Here's my hot take on Marvel movies: I really like some of them and I really dislike others. On average they're pleasant timewasters. Edgy!
They've achieved some sort of miracle formula with their character writing and casting that makes them way better than they have any right to be. And the ambition of the unified thing is kind of amazing, in a depressing way. Unfortunately their scripts, villains and plotting usually let them down, so there's a familiar arc to them where they're a lot of fun to for the first act and get duller as they go along and the life gets sucked out of them by plot needs. It's on full display in Iron Man, and it's happened again and again. More likely than not it isn't enough to dislike them, but it's disappointing.
Beyond that they're often lightweight, childish, vapid and weightless. Smothered under committee decisions and corporate goals which make them extremely samey; But despite all that, they're fun to various degrees, mostly.
A lot has been made of them being more roller coasters than 'film' films, but there's a place for that, and I like me some well-made roller coasters. Also, every now and then they put out a genuinely good film. It's easy to say oh, that's down to Taika Waititi, or Shane Black or whomever... but the best (in-house MCU) film by far was by Scott Derrickson, whom I like but is no auteur. (yeah, Sinister was scarier than most horror movies, but ended up being mostly OK.)
If I'm to be honest I kind of prefer the DC movies - not the Zak Snyder ones, hell no: they're some of the most joyless, dumb dumb DUMB shit I've ever seen. But other than those the folks at Warner seem happier with each of their movies being way more unique, giving them a lot more personality. Less of a sense of corporate oversight. I'm a big fan of Aquaman (probably the best 80's nostalgia world-trotting adventure-type film made outside of the 80's), Shazam and especially the great Suicide Squad. They show much more range than Marvel's 'let's pay some lip service to a different genre to give our superhero formula a little bit of flavor' philosophy.
So that's the good. And a lot of the bad, because I can't be nice and just compliment things unequivocally, and also because I use this blog to vent. My main problem with all but a few of the MCU films is that they're ostensibly action spectacle movies, but both the action and the spectacle are almost always mediocre. Even when what's happening is interesting or cool, it's either poorly edited or shot in a pedestrian, boring way. The one thing they consistently nail is comedy- So it's better to consider them action comedies, which makes them go down easier because outside of Asian films the action in that genre is almost universally mediocre.
When I don't like them, it's because they focus on plot. Yeah, that's the point I'm (slowly, verbosely) working my way to.
Force me to be objective and I'd have to say the worst one of the lot is probably Iron Man 2, because that's the one they chose to sacrifice to get the MCU going. That's ok, they're allowed to screw up every now and then, they were working out the kinks of their masterplan to franchise the everloving fuck out of these things. I honestly can't work myself up too much about it, because it's less than two hours long; things can get so much worse.
No, It's the Russo Brothers films that I reserve my pure undiluted hatred for - Civil War and the last two Avengers. I won't say they're the worst superhero movies I've ever seen, because Glass is a thing that exists. Not even the worst mega-budget superhero movies, because Batman Vs Superman conveniently came out to show everyone just how motherfucking joyless a superhero film could be. Still, the Russo crapfests drained a dozen hours (triple that in subjective time) of my life, so I might as well shit-post about them.
They're a relentless cavalcade of contrivances, cheap manipulation, hollow character moments, Marvel house style action (IE: crap), artlessly inconsistent tone, bullshit twists and so much sheer dumbness thrown at your eyeballs in the hope it'll slip by quickly enough that you don't notice before they assault you with the next ludicrous event and I have no idea why people like these things. I mean, I'm used to being out of sync with what most other people enjoy, but I can usually see and often appreciate why they do enjoy it. In this case, beyond attachment to the characters, I've got nothing. These are (to me, obviously) transparently cynical, bullshit films and I just can't fathom why anyone would like them.
And they color the ones I liked retroactively! I am way less interested in any sequels to Thor, even with Waititi signed on, after despising every scene the character is in on either of the last two movies. I'm supremely uninterested in whatever complications the idiotic twists in Endgame introduce to the inevitable Guardians of the Galaxy sequel. The best Marvel movies are by far the ones that act like the MCU doesn't exist, but now there's the spectre of the next crossover event looming over any future Marvel flick. Screw that noise.
What's that, they're making a Dr. Strange sequel? With Sam fucking Raimi at the wheel? Oh... wow. Sure, OK, I'm excited.
And now without further ado: A list of all Superhero movies, ranked by objective* quality category!
*: May be subjective.
Excellent:
Spiderman - into the Multiverse (put me against the wall, and this is the one I'd pick at no.1)
Dr. Strange
Batman 2 (Tim Burton)
Suicide Squad (2021)
Unbreakable
Aquaman
Good:
Thor Ragnarok
Guardians of the Galaxy
Iron Man 3 (would be excellent, but it's got too much fluff...)
Shazam
Logan (would be excellent, if not for an extremely weak third act.)
Deadpool 2
Birds of Prey
Blade 2
Superman (the OG one)
Superman 2 (The OG really good, proper DC superhero movie)
X-men 2
Shang-Chi (Possibly excellent, if they had kept it a martial arts movie instead of the shitty final fight against Cthulhus)
Batman (Tim Burton)
The Dark Knight
Pootie Tang
Avengers 1
Spiderman (the OG really good, proper Marvel superhero movie)
Spiderman 2 (should also probably go under excellent)
Spiderman - Far from Home (dumb but fun)
Spiderman - No Way Home
The Wolverine
Howard the Duck (I last saw it when I was ten, and I won't hear your horrible lies about it!)
Guardians of the Galaxy 2 (debating whether to place it here or under OK, but its earnestness won me over.)
OK:
Iron Man
Lego Batman (fun, but the least good of the big screen lego movies.)
Spiderman - homecoming
Thor 1 & 2 (I know, I know, but I didn't hate the sequel... what can I say?)
Thor Fhor
Dr Strange 2 (big, big disappointment, but worth it for some good scenes.)
Captain America 1
Avengers 2 (I suspect I'd file it under bad if I saw it again these days)
X-men
Blade. (Snipe's sheer awesomeness as Blade would rate as excellent; unfortunately, I don't like the movie around him.)
Watchmen
Batman Begins (Great, right up to when he dresses as Batman.)
Ant-Man (would be bad, but it's extremely charming until the plot kicks in.)
Captain Marvel
Deadpool (Sorry! You can't have your cake and eat it, chum; you can't be an irreverent parody and a cookie-cutter template superhero origin story. Other than that, good job!)
Wonder Woman (it peaks halfway; it's all downhill from there.)
Wonder Woman 1984 (somewhere between OK and bad. It's got a LOT of problems, but it's a noble failure.)
Bad:
Iron Man 2
Captain America 2 (gets by on goodwill for a while, but is brought down by its plot and terrible action much harder than usual for Marvel.)
Incredible Hulk
X-men 3 and the rest.
Blade 3 (No amount of Snipe is going to compensate for this bad a film)
Black Panther (I get its cultural significance and I'm happy it was hugely successful. But it's got bad action, even for Marvel, severe pacing issues, and honestly besides the wardrobe and some really charismatic performances - a huge asset, to be sure... I couldn't find anything to like here.)
Dark Knight Rises
Superman Returns
Superman 3 & 4 ('80s) (Poor Richard Pryor.)
Eternals
Superman (Zak Snyder)
Suicide Squad 2016
Daredevil
Spawn
Batman with nipples 1 & 2
Electra (at least it had more fun than Daredevil.)
Ghost Rider (for fuck's sake, why would you give an action movie to these two guys? Never watched the sequel)
The Garfield Spidermans
THE FUCKING WORST:
Civil War (AKA: Everyone be dumbing around! Except the bad guy, he's friends with the scriptwriters.)
Avengers Infinity (more like infinite, amirite?) War
Avengers Endgame (The best of the three. That's extremely low praise.)
Batman Vs Superman (Why the HELL did I even watch this? WHY?)
Glass
That's... a lot of films. I'm not going to do the math, but more than half of them are at least OK. Not bad for not-real-cinema, huh? The one conclusion I think we can all draw is that if the Winter Soldier is in any movie, even mentioned in passing, it's going to suck ass with a straw.
I got bored with the list half way, so there you go. I put up most of the big ones I've seen; If you want to know how Dolph Lundgreen's Punisher ranks up there, smash that subscribe button, like my channel, sacrifice your firstborn for my patreon and maybe I'll be arsed. Or not.
So I've ranked a bunch of widely-beloved movies that have made more money than I can imagine below Superman IV: Quest for Peace or the Batman sequels that became a cultural punching bag pretty much the instant they were released. I realize how ridiculous that looks. But I honestly think they are worse. All those movies I listed under Bad (and some of them are really, really bad)… I rolled my eyes at them, laughed at them, made fun of them. But I don't regret watching them that much, and some of them I found interesting for some reason or another.
The Avengers movies, though, they got a visceral reaction pretty much from the get-go. Why? The action is bad, but it's not illegible like on the Ghost Riders, and plenty of other Marvel films I do like have uninteresting visuals (helloooo phase 1!)
Why I feel these films' scripts insulted my intelligence while I pretty much forgot all about Amazing Spiderman 2 or Spawn the minute they ended, I don't know.
Tone is a huge problem, sure - portentous and apocalyptic, but borderline anxious to wink at the audience and assure them that they're still watching a breezy entertainment. Annoyingly Ingratiating. Everything feels arbitrary, calculated, contrived. Their pacing is a complete wreck - they're the busiest boring movies I've seen... They last forever. And yeah, part of it must be a reaction to how much other people like them, I guess; not in a "Haha, let's be contrarian" way, I hope, but more a "What the actual fuck?"
I've read a lot of people defending these things, looking for a way to at least appreciate what they're doing - but beyond the (pretty impressive) feat of mashing together so many characters and storylines into a... barely cohesive tangle of bad scripting (a feat that I'd argue wasn't worth doing), I can't see anything to latch onto. Man, I kind of feel bad - contrary to what it may seem, I don't like shitting on things others genuinely like; But these are not films I can say "Eh, they're not for me." I can't see them as anything else but objectively shit films disguised by their level of budget and competent craftmanship, and buoyed by the many, much much better films that came before them. I think I barely ever say anything is 'objectively bad', at least I barely ever mean it, no matter how much I might put a movie down. We'll see how time treats them, but I'm sure as hell never watching them again. Once is once more than enough.
Coming up next: Thanos is a fucking moron and how the hell are people not talking about how stupid his whole deal is? Wake up, sheeple!
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