Marvel Movies: The Rankings

So I did it. I watched all the Marvel Cinematic Universe Movies. If you recall I had a little MCU Marathon in preparation for Avengers 2 and I got completely caught up this past Monday with Ant-Man. AND NOW I’VE RANKED THEM. 

SIDENOTE: When I decided to do the Marvel Marathon, I thought I would have the movies on in the background of other work I was doing. That way I could zip through them really quickly. I was afraid that with my marathon watching session and the fact that none of these were new movies to me, I would get a little bit bored and distracted naturally. The “Thoughts About” series made those worries moot. It’s true that I spend most of my media-consuming time half-distracted by other things, like work or my phone or social media. I am always multi-tasking. During this marathon, though, I connected fully and gave movies my full attention in attempt find the connections and really experience the continuity. I really should try that more often because it helped me remember why I love movies and film-making so much.

Beyond my sappy “I rediscovered my passion for films” speech, I have some more useful content for you about the films themselves. (That is, if you care about my thoughts about them.) The all-important RANKINGS. Why I feel the need to rank things, I’m not sure. My love of lists is strong, so it probably has something to do with that. But that’s enough of that aside; let’s get on with the show! 

Before I started the marathon and saw the two newest movies, I ranked the movies according to what I remembered about watching them. After I did the marathon AND watched both new movies I re-ranked them. And now I present those  rankings to you dear readers.

ORIGINAL RANKINGS

1. The Avengers
2. Captain America: The Winter Soldier
3. Guardians of the Galaxy
4. Captain America: The First Avenger
5. Thor
6. Iron Man
7. Iron Man 2
8. Iron Man 3
9. Thor: The Dark World
10. Incredible Hulk

CURRENT RANKINGS

1. The Avengers
2. Guardians of the Galaxy
3. Captain America: The Winter Soldier
4. Avengers: Age of Ultron
5. Captain America: The First Avenger
6. Iron Man
7. Ant-Man
8. Thor
9. Iron Man 3
10. Thor: The Dark World
11. Iron Man 2
12. Incredible Hulk

Some Explanations and Thoughts

• First, let me say. This franchise is an embarrassment of riches. I’m so glad we have these movies.
• Avengers remains my favorite. It’s just such a quick, witty, perfect storm of everything I love about these movies. The heroes work so well together and the villain is just the right amount of conflicted to make it all come together. 
• Quite honestly The Winter Soldier and Guardians kind of tie for second. I’ve gone back and forth, but I’m just going to leave it like this for the moment. And it’s funny because they are such different movies.
• Age of Ultron was great, just great. It could almost tie with TWS and Guardians, but I wasn’t entirely impressed with Quicksilver and the Scarlet Witch, so I’ll knock it down a tiny bit.
• Captain America still remains my favorite of the “introduction” movies just because I love Cap’s origin story the most. The adaptation is probably just as well done as Iron Man though.
• Speaking of Iron Man, it moved up over Thor because I remembered how excited I was when this came out and was so good. Comic book movies had so much to prove and this one proved A LOT. 
• Ant-Man was pretty good. Much better than I thought it would be. I’ll talk more about it in my review.
• Iron Man 3 and Thor: The Dark World were miles better than I remembered them being, but not nearly good enough to move them to the top of the list.
• Iron Man 2 was not great, but still beats the kind of boring Incredible Hulk. SORRY!

Well that’s it! Here’s to next summer when we’ll get Captain America: Civil War AND DC will throw it’s movies into the ring. 

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