“Avengers, . . . (film ends)”. The official last line of the film serves as a metaphor for the film as a whole. A familiar concept that feels unfinished. It’s hard to put a finger on what exactly bothers me about this film. It just doesn’t do it for me. I don’t hate it but I don’t particularly like it either. The honest trailer declares “this is the film that broke Joss Whedon”. The first Avengers was an impressive feat for such a novice film director. It was only his second film and it went on to be the third highest grossing of all time (at that point and not adjusted for inflation). He deftly handled an larger cast and balanced the action with humor and true character development. Compare that (sorry, I know) with Justice League which bombed at the box office and you can see how in the wrong hands, Avengers could have been a total mess (ironically, Whedon contributing to that as well). This time, however, we got the mess.

I don’t know what went wrong. I can only assume that studio pressure to throw in as much as possible outweighed Whedon’s ability or desire to take control of his own product. The fact that Age of Ultron still went on to become the fifth highest grossing film (at that time and not adjusted for inflation) and remains the second highest grossing MCU film, seems to me, to be a testament of how, at this point, Marvel has moved out of the critical juncture and has entered an auto-pilot phase. This will be more evident in Ant-Man and Doctor Strange but I’ll save those. Age of Ultron had to be too many things: a sequel to The Avengers, a prequel to Civil War, a prequel to Thor: Ragnarok, a possible swan song for Iron Man and set the stage for Phase Three and the ultimate end game for this first era of the MCU. All of this, and, quite possibly the most egregious plot element: the Hulk/Widow romance.

I’m sorry. This still feels wrong. There has been no set-up for this. Yes, Banner and Natasha have that scene in the first Avengers but there is not even a whiff of romance there. Given that she has romantic tension with pretty much every other male character on the team (aside from Thor), I honestly felt the producers just went “We have a woman. We need some character stuff. I know! She should be in love. Who does she love? Tony? No, he’s with Pepper. Hawkeye? No, Joss gave him a secret wife. Cap? Nah. We want to bring Atwell in for a cameo plus he’s going to have his own forced romance in Civil War. Well, Thor has Jane (who we never see again), so I guess that leaves Hulk.” If you were going to do this story, there were better ways to do it. You could have bubbling passion leading into an affair. You could have two people always on the outside of society bonding (they do touch on this in the second half of the film).

Instead, they went with Natasha being hopelessly head over heels for Banner in scenes that scream “out of character”. She’s Miss Lonely Hearts, playing desperately easy to get to Banner who acts totally aloof. That’s not who these characters are. That’s not how they would act. Compound that with the fact that it’s depicted as being a running aspect of their relationship other than something we’re being forced fed in an already overstuffed film. And yes, full disclosure, I’m a fan of the Bruce/Betty relationship from The Incredible Hulk. That felt real, a true combination of both passion and tenderness. Natasha throwing herself at Bruce feels like last call at Chili’s. But I’ll move on.

The action feels quite disjointed. This makes me wary for the action scenes in Infinity War as the number of characters grows even more. Some of the editing seemed off especially in the final battle. People were criss-crossing the city in a matter of seconds. It was hard to keep track of where everyone was at a given time. Once such example is Iron Man telling Thor to get back to the church. Thor is then entirely absent from that area until he’s needed which allows the church to be unguarded at a critical moment. I will say I did like the Iron Man/Hulk fight as it gave the action a little more room to breathe. The group fight scenes just felt cluttered and too busy. A lot of quick cuts with too many moving parts in the frame.

The character development felt similar to the action. We get a lot of small scenes that really don’t feel like they add up to much. Whereas Avengers was a true ensemble film, Ultron feels like it’s mostly Tony’s story. It’s a good story, just not executed well. Tony’s fear that the Avengers will not be enough is a real one and a natural extension of his PTSD from Iron Man 3 gives him further motivation for facing the consequences of his actions in Civil War, but it still feels like a Macguffin just to get Ultron in the film. On the surface the arc has a sensible progression but the details don’t quite align. Why Banner would go along with keeping the team out of the loop makes no sense. I’m also not exactly sure what purpose Ultron was supposed to serve.

This brings me to Ultron himself. Spader has a great voice (smooth with a touch of malice) and imbues a CGI character with some depth and emotion. Unfortunately that doesn’t go far in a one dimensional villain that is the cliched AI that sees the death of humanity as its only recourse to save the earth. Nothing about Ultron makes any sense. Did the Mind Stone create the AI? Why do they need this alien AI when it turns out JARVIS was actually stronger than it even after it was torn apart? JARVIS controlled an entire army of Iron Man suits in Iron Man 3. Was the idea for Ultron to command hundreds or thousands? How did Tony create such a super-powerful AI to begin with? I could go on but you get the point.

Last point (sorry, for anyone who made it this far: coming off Winter Soldier I think Cap is woefully underused in this film. He’s easily given the least to do but still remains one of the most fascinating. The pain on his face when Tony asks how he plans to beat the next alien invasion is simple: “Together”. It’s a mixture of betrayal and disappointment that does far more than a dialogue heavy scene would do. I truly hope Evans sticks around after Avengers 3 and 4 because Cap is truly the MVP of the MCU.

I don’t want to give the wrong impression. I’m giving Age of Ultron 6/10. I’m torn on this score because I think a 5 is too low and a 6 too high. With a polish of the script to get rid of the elements that are just not needed (the romance, Thor in the jacuzzi of destiny, Dr. Cho in what fees like a blatant pandering to the Asian markets) and a higher focus on Tony’s fears and his conflict with Cap, I think there could be a far superior film. I think most people assumed Avengers 2 would be the linking bridge to Avengers 3. Instead it seems Whedon wanted to do a stand-alone story but the studio say “ok, but we have some requirements”. This film ends as a bad mixture of both. It’s still worth a watch and is a diverting two and a half hours even if it lags more than the Avengers did.

On to Phase Three! Wait, there’s another film in Phase Two? Ant-Man? What in holy hell?

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

Watched Iron Man 3 last night, and I am not sure how to rate it, if I'm being honest. Like, it did a lot better than the prior two Iron Man films, but it also did some things not quite as well.

Pros:

Better direction/cinematography. A lot of the action and drama beats were better directed, the visuals were easily the best of the Iron Man trilogy, and it just seemed like Shane Black's editing/cutting style fit better.

The themes were also quite good, but they were always great with Iron Man. the first was about his change into a man who sought peace, the second was about him struggling with self destruction, and the third was him dealing with PTSD due to the world changing events and his near-death in Avengers. I thought it was great.

I LOVED the swerve of Mandarin not being real. I know a lot of people hate it, but I thought it fit a lot better in the MCU than if the actual Mandarin existed. (spoiler? sorry, the movie is 5 years old).

I liked that the overall tone was more mature and less jokey than the first two Iron Man movies. Yeah, sure, it had jokes and all that, but it seemed the concentration of jokes was quite diluted. This could be a pro or a con, but I consider it a pro. Overall, really happy with the tone.

Once again it's kind of awesome that Tony Stark has to find solutions without his suit, showing his wit and problem solving skills. The writing made almost everything make perfect sense, and nothing felt out of place. almost nothing.

Cons:

Going back to think about all the stuff that happened, some of it really did sort of feel like it was 'and then' instead of 'therefore'. As in, some scenes didn't seem to make sense next to each other. I feel that some of the connective tissue was cut out and that sort of made the movie poorer as a result.

that's really it for cons. I think the movie is missing some key scenes.

Neutral:

The kid. of the scenes with the kid, half of them are well done and enjoyable while the other half made me roll my eyes. I thought the actor was good, but some of the stuff he said was pretty dumb...and where the heck were his parents? (Well, mother. Father is MIA)

Overall:

the reason I didn't write this last night when I watched it was because I didn't know how to rate or rank the film. I love it - no doubt about that - but the issue was wondering if I loved it more than the first and second or not. At one point I had it at 8.8 (one point below Iron Man 2), and then I had it at 9.3 (between Captain America and Avengers).

In the end, I put it at a 9.1. That's higher than the first Iron Man but below Captain America. Why? Well, even its 'faults' weren't really impacting my ability to enjoy it. I felt that, of the three Iron Man movies, it was the best directed and most mature, I thought that it was solid throughout (Again, act 3 was the key here, putting it over 1 and 2), the themes were subtle but well incorporated, and I liked the villain(s). The editing out the connective tissue between some scenes is unfortunate but minor, and the kid - while precocious - was also pretty damn funny at times and well acted. The things it did well, it did VERY well, as in nearly on par with the first iron man, but the things it did poorly were minor and forgivable, unlike the first Iron Man. therefore, it comes out on top, but only just barely.

9.1/10

My rankings so far.

9.5 The Avengers
9.2 Captain America: The First Avenger
9.1 Iron Man 3
9.0 Iron Man
8.9 Iron Man 2
8.3 Thor
6.1 The Incredible Hulk

P.S. - I feel that, now that I'm into Phase 2, it's really hard to rank and rate these movies solely as individual experiences. Even the good but not great stuff like Thor contribute SO much to the overall story that its own plot points and characters seem incidental. The MCU is quickly growing into something that is greater than the sum of its parts, which is why it's probably my favorite overall cinematic experience (besting even Lord of the Rings and HArry Potter and Pirates of the Caribbean), despite no single movie being more loved than Return of The King, Deathly Hallows, or At World's End.

So yeah, given my tendency to forgive a film's faults due to that 'overall experience', I will have to work extra hard to be critical, but I just love them so much.

I'm going to round those scores up or down, to the closest whole number (we're sticking with whole numbers for scoring). For The Avengers, do you want that to be a 9 or a 10?

Thanks for all your input so far!

Avengers should be 10, for sure. 

That said, let me give you what I would on a 10 point scale. See, without the single decimal, ALL of my rankings will be 9. (Seriously, right now it's 10, 9, 9, 9, 9, 8, 6) and that gives little room for interpretation. So what I'll do is put a bell curve on it, since we already have my peak (Avengers) and valley (The incredible Hulk). So instead of ranking on the global scale (which uses a 100 point system), I'll rank them ONLY against the MCU scale, which gives a 10 point system.

Iron Man - 6/10
The Incredible Hulk - 2/10
Iron Man 2 - 6/10
Thor - 5/10
Captain America: The First Avenger - 7/10
The Avengers - 10/10
Iron Man 3 - 6/10

(I consulted my current rankings list with the updated scores I've given them during this rewatch, dividing them into 10 tiers. Keep in mind the ones I've not watched thus far are subject to change, but here's what I have to explain why my numbers went from 9's to 6's in some case)

10/10: Avengers, Age of Ultron, Civil War
9/10: Guardians 1 and 2, Thor Ragnarok
8/10: Black Panther, Winter Soldier, Dr Strange
7/10: Captain America: The First Avenger, Spider-Man
6/10: Iron Man 1, 2, 3
5/10: Ant-Man, Thor 1
4/10: Thor: The Dark World
3/10: N/A
2/10: The Incredible Hulk
1/10: N/A

So again, this list is a combination of legacy ratings and my updated rankings, in order to adhere to the ranking system here. Disregard it for the most part, just take the above scores up to Iron Man 3....at least until I watch The Dark World tonight. 

To be fair, I'm not trying to impress anyone. I know what I like, and keep in mind my favorite movie of all time is/are Pirates of the Caribbean Dead Man's Chest and At World's End as one unified experience. I mean, I like a lot of movies, and I find value in some weird ones. I have no idea what drives my love. 

Example, I didn't like Pacific Rim at all, but love Transformers 3: Dark of the Moon. 

I Love All three Hobbit movies but hate the first Harry Potter movie. (Love 2 throuh 8, though). 

meanwhile, my movie collection also has Wes Anderson stuff in there, animated stuff, awards season indies, stuff like Birdman and The Revenant, I like artsy films, I like fantasy and sci fi, I love bombastic stupid movies and introspective thinkpieces. 

I went to school for film and television production with a specialty in creative writing. I have the credentials to be a critic...and I genuinely feel that the MCU is knocking it out of the park as one of the greatest experiences in cinema history. I feel that the MCU is as important to the history of film as Lord of the Rings. I feel that it is to the sci-fi and superhero genre what Goodfellas was to the Crime movie. 50 years from now, people will still be talking about this with the same sort of love they have for Star Wars.

So when I give almost all of the films in the franchise a high 8 or low 9, that's me just feeling that, on the global scale, they really are all that close in quality. 

And as a person who owns damn near 1000 movies and TV shows on DVD/Blu Ray, I have a lot to compare it to. 

But with that said, these are my personal ratings, not the ratings I expect to force on others :P

If anyone's curious, my favorite movie list is...weird (as it includes franchises instead of individual movies).

Pirates of the Caribbean
Harry Potter/Wizarding World
Lord of the Rings/Hobbit
Marvel Cinematic Universe
Jurassic Park
Avatar
Spider-Man 1/2
Hook
Ace Ventura 1/2
The Incredibles

In no particular order.  Oddly, no Star Wars. Good franchise, good movies, solid 8/10 from me, but I don't love them like others do. Same with The godfather, Die Hard and Indiana Jones. I quite like them (a lot), but don't love them like the above list plus a few more. 

Ant Man

I just watched Ant Man again.  As always there are spoilers below, so don't read on if you haven't seen the movie.


Pluses:

This movie is extremely fun and funny.  I thoroughly enjoyed myself from beginning to end.  "Baskin Robbins always finds out."  There are a lot of funny lines and scenes in the movie.

The actors do a great job.  Paul Rudd is the perfect Ant Man.  I also love Michael Douglas as the extremely eccentric mentor.  Michael Peña is hilarious. 

I just caught the Hydra angle for the first time on this watch.  Apparently,  Hank Pym was smart enough to know there was something fishy at Shield and so he always kept his formula a secret even to them.  In Winter Soldier we find out that Hydra had infiltrated Shield the whole time, which means that Hank Pym was extremely wise here.  He irrationally doesn't trust Howard Stark either, because he lumped Stark in with Shield as a whole.

I love the Garret Morris cameo, but I bet most people won't catch the reference.  In an old 70's SNL sketch he plays Ant Man and the other super heroes make fun of him.  (Go to about 4:30 in the video below to see him.)
http://www.nbc.com/saturday-night-live/video/superhero-party/n8670?snl=1

Minuses:

-Any way that you cut it, Ant Man has the least interesting powers of any MCU hero.  Lots of people fantasize about having powers like flight, super strength, lasers, super agility, etc....  Somewhere near the bottom of that list is the ability to shrink down and control an army of ants.  

-There is not a lot at stake in this movie.  For one the villain is kind of meh.  Also, even in non-Avengers movies like Winter Soldier or GotG, millions of people's lives are at stake.  I just don't feel that tension in this movie, and it seems like they choose to go for comedy instead of tension even in the film's climax.  The battle on the toy train set is hilarious, but you just don't feel like a lot is at stake here.

In conclusion,  Ant Man is an extremely enjoyable film to watch from beginning to end, but it may be hard to take it seriously like you would a normal super hero movie.

6/10

Finally finished Ultron last night.

There's an expression in baseball, a "get-me-over" pitch. Basically it's a sub-par pitch thrown in a pitcher-friendly count that simply needs to get over the plate; the batter probably won't swing anyway. Age of Ultron is the MCU's get-me-over film. It's there just to get to the following movies.

Back when I first saw Ultron in theaters, I thought it was a borderline 7. Now I consider it a borderline 6. It's just so muddled, and padded, and weighed down with introductions and allusions setting up several future films at the expense of telling an important story in the here and now. I don't know who to blame -- Whedon or Disney, or maybe both -- but someone screwed up badly with this sequel.

There are some good things. Some of the special effects are nice. A couple of action scenes work, specifically the Hulkbuster battle (although I think this scene is gratuitous). Tony has some interesting character development, and his sparring with Cap leads to, probably, the best dramatic scenes in the movie: the post-party fallout, and the wood-chopping sequence. Speaking of that party, that represents Whedon's sense of humor and flair for group dynamics perfectly.

There are also a bunch of bad things. The plot is way too busy, and features far too many characters. The screenplay is as interested in setting up Avengers 3, Captain America 3, Thor Ragnarok, and Black Panther as it is interested in its own narrative. Ultron, as a villain, is a huge missed opportunity. Spader's voice acting is great, but the AI is written as a mechanical version of Tony Stark: glib and irreverent. I think Ultron as a cold, calculating Terminator-esque villain would have been far more intimidating. Also bad is the romance between Natasha and Bruce. This comes out of left field and is handled clumsily. In addition, the climactic battle against waves of disposable robots is just bland and boring.

In the end, I'm grateful to Age of Ultron for a few things: creating Vision; setting up Civil War, a far superior movie; and leading to Ragnarok, which essentially rebooted Marvel's weakest sub-series. In a perverse way, it's one of the most important movies in the MCU, even as it's one of the weakest.

6/10

Updated rankings:

GREAT
1) Captain America: The Winter Soldier
2) Iron Man

GOOD
3) Guardians of the Galaxy
4) The Avengers
5) Iron Man 3

DECENT
6) Black Panther
7) Captain America
8) The Incredible Hulk
9) Avengers: Age of Ultron

MEDIOCRE
10) Iron Man 2

POOR
11) Thor
12) Thor: The Dark World

Scores updated to this point.

Just watched Black Panther a second time with my Roommate, and I have to say:

8/10

I'd put it on par with The Winter Soldier and Doctor Strange. Loved that movie, and it's definitely in the top tier for my personal preferences!

Since it's still in theaters I won't go into detail, but pros and cons:

Pros: Great characters, wonderful world, shockingly poignant themes and elements, and possibly the best villains in a Marvel movie thus far.

Cons: The action is kind of mediocre and the CGI is a little lacklustre..

Honestly, though, I think the themes so far speak volumes, and I think that's more important than the CG and action sequences.

Updated rankings in my personal score, not the score for this thread:

9.5 The Avengers
9.3 Black Panther
9.2 Captain America: The First Avenger
9.1 Iron Man 3
9.0 Iron Man
8.9 Iron Man 2
8.3 Thor
6.1 The Incredible Hulk