So while I was recovering from being burnt out on writing, I spent the last several days doing the one bloody thing that I said I wasn’t going to fucking do. I went well outta my way to watch all of the fucking Marvel movies! So much time has been spent being a movie nerd for superhero films. :D Since I got nothing better to do, and to finally and firmly grasp my standpoint on this entire franchise, I reevaluated every single MCU film. And now I’m gonna talk about ‘em all! But first, the TL;DR version. Here’s all the movies listed from worst to best.

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Ant-Man: Don’t Care/10

Thor: Ragnarok: 2/10

Thor: The Dark World: 3/10

Doctor Strange: 3/10

Iron Man 3: 3/10

Thor: 5/10

The Incredible Hulk: 5.5/10

Captain America: Civil War: 6/10

Iron Man 2: 7/10

Spider-Man: Homecoming: 7/10

Black Panther: 7/10

Captain America: 8/10

The Avengers: 8/10

Avengers: Age of Ultron: 9/10

Guardians of the Galaxy: 9/10

Iron Man: 10/10

Guardians of the Galaxy Vol. 2: 10/10

Captain America: The Winter Soldier: 10/10

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All right, so let’s get into all the movies now in terms of the order I watched them in! SOME SPOILERS WILL FOLLOW.

1. The Incredible Hulk: Fine. A majority of the movie was okay, but not great. I thought the villain was decent, and the movie got better the further along it went. But ultimately, nothing spectacular, and nothing was really even accomplished. Betty Ross, the love interest, was awful. The fact that she immediately ditched Ty Burrell so swiftly does not make her sympathetic at all.

2. Iron Man: Marvel blew it’s load way too fuckin’ early. Everything about the movie, ranging from the character development, and special effects, and the plot, was phenomenal. Here you get to see just why Tony Stark goes down the path he goes on, and his reasons make perfectly good sense. This movie even had a believable love interest in it, but it doesn’t officially happen and is portrayed realistically. The villain isn’t remarkable, but Jeff Bridges’ acting made him stand out quite a bit. There’s really nothing I hate about this movie but the lack of action, and even then, said lack of action is justified in favor of focusing on character growth.

3. Thor: Dull. Boring. Forgettable. Bland. Apathetic. Pick your adjective. They all fit here. Thor starts out as an asshole. Then he loses his powers. Then he isn’t an asshole. Then he gets his powers back. Then he defeats the villain. Whoo. The only saving grace this movie has is its villain Loki, and one scene Thor has with someone in a bar. Also, Jane Foster as a love interest? No. NO. NO. The sad thing is? THIS IS THE BEST MOVIE IN THE THOR TRILOGY.

4. Captain America: Surprisingly better than I remembered! This isn’t just a war movie. This is a character study movie about a man who just so happens to be in war. I love how this movie showed just how hard it is for someone to be a “hero,” for someone to achieve what they want. And I love how this film showed that if you wanna do something super badly, then you gotta cut a few corners and do a couple things under the radar to get what you want. The fact that Steve Rogers is joining the war simply because he hates bullying, and not because he wants to glorify himself or kill Nazis, makes him a compelling protagonist. Shame this movie had yet another bland antagonist in it, but eh.

5. Iron Man 2: Still holds up, even now. Not great, but still good. I found this movie to be the first true “comic book” movie. It’s bigger, wackier, makes less logical sense, but you know what? That’s just fine. It’s a fun movie, and it has a great subplot involving Tony Stark dying, specifically because of the device that’s currently saving him. The biggest problem with this movie was Justin Hammer, who was annoying as fuck. I love Sam Rockwell, but his character should not have been in this movie; he just bogged everything down. At the very least, this movie didn’t butcher Stark’s character or his relationship with Pepper Potts, so yay.

6. The Avengers: Aaaaaaaaaaaaand yes. Wonderful. This movie is just as good and cool as you’d think it would be. It’s about six superheroes coming together to stop a Big Bad from destroying New York City. Lots of fighting ensues, lots of action ensues, lots of jokes ensue, and we get to see everyone’s ideologies clashing together. Watching everyone overcome said ideologies and work together was just beautiful. Plus we get to see Loki again, which is always good.

7. Iron Man 3: And now we come across our first stinker. I like that the movie showed how Tony Stark could still be a hero without his Iron Man suit. That was admirable. Everything else? Shit. I didn’t like the subplot of Stark bonding with that kid; I thought the fiery villains was too over-the-top for the Iron Man films; this is the movie that began with the “forced humor” element that I hate; the action in the movie was bloated, to the point of making it look like a Transformers movie; the main villain is generic as all fuck; and last, but not least, this movie decided to throw away a completely interesting and menacing villain for the sake of revealing that he’s just this red herring, comical actor. Awful.

8. Thor: The Dark World: Someone working at Marvel said, “Hey guys! I got a great idea! Let’s make a better Thor movie by throwing stuff in it!” And that’s all this movie is. Stuff. Things happen. People die. Shit blows up. Destruction takes place. And then it ends. That shitty style of humor from Iron Man 3 is back, Jane Foster does absolutely nothing, and the antagonist is this paper-thin entity that isn’t even cool-looking. By far the biggest detriment was the decision to kill Loki, only to bring him back by the end. Loki’s “death” genuinely made my eyes water, and it would’ve been the perfect way for his character to go out that wrapped up his arc in a nice bow. Why the hell would you not kill him now, after he redeems himself by saving Thor’s life and getting impaled in the process?! Stupid…

9. Captain America: The Winter Soldier: And here we have it, the best MCU film, at least for my list. No shitty love subplot, no shitty love interest, gorgeous action sequences and CGI, really fast-paced soundtrack, darker tone that managed to still stay lighthearted, and I love how this movie felt more like a Jason Bourne film if anything. This movie also introduced Sam Wilson (or the Falcon) and fleshed out Natasha Romanoff’s (Black Widow) character a lot, which was thoroughly refreshing. And while the villain wasn’t particularly good or memorable, what the villain attempted to do was absolutely horrifying. High, high recommendation, even if you flat-out ignore the previous Captain America movie. Also, Frank Grillo. That is never bad.

10. Guardians of the Galaxy: I genuinely didn’t even know this was part of the MCU. I just thought this movie was gonna be its own thing. And while I still am a bit upset that it’s not, I can at least be happy that they allowed James Gunn to make a movie he wanted to make. And what you have is a crew of anti-heroes all working together to save the galaxy, all while being wacky and making jokes along the way. This is precisely what a superhero movie should be, this film right here. This film managed to take itself seriously when it needed to, yet also managed to be incredibly fun and lighthearted in the process. Even better, but this movie clearly has heart behind it, because this movie and its sequel are the only movies in the entire MCU that had resulted in me shedding actual tears at some point. This movie and its sequel are the BoJack Horseman of superhero films. Make what you will of that.

11. Avengers: Age of Ultron: So I had the pleasure of rewatching this movie alongside  pokemonmanic3595 late at night. And we thoroughly enjoyed this movie! This movie is just as good as the original Avengers, but what elevates it is the fact that this movie spent most of the second act taking the time to slow down and focus more of fleshing out the Avengers and showing their ideologies clashing once again. Which was refreshing after so many action scenes. But what really sold this movie for us was Ultron. Really, really complex and deep villain, but also still maintaining a child-like mentality—because he technically is one—and also having a generally wonderful appearance and great voice acting from James Spader. Also thank you, pokemonmanic, for pointing out that Ultron is just this beefy, naked, giant metal dude. As was Vision. Because that didn’t put images in my brain at all. I hate you. >__>

12. Ant-Man: I can’t numerically rate this movie. Because I didn’t watch it. Not the whole thing, anyway. Halfway into the movie, I realized that it was a generic movie with generic side characters and a generic villain and generic comedy and generic CGI and a generic girlfriend and a generic mentor character played by a generic well-known actor all intertwined within a generic plot. Conveniently,  islethewolf contacted me and asked if we could voice chat. At first I told him no, because I didn’t wanna be distracted. But then I said “fuck it” and we talked about things and shiz. And as we spoke, Ant-Man was playing in the background, and I didn’t even try to pay attention to it. Because the stuff Isle and I talked about over on Discord was more meaningful, more impactful, and even more hysterical than this bland-ass bag of flour that calls itself a movie. So thank you, Isle, for sparing me from watching this boring-ass bag of blandness.

13. Captain America: Civil War: Not as good as I remembered, but still good nonetheless. I loved the themes of this movie, about collateral damage and using scapegoats to justify your actions, and how it shows that just because the heroes save the day, it doesn’t exactly make them heroic. This movie really did put a new perspective on the overall tone of the superhero genre, without doing so in a dark and gritty way like Batman v. Superman and Man of Steel did. And we finally get to see the Avengers fighting each other, which was certainly new. At the same time though, some of the events that took place in this film, I felt was forced. It felt like certain characters had to do something stupid or had to turn off their brains in order for the villain to achieve everything he achieved. It didn’t bother me immensely, but it certainly damaged the quality of the movie. And the fact that the Avengers result in causing lots of destruction in a big fight scene, even though they wanna stop causing lots of destruction in a big fight scene, kinda makes everyone seem hypocritical. Oh well. Least we got Black Panther and Spider-Man thanks to this movie!

14. Doctor Strange: Goddamn it, another cliché boring-ass film! Guy is an asshole; guy gets injured; guy goes through training; guy becomes a superhero; mentor dies; lots of CGI; generic villain; generic side characters; forced humor that isn’t funny—I’m so sick of this! Okay, Benedict Cumberbatch does good acting here, as always. And in terms of visuals and special effects? Even though I saw Infinity War earlier today? This movie is hands down the best MCU film in terms of its visuals. Such a shame that it was all pissed away on yet another cardboard box film that isn’t memorable at all. Nothing about this movie stood out except for one poignant scene about life and death, Doctor Stephen Strange himself, and his sentient cape. That’s about it.

15. Guardians of the Galaxy Vol. 2: I don’t care if I’m being biased. This movie is and always will be an improvement over the original. Now yes, there’s too much humor in it—something I outright criticized upon my first viewing of this movie. But despite this movie being bigger and louder and full of more special effects? It’s also better than the original. The main villain is nowhere near as generic as Ronan, the special effects look superb, the soundtrack is awesome, and this movie took the time to flesh out the Guardians with their backstories and character development. Even Nebula and Yondu, who were originally just side characters, get loads of development here. And while the humor is a bit…too much at times, and sometimes some jokes last too long, I still laughed my ass off watching this movie, and all the excellent qualities removed all the issues I had with the humor to the point where it no longer bothered me. And don’t get me started on the ending, which had me crying like a little bitch again.

16. Spider-Man: Homecoming: Someone at Marvel must’ve been listening to me constantly whining about how cliché some superhero movies are. Now yes, it’s another Spider-Man movie. Hooray. I’m kinda sick of Spider-Man, but at least this is somewhat of a different spin on it. Tom Holland is adorably nerdy, and looks and sounds like a fifteen-year-old, Peter Parker is great as a high school student, and as Spider-Man, and Vulture was definitely a new take on the villains of the franchise. By far what elevated this movie was the fact that so many aspects of it are taken realistically, without making the movie ridiculously dark. And a reveal in the third act turned this film upside-down, and saved it from turning into another cliché, generic superhero film. Gotta give the movie props for that.

17. Thor: Ragnarok: HOW?! HOW THE FUCK ARE YOU WORSE THAN THOR: THE DARK WORLD?! There are almost no redeeming qualities to this film! The villain is generic and boring—AGAIN! The movie is trying so damn blatantly hard to be Guardians of the Galaxy that it’s pathetic! Oh sure, the movie’s all colorful and pretty, but the CGI is shit. Yes, the movie has a good soundtrack, but it all feels like it was thrown in as a cheap way to get the audience pumped for the movie. Sure, this movie isn’t bland and boring—I’ll give it that. Sure, this movie is having fun—I’ll give it that. Sure, Cate Blanchett and Jeff Goldblum are hamming it up as the villains—I’ll give it that. But this movie is completely pointless! Lots of shit blows up, there’s lots of death, lots of shitty, shitty, shitty, predictable comedy, lots of improvisation, lots of shit! Just…just colorful shit everywhere! Thor is a plain, bare toilet. Thor: The Dark World is that same bare toilet, but someone is sitting on it taking a huge shit. Sure, something is happening, but it’s nothing most people enjoy. Thor: Ragnarok is someone shitting out skittles into said toilet, taking out the shit, and then cramming it down your fucking throat mixed with Mountain Dew! Just because you make a movie different from the two previously boring ones does not make it good! AT ALL! You need to make us care about the characters; you need to make us care about the plot; you need to make us feel tension when everyone is dying! You can’t just throw lots of hollow action, colorful effects, and humor in a film and say it’s good if there’s zero substance behind it! And if I wanna see Guardians of the Galaxy, I’d watch Guardians of the Galaxy, not your shitty-ass excuse of a Thor movie! The only thing redeeming about this movie other than the performances was Korg. He was fucking cute as all fuck, and his accent was smooth and adorable, and he was this giant cool-looking rock monster. He was basically a Teddy bear. Marvel literally put a rock golem of a Teddy bear in this movie. That alone deserves praise. And also, Hulk ass. You get to see Hulk’s giant, jiggly, bouncy ass for a brief moment. I even joked with Isle before seeing this movie and told him that at the bare minimum, this movie would get a 2/10, and each point goes to each of Hulk’s ass cheeks. Shame that ended up being the case!

18. Black Panther: Definitely fun and great. I love the immense world building throughout the first act of the film. Seeing Wakanda in all its beauty was incredible, as was learning about the country’s culture and seeing how things operated. I really like T’Challa’s sister; their chemistry together felt natural, and kinda reminded of how I act around my own sister. The supporting cast was fantastic, mainly Danai Gurira and Andy Serkis. And this movie hands down has one of the best villains throughout all of the MCU movies, played beautifully by Michael B. Jordan. It really is a shame that, for all this movie’s incredible qualities, it’s bogged down by how formulaic the entire third act was. Now no, I didn’t think the third act was stupid or awful. But it was so predictable that I immediately stopped caring about what was going to happen. Because I knew exactly how the movie would end. Nothing exactly that ruins the film, but it’s a little disappointing to see this movie go in such a different direction, only to circle around and say “NOPE! Same ol’ bullshit!”

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All right everybody, that’s all of them! Now I know some of you are saying:

“BUT JT! WHAT ABOUT INFINITY WAR?!”

Oh yeah. That. What do I think about that film?

How do I view it overall?

What are my thoughts on this overhyped movie?

GUESS WHAT! I’M GONNA TELL YOU!

In another journal. :p

That’s right bitches. I’m pulling a Marvel on your asses.

You’re just gonna have to sit here with blue balls after I spent so much time and effort building all this shit up leading to this one journal. But no worries. I will be posting a full review on Infinity War within a few days.

Or maybe I’ll be an asshole and wait until next year. Like Marvel is doing.

We’ll see. XD