At this point, with Spider-Man Brand New Day, the Marvel Cinematic Universe (MCU) covers thirty eight films. That number, for a single series, is absolutely unprecedented. The closest anything that has ever come anywhere near that (and still not even close,) is Star Wars, with twelve movies. If we are to look at movies that feature the same character, and have just been remade or rebooted again and again, there’s James Bond with 27 movies. But a single lineage of interconnected movies like what the MCU has done… nothing has even come close. And the thing about the MCU is, while there are many films here that aren’t great, there are also a whole ton that are terrific. More than one would ever expect. And so it’s worth taking a trip down memory lane, not to get into great detail, but more to give a quick analysis or a look back at what stands out most about each movie, now nearly twenty years after the series started back in 2008 with Iron Man.
Iron Man
The best of all the MCU movies, and in fact, the best superhero movie of all time, there’s just so much that works about this one. To really capture it in a nutshell in terms of its three best features, those would be Robert Downey Jr being perfectly cast to show the laid back, humorous, party-driven persona of Tony Stark. That’s first and foremost. Then there’s the mystery surrounding the villain. Jeff Bridges playing Tony’s mentor / partner, Obadia Stain, is spot on menacing and evil, and the connection he has to the terrorists who kidnapped Iron Man, is terrific. The movie really excels here, especially with the way all of these reveals come out. Lastly, there’s the way the movie showcases Stark developing the Iron Man suit. We literally see him going through different phases of the suit from the one he used to break out of the cave, to the all silver version, to his polished red and gold. We see him doing tests that don’t go right at all, trying out just one feature at a time. It’s the perfect origin story, and incredibly fun and interesting.
The Incredible Hulk
Not nearly as good as Iron Man, this was the only MCU movie where the actual lead was recast afterwards (Iron Man, before this, also had a role that was recast, with Jim Rhodes / War Machine, but in the case of Hulk, it was the actual star of the film.) Edward Norton played the Hulk here, and the movie is just okay. It skips over the origin of Hulk, only showing us fragments of that story spliced up during the credits. What we do get is a sort of origin story for the villain, Emile Blonsky, who will become the Abomination, as the movie chronicles his development from a man into a monster. It’s interesting to track how this creature came to be, first with General Ross subjecting Blonsky to certain chemicals, and then later with Mr Blue (Tim Blake Nelson,) putting other chemicals inside him, so that the combination led to the monstrous outcome and result. The movie also features a great end scene which has Robert Downey Jr showing up as Tony Stark, and it’s the perfect way to connect the first two movies. This was building a strong foundation for the MCU, and other movies should have learned from what this one did with that stinger, or the Iron Man 2 – Thor’s hammer one that followed it…a stinger should always either connect to the movie that came directly before it, (like this one,) or to the movie that was directly coming next (like that one.) These early movies knew that. It’s one of the many reasons why this cinematic universe got off the ground so smoothly.
Iron Man 2
Both Iron Man and Hulk came out in the same summer of 2008. Then a whole year went by (2009,) before we got our next Marvel movie, Iron Man 2 in 2010. This turned out to be a good thing, slowly building the cinematic universe instead of bombarding us with too much content all at once. These movies took their time to build to an eventual Avengers team up film, and that was a very clever plan. That being said, Iron Man 2 is not very good. It’s the weakest of the three Iron Man films. It had way too many storylines that weren’t connected. two different villains, a storyline about Iron Man’s suit poisoning him, the introduction of Black Widow, and Iron Man basically falling off the wagon. With all that on the table, they seemed to forget, for a large chunk of the movie, that most of us were really there for.. the action. There’s an action scene at the beginning (racetrack scene,) and a bunch of them all at once at the end, but in between we get next nothing. There’s so little action there, in the middle of the film, that they have to throw in a dopey scene of Iron Msn fighting his best friend, War Machine, at a party. It didn’t work. What does work is the connection to previous films… Samuel L Jackson shows up for the second time here as Nick Fury (he debuted at the end of the first Iron Man,) plus Agent Colson (also in Iron Man 1,) and then of course the introduction of Black Widow. I like how every movie in stage 1 of the MCU propelled the cinematic universe forward, adding a new piece to the puzzle that would culminate with the Avengers.
THOR
Speaking of how each movie added a new piece to the puzzle, the big thing that came out of Thor (outside of Thor and Loki, of course,) was the tesseract, also known as the cosmic cube. This is the first of the infinity stones, which would much later on become a big part of Thanos’ plan in Avengers Infinity War. The teseract served as a connection piece or bridge between this film and the next, with the Red Skull in Captain America the First Avenger, holding it and saying something like “the jewel of Odin’s treasure room.” Odin being Thor’s father, of course. So the connections were strong and clear between these movies. And Thor is a fantastic movie in its own right, with Loki’s manipulative plan to let in the Frost Giants, then put the seeds in place to get Thor banished from Asgard, and then come visit Thor on earth, lying to him about his not being allowed back on Asgard. It’s all great. So is the action, which includes terrific set pieces such as fights against the Frost Giants in a frozen kingdom, or a fight against a giant metal robot called The Destroyer. Even the casting is perfect, with Anthony Hopkins finally finding a big budget movie that uses his talent nicely (sorry Transformers and Mission Impossible 2.) Even the scenes at a Shieldcompounds with Agent Coulson interviewing Thor, are great. The romance between Thor and Jane could have used more time, but otherwise this movie was pretty solid.
CAPTAIN AMERICA: THE FIRST AVENGER
The first Captain America movie is another strong entry in the cannon. And get this… it’s the weakest of the three Captain America movies. That should tell you how good most of these movies were in the first few phases. This first Captain America film takes the time to really show us Steve Rogers, the character, before he takes the serum to make him a super soldier. The different scenes on the army base to show us this are great. In large part that has to do with Tommy Lee Jones, who is the doubtful, hard-ass character, wanting no part of this experiment. He can’t understand what a 90 pound asthmatic kid is doing on his army base. But pretty soon we see why, as Rogers passes all the non–physical tests, and then gets the sirum to take care of the physical parts. The movie features a fun villain in the ways of Red Skull, and some really cool tesseract-powered blue laser weapons. The action is fine, as it mixes in a sort of slow motion, 40s style. This is definitely a solid entry in the series. And as far as advancing the story, whereas the hammer carried over from Iron Man 2 to Thor (it appeared at the end of Iron Man 2,) it is the teseract or cosmic cube that carries over between Thor, this movie, and the Avengers, first appearing in Thor, at the end of the movie, during the post credits scene. Here, in Captain America, the first Avenger, we get sort of a prequel story to the tesseract, and how it was found. That, of course, will carry over into the next film, The Avengers, as it becomes the weapon driving the threat that leads to a massive alien attack on New York. For this movie though, Captain America the first Avenger, we get a great origin story to Steve Rogers, the super soldier, and how this character came to be.
THE AVENGERS
The culmination of all movies that came before this was the Avengers… the big tentpole film that brought everyone together. They had been prepping for it ever since the very first movie, Iron Man, with Nick Fury’s cameo as the post credits scene. Even that early on, he called out the Avenger Initiative. Then in the movies that followed, we got introduced to all the other heroes who would make up the team. There were those who got their own individual movies, and those that didn’t, but still got introduced. Black Widow appeared in Iron Man 2, for example. Hawkeye appeared in Thor. And Nick Fury appeared in all of those movies (a post credits scene in Thor,) as well as in Captain America: The First Avenger. Yes, he was indeed in every Marvel movie of phase 1. The glue was strong, that held these movies together and bonded them with each other. Even Agent Caulson appeared in most of the movies (every one of them but Captain America: the First Avenger.) So now we had The Avengers, and it gave us a new Hulk. Mark Ruffalo knocked it out of the park, and was the highlight of the film. Right behind him was Downey Jr as Tony Stark, the best casting in superhero movie history (Hugh Jackman as Wolverine is number 2.) So here we had a movie where the Avengers took on an alien army, called the Chitari, only the Chitari didn’t really appear until the third and final act. That’s how much this movie had going on.. so much that it was easily able to hold them off until the climax. Other than Hulk and the Chitari, the other highlight here is the Avengers all fighting with each other. The scene in the park of Iron Msn and Captain America fighting Thor is probably the best scene in the entire movie. The second act, on board the hellicarrier, is where things start to get a little slow. But the third act more than makes up for it. This isn’t one of the best Marvel movies (there are so many of those. Including everything the Russo brothers have done for the studio,) but this is right there, at the top of the very next category of very good movies.