Right, some thoughts on the Hulk, though most of what can be said about the movie has already been said.

I appreciate that they don't do the standard, super fleshed out origin story, where I feel it's really not needed, and instead get pretty much straight to the good stuff. They do a great job at the start of the movie, building up tension to the first Hulk reveal. That whole chase/action sequence, as well as the one in the middle of the movie are really well executed, even if the CGI hasn't exactly aged well. When I first saw it years back, I didn't really feel it was particularly poor or anything, but watching it again now, it's really quite poor. Still, as I said, the execution of those scenes was great imo. Really the whole first hour or so of this movie is a good ride. After that we start to run into a lot of problems, which I think we're all pretty much in agreement on, so I won't rehash them.

Really though, one thing that stood out maybe the most to me, rewatching this, is how much I prefer Mark Ruffalo's Bruce Banner over Norton's. Or perhaps - to be more fair to Norton - I should say Marvel/Disney's Bruce Banner to Universal Studio's. The guy is supposed to be this genius level scientist....the smartest guy in pretty much any room he walks into. Yet, this movie doesn't really show that at all. He becomes the Hulk working on a project he doesn't even understand the nature of, and then proceeds to spend the entire movie hoping that "Mr. Blue," with the utmost minimal of info at first, and then with very brief access to his blood (and eventually even briefer access to the experiment data, which Banner himself should be able to do something with) will magically make all his problems go away. This guy is promising to cure him, before he even really knows a damn thing, and Banner just buys into this for reasons of plot convenience. It doesn't make the first half of the movie less enjoyable to watch, but in the overall scheme of things, and understanding who Banner is, it just feels very off.

Also, their portrayal of the Hulk outside of action scenes, and his raw power, is very inconsistent. At the start of the movie, you are actually given the impression that he's at least moderately intelligent, with him telling the soldiers chasing him to just "leave me alone." You get the sense that there's still a person in there. Then after the second big action scene, suddenly he's howling at a thunderstorm, acting like a big green gorilla in a Tarzan movie or something, and he grunts and snarls like an animal as well. I mean which is it...? Is the Hulk an animal, or a person? This movie kinda tries to have it both ways, and that just doesn't work.

Ultimately, I think I'd give this movie about a 4/10, which - just as with Iron Man - is a point lower than I thought I would give it. The movie has solid pacing, various levels of good acting (with what they're given), 2 nice action scenes (if you can overlook dated CGI), and you don't have to sit through the by the book origin story where it takes like an hour or something just to put the thing you really came to see on screen. A poor plot, bad characterization, inconsistent tone, and horrible third act (which also feels ridiculously long) weigh it down to overall "meh" status though. Watching it once or twice, more so if you haven't seen the Avengers movies yet, you'll probably have a good enough time with it. Past that, it's not worth revisiting really. 

Sorry I'm so late.

I'll be brief.

Although I think Downey makes a perfect Tony Stark, I was never that into the iron man character. The Movie was decent although i fell asleep during my first attempted re-watch. Given that it was the spark that started the MCU I will rate it higher than i typically would. I'll give it a 7/10.

The Hulk, unfortunately it is the one film in our list that has been released that i don't have so i will have to go from memory on this title. i remember the CGI being terrible but liking Norton very much in comparison to his predecessor's take on the character. The Hulk is still hands down the weakest of the movies in our list and for me it is a 5/10. If you don't want to count this score since I didn't actually re-watch it I will completely understand.

As far as I can remember it’s not in the film. I read it somewhere else. Possibly IMDb

So I'm gonna harken back to this, having just finished watching Iron Man 2, because that ending - that undoing of Tony's redemption and character arc - really just carries right on through into this sequel, and I think it's really a big reason this movie already starts on a bad foot. Even if you just watched Iron Man 1, and think of that final "I am Iron Man" line as just a fun way for the movie to the end, it quickly becomes apparent here, that it's far more than that. It's Tony going back to being a completely arrogant, 0 fucks to give, pompous asshole. Sure....he's a fun pompous asshole, just as he was to start the first movie, but a pompous asshole nevertheless. They basically hit the reset on him, for the sake of some lame jokes ala "you can count on me to pleasure myself," wanting give him the exact same character arc he already had the last time around, and in the process, undermine both movies.

The whole Monaco GP scene.....ok, even if I ignore how everything about it is pretty much BS (ya....no....definitely everything), because it's still a relatively fun action sequence. The problem is that it instantly takes the villain from this possibly relatable guy who's dad got screwed over by the Starks, who's constantly seeing this pompous ass Tony on TV, acting like the king of the world, wanting to just take him down a peg or whatever....to a homicidal lunatic willing to murder just about anyone in order to make a point.

Aaaand....honestly, I'm writing these thoughts down here while I'm watching it (so the the opening sentence is kind of a lie), and already at this point I really just wanna turn off the movie. Also, we see Tony's blood toxicity go from 20some percent, to 50some in like a day or something. With that kind of rate of progress, how is he not dead already...? Fuck this movie.

Potts, and Tony's relationship with her that was established in the first movie is also completely undercut here. In the first one, he's shown to trust her implicitly, with his life. Here, he refuses to share anything with her, instead simply signing over his company to her while keeping her in the dark about anything as it pertains to him and his well being. Really, they could have cut her out of this movie, made an offhand comment about Tony making her CEO of Stark Industries, and nothing about this movie would change much. 

Now lets cut to a scene of Hammer wining and dining Ivan, while eating Italian ice cream, flown in from San Francisco, because it's hard to sell that Hammer is even more of an ass than Tony, but by god that'll do it, and Netflix says I still got an hour and twenty minutes of movie left. Fuck.

In other news, at the start of this movie, I made a big deal about how the government/US military can't have the Iron Man suit, but half an hour later, I'll act like even more of a pompous ass to make sure they literally walk in and take it (which I'll now pretend was my plan all along, cus you know....dying). They'll apparently never be able to do anything significant with the technology, besides sticking some more missiles in it, so idk why I didn't just give them one in the first place if that's all it took to make them happy, buuuuuuuut whatever.

Lets cut back to Scarlett Johansson being hot to temporarily distract you from how shit this movie is. 

You know what....no...I'm done. There's still like an hour of movie left, and frankly, I got other things I could be doing. As I recall there was a fun, well directed action sequence with Iron Man and War Machine near the end somewhere. I'll give this movie one point for that, one point for introducing Black Widow (plus reminding me how much I loved her with that long hair), and one point for Don Cheadle.  3/10. 

Will update your scores shortly! Thanks you guys!

Gonna try to do Iron Man 2 tomorrow or Sunday at the latest. Just gotta pull off that bandaid and get it over

Iron Man 2 = 4/10

Whiplash was garbage. Black Widow was awesome. Iron Man was Iron Man (or Tony Stark is Iron Man). Rockwell's character was incredibly confusing with no direction what-so-ever.

Lots of lost potential in this film.

Okay. Here we go. About to start Iron Man 2 so will just jot down some thoughts. I loved both Iron Man and The Incredible Hulk so I still don’t know why I missed Iron Man 2 in theaters. I wouldn’t go see another MCU film in the theatre until Avengers (and since then have only missed Ant-Man). I remember watching it for a (re-)watch for the first Avengers films and thinking “What the hell?” It clearly took a nosedive in quality. The story was a mess. The characterizations lost their luster. And I currently rank it the worst of the MCU. Having said that I did re-watch it at least once (for Ultron) and, while still bad, it didn’t leave as horrible a taste as the first time. Here’s hoping it improves some more!

Correct List:

1. Spider-Man 2/Dark Knight

2. Batman Begins

3. The Dark Knight Rises

4. Three Way Tie Between X Men DOFP, Logan, and the original Spider-Man

5. Winter Soldier/Donner Superman

As you can tell I'm incredibly partial to the Raimi and Nolan series of movies. They just feel more fleshed out and human than any other superhero movie series. I watched Batman Begins yesterday to entertain myself before I had to watch the dull slog of a movie that is Iron Man 2. It holds up remarkably well and I honestly believe that we'll never get another series like it again. I wish we had another Sam Raimi or Christopher Nolan in charge of these blockbusters again.

I’ll meet you halfway  

1. Spider-Man 2

2. The Dark Knight 

3. Civil War

4. Superman 78

5. Winter Soldier

I do agree Raimi and Nolan have been the most important auteurs in the superhero sub-genre.

Ok. So that’s wasn’t entirely as awful as I remember. Actually until about halfway through, I thought maybe I was too hard on it. But it really falls apart right around Tony’s birthday party.

They had some pretty interesting concepts introduced in the beginning but fumble the ball about halfway down the field. (That’s a thing, right?) First off, the idea of the government wanting Tony’s suit. Obviously we find out later that Senator Stern (Gary Shandling) may have ulterior motives here, but the general idea actually flows well into the MCU. To whom is Tony Stark accountable and is he responsible enough to hold this power? Seeing how Ultron and Civil War play out, it’s nice to see this kernel laid early in the MCU. Of course, it’s never really mentioned again after this film. I guess the government was content to have their War Machine and just call it even.

Next up: Tony’s lingering threat of death. This could have been a rich look at the character as he falls into nihilism and more of his dark side is exposed. Of course like Spider-Man 3, why explore pathos when you can be silly? I feel this was a studio mandated change. Originally when the first film came out, I believe Favreau said they would tackle Tony’s personal issues, like his alcoholism in later films. I think they got gun-shy and decided to give his bad behavior a different motivation. And even then, his dark side consists of getting drunk and peeing in his suit. The music in that party scene as he’s blowing apart the champagne bottles is supposed to create tension. Give us anxiety. But in all honesty, if this is the worst Tony can do with such colossal power, it’s pretty weak sauce.

Onto SHIELD! Obviously SHIELD folded better into the Captain America series because I’m not entirely sure what their motivation is in this film. What was Black Widow’s mission exactly? She said she was a shadow but I find it hard to believe a trained assassin and psychological manipulator like her would be tasked with a babysitting job. She seemed to be steering Tony towards his dark impulses, but why? To force him to hit rock bottom so they can rally him at the end? It was good to get more Fury but in retrospect he seemed more out of character in this film. Obviously at the time we only had one scene with him. But both at the donut shop and Stark’s house, he seems really flippant and jokey. More Samuel L. Jackson than Nick Fury

Ah the villains. Marvel is really hitting its stride now. In both Iron Man and The Incredible Hulk we had villains set up promisingly but turned into cliches by film’s end. Here I never really took either Vanko or Hammer seriously. Vanko’s plan is to take revenge on Tony for how Howard betrayed his father. Ok. The problem is we don’t really get anything other than that log line at the beginning. Add to that Rourke’s propensity to just be weird, and the Vanko character seems like such a waste and completely forgettable. As for Hammer, he’s a poorer copy of Stane from the first film. He dances. I guess that’s a plus.

Overall the film is not a total waste of two hours, but it’s easily skippable as it really adds nothing to the overall franchise other than some character notes: Tony and Pepper start dating, intro to Black Widow, Coulson is gonna be in Thor! I’m going to rate this 5/10. Downey is still fun to watch but there’s not much else here. Even the action scenes seems perfunctory with little to no tension in them. This won’t be the last generic army of robots that will take to the skies in the finale. And Vanko did it without a super-intelligent AI!

Current rankings:
1) Iron Man
2) The Incredible Hulk
3) Iron Man 2