WordPress is 42% of the internet I hear. Of that 42%, 80% is reviewing (mostly complaining) about Marvel movies. Never let it be said that I don’t conform. Since a couple new Marvel movies have come out lately, Longtail Turtle and I had to update our rankings. I figured I’d compare and throw in the rankings from Rotten Tomatoes as well.
Iron Man
My rank – 13
LTT rank – 9
Tomato rank – 2
We’re pretty close to each other but off the norm. It’s a good movie for sure but I’m shocked that it’s reckoned the second best Marvel movie. It’s pretty good for the first two acts. The ending is a strong “meh”. There’s something about two robots punching each other that doesn’t do much for me. And why introduce the 10 Rings and then not have them be the end villain?
Incredible Hulk
My rank – 22
LTT rank – 22 (yay, the same!)
Tomato rank – 24
No one likes this one. It’s not terrible, it’s just not good. I’m not sure the Hulk is a good character for storytelling. I loved the Hulk as a kid probably for the same reason a lot of kids go through a dinosaur phase – when you have no power of anything it’s fun to think about a giant beast that smashes everything. What would a good Hulk movie be? Two hours of Hulk smashing shit? I’m not sure you can do anything with the Hulk. When he’s Bruce Banner his whole thing is not turning into the Hulk, which is what we want. And when he’s the Hulk, nothing is a threat to him.
Iron man 2
My rank – 7
LTT rank – 5
Tomato rank – 23
Whoa. I knew people didn’t love this movie but the general public says it’s almost as bad as Thor Dark World? That’s bonkers to me. There’s another robot fight at the end, which is lame, but other than that what’s so bad about this movie? Hammer is entertaining and I like Vanko as an enemy. Sidenote LTT hates the Pepper Potts character. I guess she is only there to be Tony’s love interest but as far as love interest characters go, I think she’s good.
Thor
My rank – 24
LTT rank – 23
Tomato rank – 21
Alignment here, this movie is lame. Another one without a real antagonist. Seems like they were real coy with having villains in these early movies. I wonder why. But then Thor doesn’t really have any classic enemies other than Loki. Although in my mind Enchantress is Thor’s archnemesis, maybe because I read the wrong comics. I can see why they don’t do anything with her though since she’s a magic trickster just like Loki. Samesies!
Captain American – The First Avenger
My rank – 21
LTT rank – 7
Tomato rank – 18
This movie is okay before Steve gets the Super-Soldier serum, and the scene right after it is great. Then it’s weak. Also, how long was that montage supposed to be? It seemed like Captain America was in WW2 for like a week but was it supposed to be longer? Is there even a montage? Am I remembering that right? Red Skull was disappointing.
THE Avengers
My rank – 16
LTT rank – 6
Tomato rank – 8
The actual title of this movie is Marvel’s The Avengers, I wonder if that’s because of the Uma Thurman Avengers movie. I guess I’m on the outside on this one. This movie was just kind of blah for me. The opening scene is pretty cool and then it’s you know, whatever. The Chitari are lame, the “double-cross” of SHIELD making weapons is lame, Coulson dying to bring them together is lame.
It’s not fair to judge like this but I will anyway, after the rest of the movies came out this one makes no sense. Thanos gave Loki the Mind Stone so he could go to earth and get the Space Stone? Why would he do that? Were all his loyal minions busy? Why would he trust Loki? Also he just saw Captain Marvel blow up an entire Kree warfleet, what did he think some lame-os on hoverboards were going to accomplish? The space whales were cool.
Iron Man 3
My rank – 11
LTT rank – 19
Tomato rank – 19
I think people were pretty mad about the Mandarin fake out. That was probably one twist too many. Also it was kind of a throwaway of AIM. Maybe this would have been better if it was just “we’re AIM and we’re doing AIM shit” without the fake terrorist threat. Also I can’t remember now, what was the point of that? So they could sell Extremis? I think you could have sold that just fine without a fake terror threat. If it worked. I guess this movie is kind of a mess, but I liked the Tony without a suit stuff and the kid was funny.
Thor The Dark World
My rank – 24
LTT rank – 25
Tomato rank – 25
Yeah, that’s right, I say there’s a Marvel movie worse than this one. What I find interesting is that no one seems to remember what actually happened in this movie but they still hate it. Several people have told me that have no memory of the plot. I remember that some red stuff goes into Natalie Sportsman and that red stuff is one of the Infinity Stones. And there are Dark Elfs.
TV Loki told me that this movie is where Loki accidentally (?) kills his adopted momma. Which seems important. I wonder what a good Thor movie would be. Something with Beta Ray Bill probably.
Captain America The Winter Soldier
My rank – 2
LTT rank – 8
Tomato rank – 9
I like that this is in the top 10 but I clearly enjoy it more than most. I’ll admit that “oh, it turns out SHIELD was HYDRA all along” is kind of lame but otherwise it’s fantastic. The only thing that would have made it better is if Nick Fury had really died. But no one dies in comic book land. Sidenote I was reading some old comics the other day and as always happens I was surprised to see a white Nick Fury. Sam Jackson has become Nick Fury so hard that’s all I can think of. Sorry David Hasselhoff. I would have liked to have seen them sneak the Hoff into a SHIELD part somewhere.
Guardians of the Galaxy
My rank – 1
LTT rank – 2
Tomato rank – 5
This movie made me feel like when I saw Star Wars for the first time. It was awesome and it made me feel awesome. If you want to nitpick you can, some of Peter’s quips make no sense since he left earth when he was a kid, and the “we’re family now even though we’ve known each other for 2 days” thing isn’t super strong, but it’s great anyway. I hate 3D but one of the many times I saw this in the theater I went to see it in 3D because I wanted glowing Groot spores all around me. Wonderful.
Avengers Age of Ultron
My rank – 5
LTT rank – 20
Tomato rank – 22
Another big WHOA. I didn’t think people disliked this movie this much. It’s worse than Thor? I know people didn’t like the opening scene which is weird to be because it’s the only time the Avengers are really doing Avengers stuff. It made me feel like they went on all kinds of adventures we didn’t see in the movies. I really liked Ultron as a villain.
What didn’t people like about it? I’ve heard that people don’t like it when heroes fight big hordes of robots because they want real people to get slaughtered by the hundreds by the good guys. I will say that Quicksilver and Scarlet Witch are kind of pointless. Would people like it more without them? Maybe Iron Man 3 should have been Iron Man against AIM and the twins who are totally not Magneto’s kids because they don’t have the rights. Except now they do? So maybe they are?
Ant-Man
My rank – 20
LTT rank – 17
Tomato rank – 16
It takes me a minute to remember what happened in this movie. Yellowjacket. What did Pym want his technology to be used for it not military murder? What are the practical applications of shrinking? Fantastic Voyage surgery? Exterminators that go into the walls with lasers instead of having to use poison? Because of when I was into comics the Wasp and Ant-Man are founding members of the Avengers and the newfangled version where they’re just people hanging around is weird. Paul Rudd is likeable of course but it’s all pretty mediocre.
Captain America Civil War
My rank – 17
LTT rank – 21
Tomato rank – 10
Huh, I guess people at large liked this a lot more than we did. I’m not sure why it wasn’t Avengers Civil War. I guess Spider-Man showing up was a cool. It’s hard for me not to think that Cap isn’t being unreasonable in this movie, which is not how I like to think of Captain American being. The Avengers should be above the law and do whatever they want? That doesn’t sound right. And the whole thing with Bucky killing Howard Stark doesn’t do much for me. For that matter the whole Baron Zemo thing doesn’t work for me.
Doctor Strange
My rank – 10
LTT rank – 15
Tomato rank – 12
Dormammu I’ve come to bargain. Is Mordo ever going to show up again? I hope so. One time in the comics Blade and Dr. Strange teamed up to cast a spell to kill all vampires. But then the spell was reversed. There’s a Dr. Strange action figure that comes with a big battle axe, you know because of all the times Dr. Strange attacks people with an axe. This movie was good.
Guardians of the Galaxy Vol. 2
My rank – 25
LTT rank – 24
Tomato rank – 14
This movie is garbage and I hate it. Rocket is a super asshole for no reason. Drax is FUCKING ANNOYING the entire movie. All the Ravager stuff is stupid. All the dad stuff is literally groan inducing. Ego the Living Planet is dumb. They set up Adam Warlock, aka the guy who beats Thanos for the Infinity Stones, and then did nothing with him. Mantis is okay.
Do I judge this movie too harshly because I loved the first one and I was so excited for this one and I never get excited and then they threw this turd in my face? Probably. Still I cannot fathom that many people this this is a middle of the pack Marvel movie.
Spider-Man Homecoming
My rank – 6
LTT rank – 13
Tomato rank – 6
Donald Glover has a funny bit in his stand-up special about when there was some talk about him being Spider-Man. I’m not a huge Spider-Man fan in general but this movie is perfect for Spider-Man. The only thing I don’t like about it is when Peter is all “school is for losers, I’m a superhero!” That doesn’t seem very Peter Parkery to me. I love that they didn’t waste our time with an origin story. I love that Vulture is actually cool for once.
Thor Ragnarok
My rank – 4
LTT rank – 3
Tomato rank – 4
Alignment, this movie will Ragnarok your face off. I asked how you could make a good Thor movie before, and a good Hulk movie, I guess the answer is make Plane Hulk into a movie and then replace the Silver Surfer with Thor. Although I am bummed that they didn’t do the bit from the comic where Iron Man and Dr. Strange shot Hulk into space because they were sick of his bullshit. I suppose that would have been too cold for the MCU. It would have been cool if they spent less time on Asgard and instead had another gladiator fight or two with some other Marvel characters but you can’t have everything.
Black Panther
My rank – 14
LTT rank – 12
Tomato rank – 1
Major WHOA. The world at large says this is the best Marvel movie? It was fine. Killmonger was cool. Throwing in Klaw and then killing him seemed kind of pointless. The guy from Fargo seemed totally pointless. All in all not a lot happened in this movie. The last scene was cool where Killmonger choses to die.
Avengers Infinity War
My rank – 3
LTT rank – 10
Tomato rank – 15
This is shocking to me. The general populace says there are 14 Marvel movies better than Infinity War? This movie kicks ass. Stuff happens! People die (temporarily)! Am I supposed to believe that the lame original recipe Avengers was better than this? And Civil War? And Ant-Man + WASP? This is crazy. Infinity War is great. I still watch it sometimes.
Ant-Man and the Wasp
My rank – 18
LTT rank – 14
Tomato rank – 13
It’s better than Ant-Man. There are some funny parts. The guy from Justified is there and he’s basically playing Hammer from Iron Man 2 so that’s fun. Ghost is there for some reason. Do they cure her at the end? Maybe. They rescue the original Wasp from Quantumtown I remember that. The best part is the point credit scene where Paul Rudd is in the Quantum Realm and everyone else gets dusted and you’re like “oh man, how is he gonna get out of this one?!”
Captain Marvel
My rank – 9
LTT rank – 16
Tomato rank – 20
I throw out LTT’s score for this one because she thinks Alison Brie runs like a mutant and it’s all she can see. I remember when this movie came out lots of people were real mad because a girl was a superhero and girls are gross. I really liked it. The Skrull being not the bad guys was a fun twist. Not sure about it in the long run. I would have liked a little something in the dialog to explain why there are pink and blue Kree. For that matter I would have liked to see more super Kree. I listened to a podcast where some non-woman haters really tore this movie apart so I guess lots of people didn’t like it.
Avengers Endgame
My rank – 15
LTT rank – 1
Tomato rank – 3
The fact that most people say this is one of the best Marvel movies freaks my funk. I understand that there’s no stakes in any of the Marvel movies, but this is the one where I can’t even pretend anything is on the line. Of course they’re going to defeat Thanos and of course they’re going to bring everyone back to life. Not only that but they already have the ultimate plot cheating device in the infinity gauntlet and then they throw in TIME TRAVEL on top? Why not just have Superman show up and make the world spin backwards while you’re at it?
The one scene where Steve is all messed up and then everyone shows up to help him is cool, but then it’s followed by a 40 minute CGI barf-fest. And then Thanos is all like “I’ll just destroy all life this time” because of reasons? Two Nebulas is cool, but that’s about it. And that Ronin stuff with Clint? Utterly pointless.
Spider-Man Far From Home
My rank – 19
LTT rank – 18
Tomato rank – 11
It’s fine. Since “everyone” knows that Mysterio is a bad guy it would have been cool if he actually was a hero from another dimension. Also it would have been cool if they illusions he made to defeat and look like a hero weren’t lame elementals. Meh.
Black Widow
My rank – 8
LTT rank – 4
Tomato rank – 17
People were mad about this one because not only was the main character a gross girl but there were other girls in it! And Taskmaster was a girl! They were real upset about that. I guess the good news for them is that Scar-Jo has been excommunicated from the MCU so Black Widow may really be dead for real. J/K, they’ll recast her. Do you think they added in the first part just because of the Americans? I kind of do.
Shang-Chi and the Legend of the Ten Rings
My rank – 12
LTT rank – 11
Tomato rank – 7
Pretty good. For me it didn’t really do anything to resolve the fake Mandarin 10 Rings thing. Also the rings themselves weren’t like I remember from the comic. I remember really thinking the Mandarin was cool as a kid but apparently he’s a hugely racist caricature so I guess I’m a monster. Tag-along Awkwafina character comedy relief didn’t do much for me, I would have ditched her and given more time to the sister and her criminal shenanigans. Much like with Thor arena I would have liked to have seen a couple other Marvel character fights. Maybe I just want to see Enter the Dragon with super people?
Rocket Cat 