourselves, Captain America is our courage for freedom. It could even be said that his comics did stop World War 2 for good. I can be wrong but nevertheless, we need people like Captain America to spread goodness and freedom.

Roger learned that Bucky was missing in action and he secretly went into the place where he was last seen with the help of Howard Stark and Peggy Carter. Howard Stark is very important to this movie because he made Steve's shield and he was the one that took him to the battle. Because of that, Tony had respect for Steve for a while and that played a huge part in the movies they were in. Steve managed to find Bucky and his team, they fought and Steve quickly ran into Schmidt who was Erskine's first test subject for making a super soldier. It worked but it altered his head and he turned into Captain America's the most fearsome villain Red Skull. Red Skull is your typical bad guy where all he wanted was world domination and spreading his agenda just like Captain America but unlike Cap, his agenda was pure evil. One let down I'll say about Red Skull was that he wasn't menacing enough. He was played well by Hugo Weaving but I wish Red Skull was more violent and sickening. Nevertheless, I didn't mind that he was some generic villain because If Captain America represent pure goodness, Red Skull present pure badness. He embraced the bad aspect of World because in order to feel more powerful, he believed he needed to be bad to achive that goal. Teserract is actually a good symbol to this whole theme of strength and weakness because that has huge power to Hydra weapons. Yeah, Tecessact is "space stone", not "power stone" but hey, it still works for your weapons!

Red Skull and his ally Dr. Zola escaped but Steve and Bucky managed to win the day and all soldiers returned to their base safely. Days later Steve became in charge, despite having no experience in charge. I do wish that aspect was explained in the movie because they did talk about how super soldier effects the cells but they didn't mention it effects people's mind. Well, they did mention super soldier altered Red Skull's body because of his pure evilness but yeah. Steve told Peggy he wanted to be her date and even accepted Peggy's dance offer but later, some lady kissed Steve and Peggy was pissed off to him because of it. That was awkward but definitely in character for Steve. Also you can't blame him, he has a beautiful face, shrug. Steve, Bucky and other soldiers attacked couple of more Hydra bases and even later they captured Zola but sadly Steve lost his friend Bucky. Zola gave up the place of Red Skull because unlike other Hydra agents, he wanted to live. Steve found Red Skull's base, Peggy made him get in the plane Red Skull took but before that, Peggy kissed Steve and that was the last time, she saw him :( . Steve managed to stop Red Skull but corrupted by power, Red Skull was vaporized by Teserract and Teserract fell from the plane. Steve realized the plane was headed to New York and he had no time to land the plane safely, so he sacrificed himself by crashing the plane. Howard Stark found Teserract and Steve was found in our present time. After Steve woke up, he found himself in present and he met Fury. That moment was really sad because Steve just asked Peggy for a dance and now she can't dance with him anymore.

This movie was pretty great as an origin story for Captain America and while it's not as complex as Iron Man, this movie worked so well as being a simple story of good vs evil. The time they movie took place is important because without World War 2, Captain America wouldn't be as compelling hero as he's today. I had some nitpicks here and there with some of bizzare character choices and I wish Red Skull felt more scary and sinister but this was such a fun superhero origin about a man who wanted to stop bullies all around the world and bring peace.

MCU movie ranking:

Iron Man - A

Captain America: The First Avenger - A-

Thor - B+

The Incredible Hulk - B

Iron Man 2 - C+

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Always loved The First Avenger, great film.  love both that and Winter Soldier but I’m not so hot on Civil War, which somewhat counts more as an avengers film but whatever.  once you get past the hype it’s pretty lame.

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Behold, this is the movie that returned my love for superheroes and my first MCU experience ever.

Samuel L. Jackson, Robert Downey Jr., Chris Evans, Scarlett Johansson, Jeremy Renner, Mark Ruffalo, and Chris Hemsworth in The Avengers (2012)

Airdate: May 4, 2012

Directed by Joss Whedon

I watched this movie three times in my entire life and not once this got old for me. Is this a perfect movie? Nope. Is this such an epic blockbuster experience? Hell yeah! This movie has a special place in my heart because I literally watched this movie with my high school classmates in the school and I loved every single minute of it. It was awesome, epic, well-written, compelling and it shamelessly introduced me sexy male actors. This set up the golden age of Marvel superheroes. And we'll find out why.

Loki returned from Thor movie with basically an army of Chitauri and he got the spec. First superhero we see is Phil Coulson and yes, he's a bloody superhero. Watch Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D. after this movie. While S.H.I.E.L.D. was experimenting on Teserract, Loki opened a wormhole to one of S.H.I.E.L.D. headquarters, took Teserract and mind controlled Hawkeye aka Clint Barton and Thor's friend Erik Selvig. Nick Fury, Maria Hill and Phil Coulson managed to escape but they needed help to stop Loki. From the beginning, this movie was already exciting. Loki was merciless and powerful and S.H.I.E.L.D. look inferior to his presence. Loki showed how to be a God and a bad one. During the first act; we are reintroduced to Steve Rogers, Tony Stark, Bruce Banner and Natasha to make them meet each other and that was kind of the weakest aspect of the movie. It's definitely not bad. There has to be a bit slow set up for our characters to actually interact and make new dynamics with each other. So this did take 30 minutes for them to be cool with each other. Compared to more exciting and better dynamics of the characters, the first act felt a bit weak. Nevertheless, the pacing was done well.

We finally got the plot with Loki attacking a place to get a stabilizer for Teserract but it got S.H.I.E.L.D.'s attention. There was a small moment in the scene where Loki asked people to neal and one old man didn't neal. Loki told the old man he's nothing like other guys and he told him there are always guys like him. This scene was amazing because it showed not only Loki's personality, it was the fact that Loki isn't some special snowflake he claims to be. He may be powerful but there are many people that wants power, attention and a dictatorship like him. Tony arrived just in time to stop him and Steve Rogers came to the party as well. They met each other and they quickly arrested Loki. This got Steve's attention because capturing Loki was so easy and It was obvious this was gonna be even a better conflict to see how truly menacing Loki is. On their way to Hellcarrier, Thor arrived to took Loki away and he tried to reason with Loki but Loki refused to listen to Thor. I love this scene because it continued the conflict between them and that made Thor's issues with Loki more personal. Loki is a villain that wants power and attention because he always felt like he was inferior to Thor, as a result, he became Thor's shadow until he couldn't take it anymore and he removed Thor from people he cared about. Even in this movie, he's such an interesting and sort of a sympathetic villain. Iron Man attacked Thor because Thor took away Loki without talking to them and they started to have a fight. Steve arrived to stop their nonsense fight and they captured Loki together. And things got worse for all of these characters but Loki. Loki was put in a cage and Natasha came to him to talk to him. Loki easily broke Natasha by making her confront her dark past of being a deadly assasin. Natasha was upset that Loki mind controled Clint because in the past, Natasha was noticed by S.H.I.E.L.D. and Clint was ordered to kil Natasha. But Clint didn't and he gave Natasha a second chance to a better person. I liked that we got a bit of exploring to Natasha's past because she was basically jut a spy in Iron Man 2 and she got to do more in this movie. Sadly she was ruined by Joss Whedon in Age of Untron but we'll get to that later. Loki managed to manipulate Steve, Natasha, Nick Fury, Banner, Stark and even Thor. From the beginning of his intoduction, Loki has always been a liar and manipualtive son of a gun and this movie made us remember how amazing he was as a villain. A good villain should hit the heroes in the heart. Not just some world domination or destruction and Loki did just that with making S.H.I.E.L.D. so corrupted. We learned that S.H.I.E.L.D. was actually using Teserract to make more weapons and that started distrust with Steve, Tony, Thor and Banner. Steve started to attack Tony emotionally because he believed Tony only cared about himself and he was so arrogant to be a hero but Tony also knew that Steve was nothing but an experiment. Bruce started to be upset that S.H.I.E.L.D. made a cage for Hulk. This part was actually so disturbing because Bruce was always going to be feared by people but he also feared himself enough to commit suicide. Not a lot of people seems to be mentioning this part but It was very interesting to see suicide being briefly talked in a PG-13 movie. Hawkeye put an explosive arrow on Hellcarrier and it hit it pretty hard enough for Loki to escape and Hulk to be unleashed. The movie got so much fun but also thrilling once the heroes had their lives in danger as well as so many S.H.I.E.L.D. agents. Sadly enough Loki stabbed Phil Coulson but Phil managed to stop Loki for a while. Although Loki escaped and later Coulson died. UNTIL NOT!!! SPOILER ALERT!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! Seriously watch Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D. series. Coulson is amazing in that show. But this didn't really cheapen his death. He did die for a moment and Nick Fury used Coulson's death to push Avengers to put aside their differences and team up.

Thor and Banner were lost after their battle with each other and then Hulk falling Loki imprisoning Thor in the cage and Thor falling as well. Natasha had a fight with Clint but she managed to get rid of Loki spell on Clint. Tony and Steve put aside their differences and they left Hellharrier to stop Loki, as well as Natasha and Clint. Tony found out where Loki was gonna release Teserract and it was his new Stark tower. We got a cool scene with him and Loki about Loki managing to make the heroes feel weak and troubling to each other but Tony said that wasn't gonna help Loki from succeeding his plan. Villains will always fall when they break the heroes because they made them stronger. Not gonna lie, this movie is your typical good vs evil story with world ending stakes but the movie was aware of this and it was heavily discussed in its themes of power, heroism, god complex and much more. All of these characters were flawed human beings and Loki, the villain, knew they could be just as bad as him and that was why they were corrupted by someone who found himself above all human beings. Avengers was about bunch of people with experiences of danger in them making a bigger danger but also realizing how to fix this. Our heroes in the movie teamed up to put a stop to greater destruction. We finally got them being together once again with a great scene and a music. The climax started and it was a blast to watch. Even though this infamously influced other movies to have big climaxes, this movie built up its climax masterfully. Each heroes had a beef with Loki and they knew they had to stop him. The action scenes, the CGI and the music came together to create the ultimate movie experience and it was awesome. We even got some funny jokes without feeling out of place. Meanwhile the council was discussing with Nick Fury and they thought launching a missle was a good idea to stop the attack. While they were right, this meant death to so many innocent lives. Tony took Steve's advice and actually put others above himself to stop the missle and he did. Steve may have been harsh on Tony but he was right that Tony mostly cared about his glory and he wanted to live but this time Tony didn't care If he survived from this or not. He just sacrificed himself to save the city. Erik Selvig got rid of Loki's spell as well and Natasha and him used Loki's scepter to shut down Teserract. The heroes saved many lives from alien attack and Loki was stopped for good. They all were seperated their ways, Steve and Tony became friends and allies and Tony started tob rebuild his tower inot Avengers tower. AND HOLY CRAP, BLOODY THANOS IN POST CREDIT SCENE and the heroes eating shawarma.

This movie was nothing but a fun superhero experience. It discussed what it meant to be a superhero and how power can corrupt people with complex superheroes and a menacing villain. It was such a wonderful mix of both comedy and drama. There were even some small moments I didn't discuss like Coulson's inner crush with Steve and how that was relatable to my crush on Steve, shrug. Hulk punching Thor for sake of it and then Hulk smashing Loki made sure he didn't give a crap about puny gods and he was badass, not the mention his CGI was good this time. I loved scene of some guy just playing atari because there had to be one employee that slacked his job. Clint throwing an arrow to Loki, then Loki catching but it exploding in Loki's face was a bloody great scene. Speaking of Clint, I was disappointed that we didn't get to learn more of him. He was mostly mind controled and that only helped Natasha's character growth but at least we learned a bit of him in Age of Ultron but sadly his character is so far not that compelling in this franchise outside of one scene in Age of Ultron. If I had some major complaint, those would be lack of Clint's development and slow first 30 minutes after Loki disappeared. This movie is still to this day one of my all-time favorite superhero movies and it was so successful we got plenty of good TV shows from MCU and more good movies after this as well.

MCU movie ranking:

Avengers - A

Iron Man - A

Captain America: The First Avenger - A-

Thor - B+

The Incredible Hulk - B

Iron Man 2 - C+

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Sorry for the delay. I have been very busy yesterday. Today, we are finally ending this trilogy.

Don Cheadle, Robert Downey Jr., Gwyneth Paltrow, Ben Kingsley, and Guy Pearce in Iron Man Three (2013)

Airdate: May 13, 2013

Directed by Shane Black

Gotta say that this movie is truly underrated. There are lovers of this movie but also those who considers this to be one of the weakest of MCU. To me, this wasn't a perfect movie in any means or a shockingly amazing movie but a pretty great movie about Tony Stark. First Iron Man movie was amazing because it introduced one of the lesser popular Marvel superheroes and it made him awesome and interesting. Second one was a big disappointment because all of the aspect in it were good and thrilling ideas and a potential for Tony becoming a more complex character but they were barely used for sake of a bland storyine and not enough of Tony Stark's development. This movie combined what made the first movie so awesome and the ideas of the second movie with Shane Black's style in it and a dark tone. And I gotta say this was a great way to end this trilogy.

It started off with Tony monologing about us creating our own demons and his Iron Man suits blowing up and we went to 1999 where Tony met Maya Hansen who worked in a program called Extremis, a program that heals disabled people and later Aldrich Killian who himself is a disabled person and the head of A.I.M. company. Stark told Killian to wait in the rooftop because he said he would come there in minutes but he didn't show up. And then we are in 2013 and Tony was recovering from his near death experience in Avengers movie. He hadn't been sleeping for a while and the only thing he was doing was making more Iron Man suits. From that scene, you can tell Tony's not doing okay. And then Tony and Rhodey was at the bar and while Rhodey was talking about him becoming from War Machine to Iron Patriot funded by A.I.M., Tony suffered from anxiety attack after one ofhte kids talked about New York. The whole near death experience thing not only effected his mental health, it drove Tony to be more obsessed with his suits. This movie did a great job that the consequences in Avengers stayed. That movie wasn't just "we stopped the bad guys, everything'd back to normal yay" at the end and I was happy for that to be included in the movie. I felt like Tony needed to suffer a bit more to make us care for him because that barely felt like a thing in Iron Man 2 and Tony was slowly dying from poisoning. Not only that, this movie explored themes of PTSD and anxiety. Even though those were kind of forgotten in the third act, this movie had time to delve into Tony's PTSD and anxiety attacks. There isn't as much superhero movies that deals with PTSD, so this movie felt freshing from that aspect.

We were suddenly introduced a guy named Mandarin who is Tony's greatest foe in the comics. I don't know too much about Mandarin but I did read his first story in Invincle Iron Man series by Matt Fraction and I thought he was a silly and narcisistic but also a threatening villain. I do need to finish that series tho but my country hasn't released the last volumes yet and I was just getting interested in Mandarin becoming a foe to Iron Man again GRRRR. Getting off-topic here. Oh right, Mandarin showed up in the screen and he started threatening USA president. Meanwhile Pepper Potts was running Stark Industries and she met Killian. Killian started to explain to her what A.I.M. had plans for human brain development but Pepper rejected it because it sounded more like them building human weapons. Well she wasn't wrong. Pepper came home to check on Tony (it also seems like Tony and Pepper are married because they did act more like husband and wife in this movie) and she saw that Tony has been more obsessive and tired. Even to the point that Tony started having nighmares about his sacrifice in New York and then one of Iron Masn suits attacked Pepper. That concered Pepper and Pepper left the bed. I really felt bad both both Tony and Pepper in the scene. Dreaming these nightmares must have been awful to Tony and while Pepper knew that, she was also upset that she couldn't do anything about it. Hours later, Happy was spying on some dude that he didn't feel good about him in Stark Industries. And that dude started to glow and heated up. HUMAN TORCH, IS THAT YOU?????? Joking, he turned into a weapon for an attack planned by Mandarin and he blew up and Happy got injured from that. Tony found out about this and he was pissed off anbout it and he gave Mandarin his home address, so he could fight with him. When I first saw that scene, I thought Tony was being an idiot but then after realizing it, Tony did suffer from PTSD and insomnia, so he wasn't thinking clearly. Plyus his friend almost died, so nobody would feel rational in that situation. Tony came back to home and Maya Hansen, whom he met at 1999 party, showed up to protect him. Pepper was also there to confront Tony's questionable decisions. All of a sudden Mandarin attacked his home. Luckily Pepper and Maya escaped but Tony was getting so much damage from this attack. That action scene was amazing. It felt thrilling and the stakes were raised really high and personal for this movie. I even felt more excited than I was in the first two Iron Man movies. This might have even been the most action packed Iron Man movie yet and I loved it. Tony managed to stop the terrorists but he lost control of flight and he crashed into California and people assumed he died during the attack. He lost his suits and his home, the guy was even considered dead. Things haven't been this crappy for Tony.

After this, the second arc of the movie mostly focused on Tony without the suit. And I gotta say this movie never lost its momentum. I usually don't like when superheroes are stripped away from their powers. I can see the appeal in it because it focuses on how superheroes would act without their powers but it's also kind of uninteresting because this is literally a superhero movie. I wanna see some superheroes doing some cool action and exciting stuff. That does sound a bit childish but that's the appeal of superheroes. When they are removed from their powers, the stories become slow and bland. This movie used the idea of superheroes without superpowers for its full potential. It wasn't just Tony losing the powers that he liked. He was becoming more obssesed with him being as Iron Man and that was very unhealthy for him, especially after Avengers movie. So getting rid of his suits was a great thing for his development but that didn't stop from more Iron Man suits for the third act. So there was enough Iron Man in the movie and Tony Stark without Iron Man. You can also say that in the second movie but I didn't give much crap to Tony in that movie Here, I rooted for him to stop Mandarin. 

Tony found a place to charge his last Iron Man suit but the kid that lived in the place found him and he was shocked to see Iron Man in his garage. I would feel same way If I found out Robert Downey Jr. in my garage IF I HAD ONE. The kid's name was Harley and he was actually good in the movie. He was bit irritating at times but kids are always irritating so and we learned a bit more about him. He was smart for his age just like Tony and his father left him 8 years ago and he was dealing with bullies in his school. You can already tell he did resemblance Tony a bit here. Not so much with the bulling, more about him and Tony both being smart at their young age and Tony's father was also kind of distant from him, same way Harley's father was to him. Tony's father did leave him but still. Tony and Harley started to investigate one of older terrorist attacks from Mandarin. The invesitgation aspect of this movie is important because it showed that Tony isn't really useless without his suits. He's not powerful but he used his brain to uncover the mystery of Mandarin. I love superhero stories like that because superhero characters shouldn't be just powerful with their gifted abilities. They should have experiences and intellect to solve their issues and this movie knew that. Tony found a memorial in the attack place and he realized there were only five shadows but dead people were six. It was revaled that the bomber was still alive and he was the same person that attacked Happy. Tony and Harley met the bomber's mother to know more about him and then one lady detective showed up to arrest Tony but then she started to glow too. We gto some hilarious bits from Tony and the lady, even some meta joke about cheesy one liners. Tony stopped her but hen the bomber showed up to take Harley hostage. Tony gave Harley a devicve to stop bullies and he used it on the bomber to get rid of him and it worked. Tony and Harley parted their ways, Tony suffered from another anxiety attack in a car he took and he talked to Rhodey that he was alive but he needed his username and password to uncover A.I.M.'s Extremis project. NITPICKING TIME!!! I love you Rhodey but what kind of person would have a password named "warmachinerox"? That is such an easy password to be hacked man and you are way smarter than ths. The joke was funny but still that irritated me. Going back to the plot, Tony discovered Extremis project had sideattecks pf people being blown up. In onder to cover that incident up, A.I.M. used the subjects to attack places and make them look like some terrorist named Mandarin made those attacks. Meanwhile, Maya told Pepper that Killian might be working for Mandarin and she needed Pepper to solve this but then Maya turned out to be a double agent for Killian and Killian kidnapped Pepper.

Tony headed to Maimi where Mandarin's base took place there but WHAT A TWIST? Mandarin was just some actor on drugs named Trevor Slattery. Okay, I both loved and didn't like that twist. I loved it for being a commentary on making Asians or Middle Eastern villains as typical terrorists for American heroes to battle and to be fair, Mandarin is part Chinese part Britisih villain in the comics. So I appreciated that this was nothing but a fake out and a clever punchline of stereotyping different races as the worst criminals. At the same time I was let down by this because Mandarin was srt up to be really powerful and cunning villain for Iron Man and then it was revealed there wasn't anyone Mandarin, he was just a fictional character for cover up. That did kind of lowered my hype for the third act and what was even worse was that Killain told he was Mandarin and he wasn't even that great of a villain. Tony was captured by Killian and Maya and Killian revealed that this whole Extremis program was meant to take humanity into a next step of evolution. Holy mother of X-Men. That was actually not a bad motivation for this movie's big bad Killian. It makes sense since Killain was a disabled person before and now he looks healthier and ever since the fall of Thor, Loki and aliens, humans looked so inferior to them. Hell, he actually mirrors. Tony in a way. Tony had been building more Iron Mans as weapons for another threat and Killian was doing the exact same thing with creating human weapons. I just wish I'd care more about Killain himself. I'd do that If they focused more into his struggles with being a disabled person and not just "Tony left me in that rooftop alone for hours" and the infamous shoutout "I AM MANDARIN". 

Killain hacked Rhodey's Iron Patriot suit and he took it to kidnap the president who was in an airplane. Tony and Rhodey managed to escape from Mandarin base, Tony's suit was charged and came to him. Tony headed to the airplane but Killian already took the president. One of his bombers blew up tho and 13 people fell from the plane. We got a memorable action scene with Tony saving those people from dying and then we got a nice gag of Tony's suit hitting a truck but then it was revealed Tony wasn't in the suit at all. This movie had pretty good humor without being forced into our throats. And we started our big climax with Tony sending all of his Iron Man's suits to stop Killian. The stakes kind of lost some of its momentum but it still stayed personal for Tony and the whole sequence of Tony wearing all kinds of Iron Man suits was so much fun. Perhaps even the most exciting moment in all of Iron Man movies. Rhodey saved the president and took Iron Patriot to leave the place. Tony came across to Pepper who was injected by Extremis virus but then Pepper fell into the fire. Killain revealed that he was Mandarin all along and he was hit by Pepper. That was a bit funny but an anti-climactic way to kill him. Tony told Pepper to tone down the suits and he blew every single of them blew up.  Tony got rid of Extremis virus from Pepper and he even got his arc reactor to be removed. Things were finally looking up for Tony and he's always be Iron Man, even without the suit. If this was Tony's last appearence this was satisfying enough storyline to end his arc of being a superhero. And we got a lulzy post credit scene of this all being a story told by Tony to Bruce but Bruce fell asleep. I love you Bruce.

There were things that definitely could have improved from this movie. A more compelling and less laughable villain and I wish some sutff like Pepper still having Extremis virus in her and Tony struggling with PTSD at the end stuck around because this movie did seem kind of pointless, aside from Tony's development but this movie was a great character driven movie than a story driven movie and to me, characters matter the most, even if the story isn't great at certain points. We needed more of that in Iron Man 2 and this movie gave us a great storyline for Tony dealing with his identity issue and anxiety. It had a good balance of seriousness and humor and it was an exciting ride from start to finish.

MCU movie ranking:

Avengers - A

Iron Man - A

Captain America: The First Avenger - A-

Iron Man 3 - A-

Thor - B+

The Incredible Hulk - B

Iron Man 2 - C+

 

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This movie did not age well at all...

Anthony Hopkins, Natalie Portman, Christopher Eccleston, Tadanobu Asano, Ray Stevenson, Tom Hiddleston, Zachary Levi, Chris Hemsworth, and Jaimie Alexander in Thor: The Dark World (2013)

Airdate: October 30, 2013

Directed by Alan Taylor

I remember enjoying the heck out of this movie when I first saw it and looking at back, I still found some enjoyment in this but dear lord, it was very generic and dull at some parts. If I had to pick the laziest MCU movie, it would be this one. Still a bit more fun than Iron Man 2 but that's not saying much when Iron Man 2 had good ideas with bad exectuion and while this movie's premise was alright, it didn't try to do something different. Thor has to stop some evil dude from killing all Nine Realms.

Just like the first movie, Thor: The Dark World opened with a backstory of Asgardians battling against Dark Elves with Odin's father was in the command and he was against Malekith. Jeez, the name is gonna be hard to remember. Malekith's plan was to use Aether (Reality Stone) to end Nine Realms. Sound boring enough? Yeah, because replace Darl Elves with Frost Giants and you get the same thing. It even had same "Odin isn't all good, he was a killer" but no explaination on that either. Again, those were all saved for Thor: Ragnarok. Back to present, Loki was put in prison, Asgardians were celebrating the end of their final battle after Thor destroyed the bridge between realms. Thor wasn't that happy because he still missed Jane Foster and that day was the day of alignment of Nine Realms (Convergence). Meanwhile Jane Foster was dating some another guy but it was obvious she kept thinking of guy. Why? Did you see Thor's abs? It was shown again for the movie, all glory to Thor's abs!!! Jane's date was interruped by Darcy. She dragged her for discovering something. While they found out some objects were coming back above portal in a warehouse, Jane Foster got stucked into one of the portals and she was infected with Aether. She came back to Earth 5 hours later, Thor came to Erth to check on Jane and Jane slapped Thor for not seeing her. Okay... Then Thor discovered Jane was infected, so he took Jane to Asgard. So this movie was pretty much Natalie Portman's character being dragged into a war. She was nothing but a plot device and that was disappointing. Not much character progession from her, it was just that she carried Aether in her. Thor's mother visited Loki's prison and Loki had an argument with her about him being lied to believing he was meant to be a king. Loki is pretty much the only amazing aspect of this movie Not even Thor was really interesting here. Loki carried the whole movie and I was happy to learn more about him and hşs dynamic with Thor was still top notch.

Malekith was awaken by Aether's power, Asgard suddenly got attacked by Dark Elves and Malekith came to take Aether which was inside Jane. This movie may be so generic but it was really fast paced and the visuals looked great, so this wasn't a total boredom in my eyes. Thor's mother managed to trick Malekith but that costed her life. We got some classic Asgard funeral and all I thought of is that this scene being so cool but meaning nothing to me. Thor's mother's death should have been a big deal but that happened so quickly and I didn't give that much crap about her before or the villain killing her felt that effecting because the villain was bland af. Odin put Jane in costody, so she can't leave Asgard and he told Thor to not leave Asgard but having no chance with Malekith, the only way to stop Malekith was to visit The Dark World. As a result, Thor released Loki because Loki knew the secret paths to get out of Asgard and he gave Loki his words to get revenge for his (foster)mother. We got a kickass chase scene with Thor, Loki and Thor's friends with some good running gag of people telling Loki If they doublecross him, they would kill him. Back on Earth, Darcy and her intern Ian tracked down Erik who went nuts after Avengers movie. I like that the consequences of vengers stayed but how they handled that with Erik was all comedic and that rubbed me in a wrong way. I really liked him in the first Thor movie. Here? He was you cliched "Look at that crazy scientist, he's nude in TV and he wears no pants, hilarious because intelligent people are insane!!!". I liked Earth parts of Thor but ever since Thor got his development on becoming a more mature person, Earth had no meaning anymore. Erik, Jane and Darcy were just there in the whole movie and what the heck Ian's purpose in this whole thing? I'm glad we got to see more Realms than the first movie because If we spent more time on Earth again I would be bored out of my mind.

Loki and Thor came across to Malekith and they made an act of Loki doublecrossing Thor and handing Jane to Malekith, so he can remove Aether from her. He did that successfully but Thor and Loki were too late for Malekith and Aether. Then we saw Loki sacrificing himself and Malekith's ship went to Earth, we got a typical world ending stakes and while that was sort of fun, I didn't care much about the conflict. Thor's mother's death and Loki's death should have been impactful but Malekith was so boring as a one-note villain, so the whole climax didn't feel earned at all. It was nothing but a big CGI fest. Thankfully CGI looked fine but still. Thor stopped Malekith and nobody cared. But wait, Loki is alive? AND HE GOT THE THRONE OF ASGARD??? We got a post credit scene of Aether given to The Collector because two Infinity Stones shouldn't be together. And another post credit scene with Thor going back to Earth and spending more time with Jane. Until Jane dumped her in Thor: Raganarok and we've never heard from her again.

Where to start, I don't even know. This movie was alright but that's it really. It was painfully average with some good actions scenes and some good jokes but a typical superhero story with no style or care put in it. No character development, no compelling villain or interesting side characters, except Loki. MCU's biggest flaw of being generic is so noticable in this movie.  I wonder how different this would turn out If Patty Jenkins didn't leave for Wonder Woman. Honestly, I'm totally okay with sacrificing this movie's writing for a good Wonder Woman movie but Alan Taylor should have worked harder for this.

MCU movie ranking:

Avengers - A

Iron Man - A

Captain America: The First Avenger - A-

Iron Man 3 - A-

Thor - B+

The Incredible Hulk - B

Thor: The Dark World - B-

Iron Man 2 - C+

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