Marvel Cinematic Universe • Brady Salz

Marvel's Infinity War is coming out in a month or so, and I've realized I've kind of missed the whole boat. I'm not the biggest superhero/action movie fan, but I have a huge amount of respect for what they've been able to do over the last fifteen or so years. I figured I'd try and catch up on them all. Films I've watched before this binge-fest:

Iron Man [1,2]
Guardians of the Galaxy [1,2]
Thor: Ragnarok
Black Panther

Please enjoy my confused ramblings of stumbling through the MCU in an utterly incorrect order.

Captain America

This. Movie. Sucked.

I think this movie could have been OK if I saw it when it came out. Instead, a better version of this movie has since come out - Wonder Woman. Sure, World War I isn't World War II but c'mon, American heroes fighting Germans? Same difference. The CGI for Red Skull was pretty poor as well [maybe just aging]. Wouldn't recommend.

Captain America: The Winter Solider

If it wasn't clear at the beginning, I'm watching this movies in the order that I'm writing this down. In turns out, that was a poor idea. This was not the correct order, whoops.

I was super confused for a good part of this. Who are these people? How bold of Marvel to jump ahead and just assume audiences could follow along, I really felt like a poser here. They've really advanced all the relationships quite a bit in the background - maybe I should've watched the TV shows? It wasn't until the very end when I saw the Avengers tower that I realized I had massively screwed this up. Still, despite all of that, this movie was super enjoyable. The action was lively and far more interesting than the first one. The mood was a little more dark (like a thriller), and it felt like a spy movie at the end.

Last addendum: they kept referencing “the incident in New York". I may have been a little buzzed, so I kept thinking they were referring to 9/11. Nope nope nope nope.

Avengers

Whoa, goddamn. This movie kicked ass. Pure nonstop action the entire time. The “building a squad” plotline was excellent. The hero vs hero fights were captivating. The dialouge at times felt like something Aaron Sorkin would write - faster and funnier than it had any right to be. The villain was kind of lame in my opinion - but perhaps I should've watched Thor to really understand it? Disclaimer: Already watched Thor: Ragnarok :shrug:.

Honestly, if I had watched this movie when it came out originally, I probably would've been a Marvel fanboy. It really was that good and has me quite excited to watch the rest of them.

Thor

I sincerely though my TV was broken for most of this movie. They seem to delight in filming things at 45 degree angles. You think I'm joking? Check out this clip. Anyways, this movie was “just OK”. This movie, more than any of the others, seemed to require the most background. I came into this hoping for explainers on the stuff I confused me in Ragnarok and really didn't get any of that. I'm pretty biased here - I was a huge mythology buff in middle school. All the “basic stuff” like Yggdrasil, Mjolnjir, Frost Giants, etc was solidly in my wheel house and didn't need any explaining, but the weirder stuff like the Bifrost could've used some more time.

P.S. Natalie Portman?? What? I didn't know she was in the MCU, neat-o.

Thor 2

I took notes during the movie this time. So many questions! How did they fix the rainbow bridge? Where was Natalie Portman in the Avengers? Ah, there's an awful scene explaining it. Loki is dope, but all supporting characters are pretty lame honestly. I think the main problem was the plot's meta-believability. Yes, it's fantasy/sci-fi, but like, how can someone sleep for a thousand years and still overwhelm your defenses? What were y'all doing?

Age of Ultron

Maybe I was just a bit buzzed, but I could not understand a single thing the twins were saying. That's ok, because they had approximately zero depth. I get what they were going for here - some kind of PTSD/true victims of war thing - but it fell fairly flat to me. I wish they went heavier with it. Maybe not Nolan heavy, but maybe actually have one of the Avengers kill someone by accident or something. Eh, probably too dark. Also what am I am talking about, they've killed so many people!

Ant-Man

Ants are disgusting. This movie was pretty funny, but goddamn ants are fucked up little creatures. Definitely the best cast - especially his sidekicks, who were the best the Marvel universe has had in quite awhile, but they didn't get enough screentime. Maybe next time? One can only hope… I miiight watch Ant-Man 2 when it comes out, but probably not. The whole ant thing, yuck!