Comic Book Movies

[Dr. Ensatsu-ken]

I can see that for T'Challa for sure. And for what it's worth, I really like Benedict Cumberbatch as Stephen Strange. It's just that the character himself has always been rather aloof from the physical threats of the Avengers in his history in the comics, and the MCU version looks to be going the same route. so it's hard to see him a central character in the Universe. Yes, I know he has been a part of said team and many others in his career, but to my knowledge none of those runs have lasted for very long except for maybe The Defenders. Speaking of which, it's looking like the Marvel Netflix shows may not be canon to the MCU after all, so the door's potentially open for a film version with Doctor Strange, Professor Hulk, and maybe Namor and/or Silver Surfer if they decide to introduce either of those characters.

Carol is a bit more uncertain for me, though. I don't necessarily think it would be impossible for the writers to make her a much more endearing character than in her first outing, but my real problem is that Brie Larson seems to be pretty miscast in this role. She's a very capable actress, but this is one of the few times in which Sarah Finn, who's normally an incredibly spot-on casting director, has made a misstep in trying to go for someone with past prestige over going for a lesser known talent who betters fits the role. I just don't buy Larson as a tough super hero, and I'm not sure more movies will convince me otherwise.

[Dr. Insomniac]

They could always soft reboot the Netflix team and let them graduate into movies. Adapt Daredevil's happy go lucky Waid run, turn Luke and Jessica into a couple.

All that said, I fully expect Chris Pratt's paycheck to increase exponentially if Marvel's really desperate for a series-wide lead.

[Dr. Ensatsu-ken]

If they wanted a cosmic take on Captain America, I would have preferred Nova over Captain Marvel, myself.

[Dr. Insomniac]

In case you wanted to hear YMS whine about Endgame.

[Dr. Ensatsu-ken]

So, like always, I don't necessarily have a problem with him mostly not caring for Marvel movies (or anyone for that matter), but the problem with this video, as others have pointed out in the comments section, is that more than half of his complaints absolutely were addressed in the movie if you payed attention.

Spoiler

He's correct in observing that the time travel mechanics have logic holes, but is off the mark on just about everything else. Like, Nebula absolutely does tell everyone that Thanos killed Gamora on Vormir. She doesn't tell them about the sacrifice rule because she has no actual knowledge of that as she wasn't actually there. Nebula, both past and present versions, does not have the ability to open up Dr. Strange portals through time, which just baffles me that he even came up with that. Past Nebula clearly uses the Pym Particles that current Nebula had to transport Thanos' ship back to the present timeline. And his complaint about the Tony Stark funeral scene is just baffling. I don't know if he's ever been to an actual funeral before, but people tend to be much more emotionally reserved there as a form of respect, so it makes sense that we se subtler emotions being expressed from them at that point in time. If he wanted a bigger emotional reaction, why not mention Tony's actual death scene and the reactions from Peter and Pepper?

I could go on, but the gist of things are that he has a tendency to try and over-criticize a movie, to the point of making several mistakes and inaccurate assessments of his own, rather than just admit that he's not fond of the genre and move on. He did the same thing with War for the Planet of the Apes and A Quiet Place. Funnily enough, I didn't really care for A Quiet Place myself, but even I could see the inaccuracies in many of his complaints about it.

[close]

[Dr. Insomniac]

I just find it funny that YMS paints himself as a connoisseur of independent film and movies that make you think, but he refuses to understand blockbuster movies that mass audiences can easily get. He has that same issue I have with Digibro, where it seems as if they peaked years ago and threw away their creative filter that kept them from making statements on things they obviously don't understand. And instead of getting the funny Adum who made those Cool Cat and Neil Breen reviews, you get the annoying Adum who only makes quickie reviews with Cinemasins-tier writing.

And that doesn't get into his belief that animals can consent to human sex, and his inability to understand why people wouldn't want the deaths of their loved ones broadcast on major websites like Reddit.

[Dr. Ensatsu-ken]

I don't necessarily think that he hasn't produced any entertaining content in recent years, though. It's just that his snobbery and clear biases have only gotten more obnoxious and pronounced over time.

That said, he had a great YMS review on Spike Lee's Oldboy remake a few months ago, and he also did another entertaining Neil Breen review last year as well. I also agree with some of his Quickie's like Blade Runner 2049, Halloween, Searching, Hellboy, and at least a few others.

He also gave overall positive reviews to Shazam!, Spider-Verse, and Infinity War, but my problem there is that despite admitting that he actually had fun with those movies and liked them, he still had to find a way to bring uis bias into them. He made it seem like Spider-Verse only stood put because of it's style rather than how good it actually integrated it's style into it's storytelling. Likewise, he had to make some dumb spin on his positive thoughts about Shazam! and Infinity War being because they "knew what they were" and didn't try to be something else, showing his clear BS biases toward superhero movies. He seems to think that they have to adhere to dumb, pre-conceived notions of what other people stereotype the genre as being, and thus can only be good and not great, which he uses to justify why he's not a big fan of superheroes. Aside from being an incredibly close-minded and ignorant way of thinking, he basically limits his perspective on the genre in a way that it can't help but not be to his liking. If it's just dumb fun then it can be OK but not great, but if it tries to be more he'll do his damndest to claim that it's boring and stupid. It just comes off as really pretty standards, IMO.

[Dr. Ensatsu-ken]

Alright, after a lot of thought and several re-watches, here's my ranking for the entire Infinity Saga of the MCU:

22. The Incredible Hulk
21. Thor: The Dark World
20. Captain Marvel
19. Iron Man 2
18. Ant-Man & The Wasp
17. Thor
16. Ant-Man
15. Avengers: Age of Ultron
14. Doctor Strange
13. Iron Man 3
12. Black Panther
11. Captain America: Civil War
10. Spider-Man: Homecoming
9. Iron Man
8. Guardians of the Galaxy Vol. 2
7. The Avengers
6. Avengers: Endgame
5. Thor: Ragnarok
4. Guardians of the Galaxy
3. Avengers: Infinity War
2. Captain America: The Winter Soldier
1. Captain America: The First Avenger

For #'s 22-19, those are the only MCU films that I just outright don't like. Some of them have good moments or performances that stand out to me, but as overall movies they don't work.

The next set, #'s 18-14, are what I consider to be average (though, average by MCU standards, which isn't bad). These are movies that at least hold together well enough to have been enjoyable on my first time seeing them, but none of them hold up as well to re-watches. After having read some Doctor Strange comics, one of my biggest disappointments with that movie is how it fails to live up to it's namesake. It plays it far too safe and doesn't embrace the otherworldly nature of Stephen Strange's unique style of stories. For an origin movie, it's decent set-up, but it does t really feel like what I expect from the character.

For #'s 13-9, while each of those movies is far from perfect (yes, I do even have problems with Black Panther and Civil War in retrospect), they are what I consider to be good MCU movies as someone who's a fan of the MCU. They each have things holding them back, like how the first Iron Man never really quite lives up to it's amazing first act, but is still enjoyable on the whole, or how Bkack Panther's main character feels less interesting than most of his supporting cast, but the rest of that cast really carries the movie. Iron Man 3 has a bunch of problems but it's really a lot more entertaining than I gave it credit for on a re-watch.

For my top 8 picks, I really just unabashedly find them to be great movies, MCU or otherwise, albeit to varying degrees. In retrospect, Guardians of the Gakaxy Vol. 2 is one of those rare cases where I have completely 180'd on a movie given time and multiple re-watches. I flat out didn't like it when I initially saw it in theaters. I had one set of expectations and James Gunn was clearly going for something very different. However, once I really understood what he was going for, I really got on board with it. I still think the first Guarduins is a much tighter film, hence it being in my top five, but the sequel really expanded on the hear of it's core characters and themes, to the point where my few issues with the film seem all the more minor to me now.

Looking back on it, the original Avengers film by Whedon is pretty great. I got into a phase where I tried to downplay how good it was based on how simplistic it's story was, but overtime I have come to appreciate how that's clearly the intention of the film. Perhaps more so than any other MCU film, this is about it's characters first and everything else second. Without this coming together as well as it is, we probably would not still have an MCU, or at least not the way in which it exists now.

I have seen Endgame twice now, and it may still be too fresh for me to rank, but this is one that gets by on it's emotional impact on me more than any other MCU movie. I'll admit that it's story structure is arguably messier than even Ultron's and it's got several flaws if you are looking for them. But as an emotional payoff to 11-years of movies, it's kind of an amazing feat that it could pull it off in such a satisfying way. I had a hard time deciding on whether or not to rank this over the original Avengers, but for now I put it just a smidge higher.

My top five I have discussed at length before, so I won't say much more other than defend Ragnarok for being a smarter movie thematically than people give it credit for (simply because it has a lot of jokes doesn't demerit it's rich character study and underlying themes), and to point out that, yes, The First Avenger has indeed switched places with the Winter Soldier yet again to be my favorite MCU movie. I still love The Winter Soldier just as much, and initially I moved The First Avenger down a spot because I thought I must have been a bit too easy on it based on most other people's reaction to the movie as being lower-tier Marvel. But upon my last re-watch, and if I'm being completely honest with myself, The First Avenger encapsulates everything that I love and value most about superheroes more than any other MCU film to date, and it comes together incredibly well as a stand-alone movie that doesn't even need the strengths of being attached to a larger Universe to be as great and well put-together it is.

[Avaitor]

It's interesting to see you flop a few things around, like Iron Man 2 not being dead last anymore, or Ultron ranking below the original Avengers. It's a pretty cool list overall. I'm hoping to do a full rewatch after Far From Home, ideally in a big Phase 3 set covering those films. And hopefully I can get the Phase 2 one for a decent price before then, but I don't think that I'm going to be able to luck out and find it for under $100 at a pawn shop like I did Phase 1's suitcase.

[Dr. Ensatsu-ken]

For what it's worth, I still enjoy Ultron (I mean, I enjoy most MCU movies to at least some extent). I think it's a movie with a lot of good moments that unfortunately don't cohere to much of an interesting overall story. I even think Ultron is one of the more underrated MCU villains, as there are a few more layers to his character beyond the surface if you're paying attention. I do feel like Whedon got screwed over a bit in how he was forced to shove so much into the movie to the point of it feeling more overstuffed than Infinity War despite having less than half of the characters to work with, but I do also feel like actual story-telling was never one of his strengths to begin with. Movies like Serenity and The Avengers work so well because he just focuses purely on characters with the story being an overly simplistic backdrop to provide them with situations to bounce off one another and develop. Ultron was more plot-driven, though, and ended up suffering for it.

With Iron Man 2, it's interesting to go back to it so many years later. I still don't care for it on the whole (in many ways, it feels like it suffers from many of the same problems as Ultron), but it's also refreshingly experimental and at least has some fun scenes to show for it, even though there's more in the movie that doesn't work than what does. Being an early MCU film, it doesn't feel as formulaic as some of the later ones do, and while Whiplash felt like a wasted villain, it does provide a really fun comedic foil in Justin Hammer (I actually wouldn't mind Sam Rockwell returning to the MCU in some form or fashion). Also, this is a really minor thing, but it's kind of baffling to see an MCU movie without the usual opening credits. This still had some of the DNA of an early 2000's supehero movie in it, and in some ways it can make the film a bit more interesting. Still, I think that after Endgame, pretty much anything Iron Man related has been bumped up a notch for me just due to the benefit of hindsight and finding how much the character's former experiences has been retroactively enhanced for me due to where his overall character arc ends up.

[Dr. Insomniac]

I thought it was interesting how the MCU buffed up Tony's lackluster rogues gallery by making Thanos and Ultron personal villains of his, only to find out Thanos was associated with him from the very beginning.

[Dr. Insomniac]

Guess Marvel negotiated with Sony about their Spidey contract after all.

[Peanutbutter]

Better Spider Man than Captain Marvel.


I liked Captain Marvel, and am still looking forward to Endgame when my friends are available to see it with me, but I'm sick of Brie Larson. Cast are likely happy about this too.

[Dr. Ensatsu-ken]

I'm not one of those people who jumps on the "Disney is trying to brainwash us with SJW propaganda" bandwagon, but yes, it's well documented at this point that Brie Larson has made a complete ass of herself.

[Dr. Insomniac]

Or we could get Robb Stark.