14. Captain America: The First Avenger (2011)
Captain America being my favorite Avenger, I wish I could rank this movie higher. But again, this is the early days of the MCU, when Marvel Studios was still playing it “safe.”
This movie’s biggest weakness is trying to cram all of Steve Rogers’ escapades across WWII into the second half of a film. Heck, it feels like we see several years go by in a simple montage of Cap’s Howling Commandos attacking Hydra units and strongholds. The first half of the film is brilliant, with an uncredited but very noticeable rewrite by Joss Whedon, making the dialogue crisp, fun, authentic, and emotionally charged as Steve Rogers goes from 90-pound scrawny wimp into real life-sized Chris Evans.
The effects used to create scrawny Rogers are phenomenal, the first time Marvel Studios attempted such techniques, as is much of the casting including Hayley Atwell as Peggy Carter, Dominic Cooper as young Howard Stark, Tommy Lee Jones as Colonel Chester Philips, Stanley Tucci as Dr. Erskine, Sebastian Stan as Bucky, and Toby Jones as Dr. Armin Zola. Though not all of these characters return, those that do are established well enough in this first film to really pay off in spades in Captain America: The Winter Soldier. Red Skull (Hugo Weaving) is better than your average MCU villain, and it is a shame we have not seen him return – I still stand by the interpretation that he wasn’t killed by the Tesseract, but rather transported halfway across the galaxy, as the visual effect used is remarkably similar to that of transporting via Bifrost in Thor. Again, we have a film that feels like a set-up for The Avengers, not helped by the poor decision to open the film in the present as S.H.I.E.L.D. locates Steve Rogers, but it doesn’t suffer from this imbalance as much as Iron Man 2 or Thor.
13. Thor: Ragnarok (2017)
Okay, so, as the warm glow of this movie ran out since my last posting of this list, and I saw it a few more times, so I downgraded it considerably from #7 last November to its current rank at #13.
In 2017, six years after his first appearance on the big screen, Marvel Studios finally figured out what to do with Thor. Ragnarok is hilarious in an entirely different way than Guardians, with a more blunt, understated, dry style of comedy that mostly doesn’t go for Guardians‘ brand of turd and chafed nipple jokes.
Hemsworth is finally allowed to fully use his comedic chops, earning him the title of funniest Avenger. Hulk (Mark Ruffalo) too is more fully realized than even in the Avengers films, and side characters like Grandmaster (Jeff Goldblum) are just utterly bizarre; again, a unique brand of weird unlike Guardians of the Galaxy.
Sometimes the action can be a bit of CGI overload with one person dispatching dozens and dozens of enemies like they are nothing. There are quite a few missed opportunities narrative wise as well, and though the humor is welcome, it often spoils the drama and tension by popping up at inopportune times.
12. Iron Man (2008)
Why is Iron Man on the lower end of my list? Just barely not making the Top 10?! Well, when it was released in 2008, Iron Man did set the new standard for the superhero genre, establishing the tone of the entire MCU with the perfect balance of humor and serious situations. It owes a lot to 2002’s Spider-Man in terms of structure and telling an origin story, but it felt fresh enough with Tony Stark (Robert Downey Jr.), a superhero unlike any we had seen before, both in his personality and decisions he makes. I mean, who would have guessed the movie would end with Stark giving up his secret identity? Who does that?
Iron Man might even be one of Marvel Studios’ cleanest films with very little feeling extraneous and very few scenes or plot points that detract from this well put together little package. I have to knock Iron Man down the list though, because in 2018, when Marvel Studios has finally been getting “weird with it” for a few years, it does feel very traditional; a straight-up superhero film that takes almost no risks with the genre. Unlike future, more creative MCU films that tend to combine genres, this is simply a superhero film, something to build on, but not all that creative in retrospect. As good as Iron Man is, I want to honor the Marvel movies that truly break new ground.
11. Iron Man 3 (2013)
Yes, I put Iron Man 3 above the original Iron Man. Again, though Iron Man did establish the MCU and is a great film, it also didn’t push many boundaries. After the disappointing Iron Man 2, writer/director Shane Black throws a few of the franchise’s rules out of the window. It’s far more fascinating watching Tony Stark struggle to survive against powerful foes without his wonderful suits during the second act than letting him have all his toys, especially after two movies of him solving all his problems with said toys.
Shane Black is an absolute superb writer and director, and his finger prints are all over this film just as James Gunn’s style is evident in both Guardians of the Galaxy films. Obviously, this film has a few gaps in logic regarding Extremis, though Extremis does allow for more interesting villains that just other people wearing arc reactors and metal suits. Guy Pearce as Aldrich Killian is a stroke of genius, another scientist who has modeled himself after Stark, like Hammer, only to greater effect, following a powerful scene where he contemplates suicide on New Year’s Eve from the roof of the building Stark promised he would meet him. Stark’s demons coming back to haunt him, indeed.
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