27. Iron Man 2 2010 -- D Tier -- One of only two MCU movies I truly don't like. Like many of these movies, it's been a while since I've seen it, but I remember having zero desire to ever watch it again. I remember the whole "new element" thing being a payoff to something Stark was needing and audibly saying "what the fuck?" This movie had Sam Rockwell in it and it still sucks. Not a terrible movie. Just an unnecessary one. I don't recall any allusion to it at all in later movies.

It’s not dead last for me, but it’s near the bottom. The Tony/Natasha stuff is cringe. Mickey Rourke didn’t want to be there. HSO - I like Terrence Howard more than Don Cheadle as Rhodey. My kids started watching in phase 3, so we went back and watched phases 1-2 a couple of years ago. This one definitely doesn’t age well. Sam Rockwell’s dance is a top 5 MCU moment, so there is that.

I looked back through the Movies I Watched This Weekend thread and we're probably not going to agree on everything. Also, I'm not dead.

And if I was including all Marvel movies and not just the MCU, Spider-Man: Into the Spider-Verse would be number 1.

Not sure if that’s intended for me or for everyone, but my opinions have changed over 2nd and 3rd viewings. Even if we don’t agree, your list is definitive. It says so. I’m glad you’re not dead.

26. Thor: The Dark World 2013 -- D Tier -- I remember almost nothing from this movie. Doesn't Loki die in the end? I mean, I know not really, but didn't he "die" in the first Thor? Like falling off the Rainbow Bridge or something? This was less disappointing than Iron Man 2 for me probably because Iron Man was better than Thor. Farther to fall for Iron Man 2. But I remember so little. I don't think I saw it again since seeing it after the theater. The Aether stuff ends up being an Infinity Stone, so I guess the movie is important? Whatever. 2nd worst MCU movie.

It was revealed at the end that he faked his death, so it wasn’t quite as bad as bringing him back from the dead, I guess. Dark World is my #27. I know that’s cliche, but it’s painful to sit through. I’m sure there will be people in 10 years that say it’s not so bad, kind of like Star Wars 1-2. Not me. Nope, nope, never, nope, never.

25. Thor 2011 -- C Tier -- This is fine. Nothing seriously wrong, just kinda there. I never feel the desire to watch this again, but still like it. If it's on TV, I may fly past it for a bit, but lose interest pretty quick. It still gets me that Kenneth Branagh directed this. Bizarre. The Destroyer was always one of my favorite-looking Marvel characters so I was glad to see it. I still don't feel they've ever gotten Thor right in his own movies yet.

24. Ant Man and the Wasp 2018 -- C Tier -- A fun movie, but forgettable. I liked that they brought in Laurence Fishburne as Bill Foster, but it's such a tease for comic book dorks like me to then not turn him into Goliath. I wish in Endgame Michael Douglas and Michelle Pfeiffer had shown up in costume for the big battle. Still, this was a decent ride. I remember that "Ghost" was the bad guy, but I don't remember much else about this movie.

You’ve hit 4 of my bottom 5.

I was never a comic nerd, but I had a working knowledge of them due to my dad and uncle growing up with them. Thor was never interesting to me back then and the first two Thor movies are pretty boring. I did like the setup in Thor 1, but the earth stuff fell flat. In the MCU, I’ve never loved the co-mingling of space characters and earth characters, which has gotten worse with recent movies - there are a couple of exceptions where otherwise the movie is just too good.

Also not a big fan of bringing back dead characters (Janet) but here we are. Don’t know anything about Goliath, but Ghost was pretty bland. Sonny Burch was also the “bad guy”, but he’s more Justin Hammer-like. The Luis humor may have been overdone.

Can't wait to see where Superman ranks

Diello's Definitive Ranking of Live-Action Superman Movies

12. Batman v Superman: Dawn of Justice 2016 -- My wife has liked every movie she's ever seen. She thinks this one sucks. Fuckin' Martha.
11. Not Zack Snyder's Justice League? 2017 -- Shittier than the other Zack Snyder Justice League. This one sucks balls-deep.
10. Man of Steel 2013 -- A Superman movie where we don't see Superman until like the last 20 minutes. Fuck you, Zack Snyder.
9. Justice League: the Snyder Cut 2021 -- People actually thought this was good? I mean, it's better than the other Snyder shit, but it's still mopey and dull with the lamest bad guy I could imagine. As nerdy as I am, I'd never heard of Steppenwolf before. Their Flash sucks. Their Cyborg sucks, which really sucks because he's my favorite DC character, Batfleck and his butt-chin sucks, Aquaman should be cool but is pretty lame here, Wonder Woman is fine. It's better than the not-Snyder cut but that means it only sucks the shaft and leaves the balls alone.
8. Superman IV: The Quest for Peace 1987 -- what did they pay Gene Hackman to come back for this? has to be at least 75% of the already-low budget. I've never actually seen it, but it has to be better than the Zack Snyder shitfests.
7. Supergirl 1984 -- Helen Slater is hot. I don't remember if Superman is actually in this, but I'm including it because Helen Slater is hot
6. Superman III 1983 -- what kind of fucking fever dream is this? they actually put Richard Pryor in a Superman movie?
5. Superman and the Mole Men 1951 -- Never actually seen it, but I used to like the old George Reeves show as a kid on channel 39, so this has to be better than the rest
4. Superman Returns 2006 -- not great but better than III
3. Superman II 1980 -- love it, and I've never actually seen the Donner cut
2. The Death of Superman Lives 2015 -- documentary about the never-made Nic Cage/Tim Burton Superman, worth it for Cage in costume alone
1. Superman 1978 -- the classic

If you rank Helen Slater movies and The Legend of Billie Jean is not at the top, you are dead to me.

At least Janet hadn't died on-screen, if that makes sense. It was kind of obvious that was the plan from the first one, so it doesn't bother me too much. It's what kills comics for me a lot. See a character get a bullet through their head only to be resurrected six months later. It makes it where you don't care if a character dies since you know they'll be back within a year.

It's just behind City Slickers.

Diello's Definitive List of Movies I Know Helen Slater Was In

Supergirl
The Legend of Billlie Jean
City Slickers

This Concludes the Definitive List of Movies I Know Helen Slater Was In

I think she was on an episode of Seinfeld and she was hot.

This Concludes the Definitive List of Seinfeld Episodes I Think Helen Slater Was In

TIL Billie Jean was Super Girl.



I watched this in the theater and couldn't believe how bad it was when S1 & S2 were so flippin great. I lol'd hard when I heard the Atari 2600 Pacman death sound shoehorned in as a random sound effect.
https://youtu.be/05GysooKs0g?t=120

23. Avengers: Age of Ultron 2015 -- C Tier -- The original Comicon announcement trailer had me so pumped. But it was a big bag of meh. Never seemed to go anywhere and just seemed to meander. Isn't Ultron essentially Tony Stark's fault? Never seems like he ever paid for that. Glad he's dead. A lot of the scenes are fun but don't add up to much. I know Joss Whedon and Kevin Feige weren't seeing eye-to-eye but I got tired of the Whedonness of the dialog and the story. Still watchable to me, but certainly not very good.

I definitely like it more than you do, but I also have it in the back half of the MCU, probably 16-18. This is one of the movies that improved for me over multiple viewings when I could process what was going on. It still suffers from about 30 plot points too many. And some are such a waste of time. Bruce/Natasha? Come on now. Think of the logistics of that. The dreams/visions were interesting, but they went nowhere with them. At one point Thor and Selvig were in a cave and I'm not sure what came of that. The opening scene where they attack the Hydra facility is really good. Trying to lift the Hammer was funny too. The teaser trailer goes hard with the Pinocchio song in the background and Ultron seeming so menacing (Spader's voice is incredible), but they only use about half of the trailer scenes in the movie and even then, they were misleading. I also have an issue with the title. "Age" of Ultron? He lasted like half of a movie. What constitutes an "age" in this universe?

Gagree. It feels like through the whole MCU, they were testing who the audience wanted to see banging Natasha. And so many threads that go nowhere. It was like the Lost of MCU movies. I should watch it again because I keep coming back to certain scenes.

I also don't get how Ultron is really defeated in the end. Destroying his physical body would accomplish little. Did they trap his program in there before Vision killed him?

Also, it's funny to me how Marvel keeps getting ahead of DC. Thanos was often thought of as a copy of Darkseid, but since Marvel got him on screen first, a large portion of people see it as the other way around. Same goes for Ultron and Braniac. Braniac is the perfect villian for a Justice League movie, but it'll look like a copy of this movie.

I'd like to know how and where all the Disney+ spin-off shows fall into this. They're canon, and the developments in them will affect the MCU movies (is that correct? Ignore, if not.) I watched WandaVision, Loki, and The Falconer and the Winter Snowman, but got fatigued halfway thru What If and now I'm falling behind. There were also all those shows on Netflix and Agents of Shield, but I never watched any of them.

I'm agreeing with your list so far, but I have to admit that rarely have any of these movies engaged me a plot level. Most of the time after the movie ends, I can't even summarize what it was about. All the slam-bang, jizz-whizz set pieces are fun, but it feels like the plots only make sense to the comics readers who are already familiar with the characters and stories.

I'll shut up now.

The funny thing is, most of my favorite MCU movies are from series I never read. I never read the Infinity Gauntlet story line, but I know they changed it pretty heavily. Thanos's main goal with killing half the universe was to impress death. Like, he wants to bang death, who has a physical form in the comics. So, you know, good thing they changed that. There was a massive change to the Eternals (and Iron Man 3, for that matter). I'm not sure how much more I get out of the story from knowing the comics. So many of the characters are pretty dramatically changed. Guardians of the Galaxy was never like the movies. It was a completely different set of characters (the OG Guardians show up as Stallone and crew at the end of Vol. 2), and not particularly successful at that. I've felt like my nerdiness has just allowed me to pick up on Easter-egg type things. I felt the same way you did though watching the last several Harry Potter movies. I had no idea what was going on.

I was really enjoying WandaVision up until the end. Falcon and Winter Soldier was okay, then the end was awful. I'll buy all the crazy superhero bullshit, but a bunch of senators being moved by a speech to change their ways is too much, don't buy it. Cool to see Julia Louis Dreyfus show up though. Have not watched Hawkeye and no real desire to. Made it through one episode of What If? I'm mildly interested in Moon Knight.

Loki, on the other hand, is S Tier. I fucking loved it. It's the only one I tell people they need to watch. They introduce the main villain for the next set of movies, but I don't know how much you *must* see in order to get the movies.

I only watched Daredevil on Netflix and I think I missed the 2nd season. Vincent Dinofrio shows up as Kingpin in Hawkeye, and I was so happy to see Charlie Cox show up in No Way Home. I'm glad they canonized the show. I loved it, fucking hardcore.

Loki was too bizarre for me. I didn’t love it. I’m not here for alternate timelines and time travel. I’m also over Loki. I will admit it probably needs a re-watch at some point.

I loved Hawkeye for what it was. Smallest scale of anything in the MCU, but such an easy watch.

I pretty much hated What If. I was 3-4 episodes behind at one point myself and had to force myself to finish.

Falcon/Winter Soldier was meh.

I did enjoy Wandavision when they were in TV episodes and prior to revealing everything, but the landing didn’t stick at all.

I don't have a lot to add to the conversation, but it's good talking MCU with you boys.

I’m honestly kind of sad there isn’t more discussion. I know we only have like 6 posteurs now, but I though you and Craig would have more opinions. I was pumped when I saw the title of the thread.

100% understand the Loki opinion. I generally don't like time travel/alternate timeline things but thought they did it really well. Also love having Owen Wilson in the MCU.

I do need to watch Hawkeye because of exactly what you said: it's small.

I want a "Free Guy" movie in the MCU. About an average person who has to deal with a generic 9 to 5 but about twice a year his city gets near-leveled by some superhero fight. Not a parody, I mean literally a guy working in Manhattan during the Avengers and Spider Man and Infinity War etc. I know Civil War dealt with it a bit, but make the supers background characters.

This is the part in the thread where I confess that the only thing MCU I've ever watched was the first Captain America movie. And not for any good reason. I promised myself I would do a marathon during my second round with Covid a few weeks ago and I never got around to it. Maybe this thread will inspire me. I promise not to do too much more derailing by asking for random Helen Slater ranking lists.

This is where we enter B Tier. There's very little difference between all of these movies, and there's a lot of them.

22. Shang Chi and the Legend of the Ten Rings 2021 -- B Tier -- I really liked the first half but the fantasy stuff in the 2nd half was a real bog. Going back through these, I find that a big portion of the rating is how much I remember of it. And I don't remember a lot about the 2nd half of this. I think I get it mixed up with Raya and the Last Dragon. I didn't understand what was going on. Wasn't there a random dragon at the end? That was convenient. Not random army of the undead convenient, but definitely convenient. I'd have popped if it was Fin Fang Foom, but no, just a random dragon. Still enjoyable, though.

We still haven’t disagreed much. I put this higher than you, but it’s still in the high teens. Maybe right after Age of Ultron. I have a pretty firm top 11 and a pretty firm bottom 5 (one you haven’t hit yet), but the other 11 are pretty close and can probably interchange based on the day. I loved the backstory with Shang Chi’s parents. Yes, there was a dragon. I was kind of ready for the final battle to end. Couldn’t get through a 2nd viewing of it. I may have hit MCU burnout at this point though.

I don't remember much about this one, and I watched it only a couple months ago. I, too, am feeling the burnout. It's been hard to get excited about Phase 4, but I also realize that the excitement for Phase 1 didn't kick in until the first Avengers. Did we even know there was a Phase 1 at that point? Anywho, P4 needs that one entry to tie some shit together and get a ball rolling on an overall arc.

I was pumped when Nick Fury said "I'm here to talk to you about the Avenger Initiative."

I'm burned out, too. I haven't been excited for any of the recent movies except for Spider Man. Only reason I'm excited for Doctor Strange is Sam Raimi.

The Phase 1 movies didn't have much that built to the Avengers, each franchise was pretty independent. The only thing from the previous movies was Loki, same for Phase 2. Phase 3 brought in the stones to build to the plot, but it even had Civil War etc that really didn't advance that too much.

Before they do a new Avengers movie, they need to establish some new characters to take over for the dead and gone. That takes time and I don't mind that.

Now I'm paranoid about the one I liked that you didn't. Please don't hate me for it.

I just did a quick power ranking and you’ve named my #17, 18, 23, 25, 26 and 27. My guess is #21, 22, and 24 will come up soon, but I am curious about #19 and 20.

21. Black Widow 2021 -- B Tier -- The bad guy just smells good? Am I getting that right? That's what this boils down to? That's how he made the new Fox Force Five? Like, they have the Purple Man/Killgrave from the Jessica Jones show who is basically the same thing. Did they really need to rehash that? Whatever. Taskmaster was pretty cool. Pretty much my favorite costume in all of comics. So why does the movie rank as high as it does? Well, everything else is good. The whole family thing was fun. I'm good with with Florence Pugh essentially taking over in the MCU. But the main reason it ranks this high: Rachel Weisz is the hottest woman to ever walk the planet.

It should probably rank higher just because of that.

#16 for me. I’m surprised you like the Taskmaster. That’s getting ripped on the internets for being a huge letdown. I knew nothing about the character going in, so it didn’t affect me. I really loved the first 2/3 of the movie. It’s the only movie that tried to connect some dots between Civil War and Infinity War, a period that seems more interesting to me than most, I guess. The family stuff was great and no disagreements on RW. I thought Florence Pugh stole the show (she’s in Hawkeye btw). I also appreciated the continuity from the Black Widow/Loki discussion in the Avengers. And the opening credits … my god. I might bump it up just for those. Besides the “smells good” reveal, (which admittedly was lame, but I would argue that the surrounding sub-plots had some nice little twists), I would say that the final battle was ridiculous. Now we have Black Widow flying through the air at who knows how high battling a trained war monster? I mean come on, what is this shit? Still super re-watchable though.

I have only seen it one time, so a rewatch might bump it up. I don't understand the hate for Taskmaster other than the gender swap which drives dudebros crazy. Fuck them. It's not like Taskmaster is some classic character. He's handy when writing a story (his power is to be able to mimic the moves of anyone he sees, so if he sees Captain America fight, he can fight as well as Captain America), but mainly is that he just looks really cool. Nobody got pissed when they killed off Crossbones.

Everything in B Tier is super-close to each other, almost a tie. I was let down by the villain of Black Widow but really enjoyed the rest of it.

I have only seen it one time, so a rewatch might bump it up. I don't understand the hate for Taskmaster other than the gender swap which drives dudebros crazy. Fuck them. It's not like Taskmaster is some classic character. He's handy when writing a story (his power is to be able to mimic the moves of anyone he sees, so if he sees Captain America fight, he can fight as well as Captain America), but mainly is that he just looks really cool. Nobody got pissed when they killed off Crossbones.

Everything in B Tier is super-close to each other, almost a tie. I was let down by the villain of Black Widow but really enjoyed the rest of it.

I don't know why this got posted twice. Fucking Biden.

Yes.

Diello's Definitive Ranking of Hottest Women in the MCU That I Can Think of Right Now

4. Scarlet Johansson Endgame -- not sure why but the two tone hair really did something for me
3. Elizabeth Olsen That One Episode of WandaVision Where She Wore the Comics Version of the Scarlet Witch Costume -- she was like the hot cosplay girl at a con
2. Rachel Weisz Black Widow -- general principle
1. Cate Blanchett Ragnarok -- any time she doesn't have the antelope antlers hat on, she is as hot as a woman could possibly be

I like comic book movies, too.

Marisa Tomei holds a special place in my heart, no matter how much she ages. She is my #1.
I would love to disappoint Jaimie Alexander.
Rachel Weisz was in my top 5 when I used to have one of those and she still looks the exact same, so …
My favorite version of Scarlet Johansson is from Iron Man 2. That hair.
Cate Blanchett isn’t my cup of tea, but I do admit brunette goth Cate Blanchett does something for me. I could even fight through the antlers.

20. Iron Man 3 2013 -- B Tier -- I remember really enjoying this in the theater but I don't find myself drawn back to it when I come across it now, it's slid down the list over the years. Strangely, my favorite thing about the whole movie was the thing that drove all the comics nerds crazy. I loved the reveal of the Mandarin. I still think it was brilliant. I don't remember a whole lot about the rest of it or Tony Stark's dilemma. I know the kid shows up at Tony's funeral in Endgame because I read it. Was he really that important? And Tit, the whole "Extremis" plot line here is after my time in comics. I was following it the same as you would. I feel like I'm bashing these B Tier movies but I still really enjoy them.