Board 8 > Board 8 Ranks: The Marvel Cinematic Universe (PHASE 1)

(+) Yeah! (+)

Despite everyone shitting on Iron Man 2, I'm still thinking it's going to be higher than Thor 1 and IM3

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I felt pretty certain that Malekith was my least favorite MCU Villain, so I did the ranking and unsurprisingly it isn't even much of a competition:



yes i like the funny cowboy gangster from ant-man 2 more than malekith

if anyone feels like doing the ranking too:

https://sorta.app/q/1020

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That's a real neat thing to track Tom Nook. I love sharing all my opinions with Anagram thank you for this.

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I don't think I can be bothered to rank the villains because the only ones I genuinely like are Vulture, Killmonger, Ego, Thanos, Loki, and Whiplash (no, really) and the rest are whatever

even tho whiplash is low on my list he's actually straddling the line between "ok" and "bad" (just barely on the "ok" side of the line)

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ZenOfThunder posted...

funny cowboy gangster

Well obviously because he's Walton Goggins

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Also I think that villain ranking should have used Ghost instead of Sonny Burch, when I think "who's the main antagonist of Ant-Man and the Wasp" that's who I think of, even if she's a lot more grey than some of the others

Seems fine I guess

"Iron Monger" im pretty blegh on but Obie I'm pretty high on

Ironically the Iron Monger is actually filling the same role here in this list as.... well, spoilers. And for the exact same reasons.

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I think that Sonny guy from Antman and the Wasp is rather forgettable but that's fine, he's pretty okay for his place in the movie. Much better than villains who fail to fill their (more significant) place in the movie

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ok sure yeah

I think I rated Alexander Pierce too low it's just been a while and I don't remember what he does

Iron Monger should've been above Ultron not sure what happened there

Paratroopa1 posted...

Also I think that villain ranking should have used Ghost instead of Sonny Burch, when I think "who's the main antagonist of Ant-Man and the Wasp" that's who I think of, even if she's a lot more grey than some of the others

i think the guy who made the quiz on twitter said he doesn't include villains that turned good by the end of the movie but I dont know what that means for Loki

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Loki didn't turn good by the end of the movie though. he came back 10x as bad in the next one!

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ZenOfThunder posted...

i think the guy who made the quiz on twitter said he doesn't include villains that turned good by the end of the movie but I dont know what that means for Loki

Yeah, I mean, I figured this was the reasoning, but I do disagree with it. Ant-Man and the Wasp just happens to be the only movie that redeems its villain before the end! Ghost is still the villain and a cool one at that.

I was going to do that quiz, but lacking Mysterio made me stop.

Snake5555555555 posted...

Well obviously because he's Walton Goggins

Being Walton Goggins made that character infinitely better than he had any right to be.

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oh yeah Mysterio goes... somewhere. I actually didn't like him that much tbh but we can talk about that later

Snake5555555555 posted...

Well obviously because he's Walton Goggins

I agree this is more than enough reason to like Sonny.

I'm gonna go ahead and defend the Dark World a little

The opening part of this bit is awesome:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=e5Un5aGqEcs

Coming out of the first movie, we are familiar with Heimdall, his devotion to guarding Asgard, his ability to be all seeing, AND we know his guard post at the end of the rainbow bridge. So we know this character, we know his motivations, we know his abilities, and we know the location.

So for a little invisible ship to sneak by his all seeing gaze, and for him to suddenly notice at the last second and be like "what the hell is this" and give everything he has to stop it is awesome.

But then, the scene moves on to a giant CGI action fest with set pieces and places that I'm not familiar with or connected to. What Heimdell accomplished didn't matter at all. The Dark World doesn't really set any of these areas up to really be meaningful to me besides there just being a bunch of shit happening on the screen. All of the set up I describe for Heimdell's part came from Thor 1, so TDW doesn't really get credit for that at all, though it did execute that part pretty well.

Overall, this is a great scene that slides right into why The Dark World isn't very good.

The defense rests.

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Spoilering mine because there can be some correlation between villain quality and movie quality. Crossbones is my real #1 of course. And I would put Mysterio at number 5.



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My rankings:

20. Thor: Dark World
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23. The Incredible Hulk


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I can't think of a single piece of television or film that wouldn't be improved by putting Walton Goggins in it.

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ranking just based on their character, not how good/bad/stupid their evil plan is

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I did one too



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there's some exceptions, but it seems that there's a general consistency in who's in the top 10 and who's in the bottom 10

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Sonny Burch is weird because hes not really the villain of that film, Ghost suits that role much better. I barely even regard him as a villain, so if youre below Sonny Burch, something went wrong.

Villains I kind of like starts at 14 and actual good villains starts at 8.

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@Jesse_Custer and me will have the same exact list, MARK IT DOWN

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HanOfTheNekos posted...

@Jesse_Custer and me will have the same exact list, MARK IT DOWN

Weve got this!

21. Iron Man 2
Total Score: 593

BetrayedTangy - 9
Eddv 14
Mr Crispy - 14
Snake5555555555 - 14
Corrik7 16
Paratroopa1 - 16
PrinceKaro 16
XIII Rocks 16
Lopen - 17
StifledSilence 17
Illuminatusbubu - 18
Inviso 18
MetalmindStats 18
Red13n - 18
ScepterOfLove - 18
Whiskey Nick 18
Cybat - 19
Johnbobb 19
Maniac64 - 19
GavsEvans123 20
Sheep007 - 20
MetalDK 21
NBIceman - 21
TomNook 21
VengefulKaelee - 21
ZenOfThunder 21
Anagram 22
CoolCly - 22
Mega Mana 22
Raka Putra - 22
HanOfTheNekos - 23
Jesse Custer 23

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BetrayedTangy
Its no secret Iron Man 2 isnt exactly a good movie, but Ill let everyone else shit on it; because I for one love this movie! Theres so many memorable scenes and characters I dont even know where to begin. I think the one thing everyone agrees on is how great Sam Rockwell as Justin Hammer is. Hes a riot every time hes on screen, I would love to see him come back for a cameo someday. Then we have Mickey Rourke pretending to be a Russian scientist? Yeah its pretty awful, but hes still good for a laugh especially in the scenes he has with Hammer. Rhodey, Black Widow, Nick Fury, Happy and Gary Shandlings character (RIP) are all a lot of fun throughout too. Despite the amount of fun I have watching this movie, I really cant justify putting it any higher.

Eddv
Average, but fuck off RDJ

Mr Crispy
Iron Man 2 had a terrible reputation. But it actually improved a lot upon actually rewatching it.

I believe the main complaints (other than simply being worse than the first one) were that it was more of the same and the last fight with Whiplash was pretty disappointing after all the buildup to it. Disappointing final fights with the villains has since proven the par for the course for most of the MCU.

"More of the same" isn't necessarily a bad thing, since a lot of MCU sequels try to up the stakes or go in a different direction only to fumble hard (or end up just feeling like going through the motions doing the bare minimum to set up plot points in future films). Tony worrying about his own mortality and what sort of legacy he leaves behind (and coming to terms with his father's death) fits in pretty well with his character arc across all the movies, it just falls a little short.

In the past Tony felt like his father neglected him in favor of work and such before he died, so he tries to avoid becoming like his father by acting like Tony Stark. In Iron Man 2, Tony gets tired of acting like Tony Stark and tries to open up and be more genuine with Pepper and his other friends in order to make good use of the time he has left. But they just dismiss it as Tony being Tony Stark. So Tony feels he has to be more Tony Stark than Tony Stark (driving away more people), until the cycle gets broken by beginning to come to terms with his father. It's just not quite there to make it work all that well.

Speaking of being Tony Stark, Hammer being some dollar store knockoff of the Tony Stark brand that thinks he's more awesome than the original Tony Stark and annoys everyone because he feels the need to prove it/has to tell everyone about it is actually kind of entertaining too.

Iron Man 2 is more of a movie that's not quite good than one that's bad. (Or maybe, other MCU movies ended up having more severe flaws so it looks better by comparison)

Snake5555555555
A product of MCU growing pains, clunkily setting up the blueprint for Avengers by introducing Black Widow in some out-of-place fan-service shots, recasts Rhodey and introduces War Machine, and shoves in stuff like Caps shield and expanded SHIELD presence to help drive in this idea of an extended universe. Its not always the most organic but hell does RDJ sell it all anyway. It was a film almost doomed to fail: too many heroes, too many villains, all coming in too fast, too furious, but through it all Iron Man 2 still manages to craft some compelling action of it all, finding the jewel in the junkyard. I think this film has some really iconic shots too, like Tony in the donut or Whiplash on the racetrack, it kind of makes me nostalgic for that time again when things were a bit simpler. Im torn between liking this film and seeing its many flaws, but overall Id say its more good than bad despite some major missteps.

Corrik7
If you took RDJ out, this wouldn't be really amazing movie. The Iron Man series leans hard on RDJ to carry it throughout. The armor is cool. It gets even cooler. However, the one problem with Iron Man has always been how much is he really even a superhero? Could anyone just pilot his suit and be him? And, you do see a lot of different characters pop up with suits over the Marvel Comics. This movie is alright. It is that great though either.

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Paratroopa1
Iron Man 2 is an intensely weird film and I don't even know where to start with it. The scenes and pacing are strange, the villains are strange, the dialog and directing is strange. It makes for a pretty funny and weirdly entertaining movie, and it's probably the first MCU movie that really "feels" like an MCU movie, with more connective tissue to future movies and a tone and a vibe that feels in line with everything that comes after it. Almost nothing that happens in this movie makes sense - why does Tony Stark enter a race and why does the bad guy attack him during it? Why did Howard Stark figure out a brand new element and hide it in the most obtuse way possible? - but after the second watch I learned to just kinda roll with it as the entertaining and weird movie that it is. Downey Jr carries, as usual, but the cast is pretty good overall - Ivan Vanko is surprisingly likeable (he loves his bird!), Justin Hammer is a funny nerd, and we get an introduction to Black Widow and a proper introduction to Nick Fury. Don Cheadle is a huge upgrade as Rhodes, too (I like that his first line is just to tell the audience to get over the cast switch). I think the main way this film falters is that it's really low stakes - Tony Stark just kind of solves his life-threatening illness through science-magic and the ending confrontation never feels like that serious a threat, they feel like they're always in control, so I sort of lose interest at that point.

PrinceKaro
So what is happening now is that Tony is dying because he can't find a material to use in the memory card in his heart that won't poison him and so he decides to not only just up and create a new element, but one that is stable and non-radioactive. It's science, bitch!
The film introduces Nick Fury and Black Widow in bit parts, and it is nice to see the MCU start to take shape. For villainy they yet again they go with the evil foreigner working for the military industrial complex guy and it is not really much better this time around.
Finally we see the MCU formula finally starting to come together into the trademark action comedy that we come to know and love, though we still hadn't fully exorcised the 2000's edgelordiness by this point in time.
It never will stand among the greats, but it is still a decent movie in its own right.

XIII Rocks
The Iron Man movies aren't quite as good as RDJ's Tony Stark himself is, even the supreme first movie. A possible part of the reason for that is that he never had a villain to match his charisma. This is the worst offender of all; Whiplash is so wasted, and while Sam Rockwell does very well, as always, he just feels so inconsequential next to Stark. That's partly by design, because he's so clearly supposed to look shitty and greedy, but that becomes a problem when the other villain spends most of the movie confined to a lab building robots before a 90-second fight scene quickly won by War Machine and Iron Man. That said, RDJ himself drags every movie he's in up several notches. The sequence where he makes the new element makes almost no sense plot-wise, but RDJ's charisma sells it, and that's probably the best example of him elevating otherwise iffy material. Also Don Cheadle is better than Terrence Howard so no loss there.

Lopen
I think this one gets a lot of hate? It's completely fine, just kinda pointless action flick but not an obnoxious way like Avengers 2. I will say as the mark of shame this movie holds the distinction of being the only one I didn't remember at all until rewatching for this list aside from Mikey Rourke with energy whips. I guess a bit of a waste of Mickey Rourke but I don't hate the character he plays.

It's funny that this has a fairly similar plot to Iron Man 1 (smarmy weapons dealer wants to beat Tony Stark) but is a lot worse at it.

StifledSilence
Dude from Oceans Eleven is a much better pal than the first guy. Tony being a cocky asshole that wants to privatize world peace is wonderful. And the villain is one-note perhaps, but hes also a perfect foil to Tony. Hes a veritable brick wall that Tony cant simply wave away. It creates a new urgency for him to fight, which is welcome for character development. The Black Widow spots are also excellent.

Illuminatusbubu
It was such a letdown after the first movie. A superhero movie usually depends on the chemistry between the superhero and villain. While this movie has multiple villains, none of them are really relevant.

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Inviso
While the plot feels very forced at times, (Tony suffering from palladium poisoning, a random villain showing up with ties to Tonys dad), and its definitely not a GREAT movie, the fact of the matter is that Robert Downey Jr. has enough innate charisma as Tony Stark to carry almost any plot in which he serves as the central character. I dont want to compare this too much to the original or Iron Man 3, because this is a ranking and there should be surprisesbut its definitely different in tone from the original film. Its much goofier, and a lot of that is due to the decision to cast Sam Rockwell in one of the villain roles. Dont get me wronghe and Mickey Rourke make for a fun comedic duo, but theyre definitely not as intimidating as Obediah was in the first film. Its just a difference in tone overall, but its definitely not a bad film.

MetalmindStats
Its true that Tony Starks portrayal in Iron Man 2 leans toward the unlikeable, and its also true that it almost sinks the movie altogether. However, its a place that actually makes sense to take the character after the first Iron Mans ending, and I otherwise consider its sequel another enjoyable showcase of my favorite MCU character.

Red13n
Setting up the go to villain backstory for what feels like almost every future MCU film, someone from Stark's past was wronged and now their back for vengeance. It was early on, but this is a very by the book MCU plot, and at this point it doesn't really hold any place in my heart. I don't think its a bad watch, theres not glaring flaws, it just doesn't bring a lot to the table. There is a pretty good argument to be made that the films in which Tony receives the most development are filmS not titled with "Iron Man".

ScepterOfLove
(No write-up.)

Whiskey Nick
(No write-up.)

Cybat
With Tony creating a new element based on a map design, the nonsensical action set piece in Monaco, and Mickey Rourkes bord, this turned out to be a movie that was much harder to take seriously than perhaps was intended. Thats not necessarily a bad thing for a comic book movie though. Despite all that silliness and also kind of rushing through the Demon in a Bottle storyline, its still a fun time if you let it be.
One of the maybe underappreciated things in this movie I liked was during the climax, when Tony and Rhodey are surrounded by drones and Tony uses his disposable laser thingy to take them all out. Its a neat little moment because it establishes that he is in fact pretty good at this whole Iron Man thing. Often the heroes are disadvantaged in some way during the climax, like he was against Stane in the first one, so it was just nice to see something different. And speaking of nice to see, Scarlett Johansson was also great in this, giving us a memorable introduction to the MCUs first superheroine.

Johnbobb
I liked this when I saw it in the theater! Looking back it wasn't as good as I first thought, but fuck it, I still like Whiplash showing up on the racetrack with his fancy lightning whips. Otherwise, not a ton for me here. Kind of like with Captain America, Iron Man works so much better playing off other characters than just being by himself.

Maniac64
There are a lot of serious issues with this movie. Whiplash was an awful villain choice, and the self destructive Tony Stark was not fun to watch. Yeah I know its all accurate to the character but I just didn't enjoy seeing it. That siad, I actually really enjoy the performances of Rourke and Rockwell, they did they best they could to make those villains entertaining and compelling.

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GavsEvans123
This film peaks too early. The set-piece scene where Vanko attacks Tony on the race track is the films highlight, giving Vanko a great entrance, and making for an exciting and creative fight sequence, as well as the transforming suitcase. The problem is that this scene is around the 30-minute mark, and the later action scenes dont top it. Vanko doesnt live up to his hype once he gets his own suit at the end either, tossing Tony and Rhodey around for a few seconds before they punk him in one shot.

Tony Stark is as entertaining as he was first time round, yet this film also finds the time to explore his personal issues. The suggestion that he isnt happy and is putting on a show while living as recklessly as possible with the time he has left makes the character more interesting and brings a degree of emotional depth that was absent last time, since he got over being captured by terrorists fairly quickly following his escape. The only thing here that doesnt quite sit right is a drunk Tony being played for laughs, given how his other issues are portrayed.

To be honest, Vanko isnt all that interesting as a villain. He doesnt have much of a personality, and his beef with the Stark name is both one-sided and aimed more at Tonys father, rather than anything Tony himself has done. Perhaps it would have carried more weight if Tony had acknowledged the animosity a little bit, as it might have helped elevate Vanko as a bit more of a threat. Vanko is in the odd position of being a personal villain who isnt seen by his opponent as being personal. His weak showing at the climax also reflects poorly on him in this respect. This could possibly be due to scenes showing Vanko in a sympathetic light being deleted, according to Mickey Rourke. On the other hand, Justin Hammer is great as a love-to-hate smug jerk who cant go five minutes without being passive-aggressive. Hes among the least powerful villains in these films, yet hes easily among the most punchable, but in the best possible way. Can we bring him back when we eventually get a Thunderbolts film please?

Theres one character it would be remiss of me not to mention: the Boord. Boord has faced a lot of heartbreak in its life, being left behind in Moscow when Vanko left for Monaco (Luckily, Vanko Sr had died by then or it would have been sold for vodka money), stuffed in a bag by Hammers goons after being reunited with Vanko, and finally separated for good after Vankos death. I wish this was DC, so that Boord could receive a Red Lantern Ring and become an avian counterpart to Dex-Starr. If another Green Lantern film happens, I hope the other Lantern Corps are included. Maybe even build up to the Black Lanterns and a Blackest Night film? Ooh, yes please

Sheep007
I distinctly remember watching this when I was pretty young, and I think it was the first non-Spiderman Marvel movie I ever watched in the cinema (I was never much into comic books). Unfortunately, it bored the shit out of me at the time (its the only time Ive gone to pee not once but twice in one cinema trip), and good portions of the movie still do the same the action isnt great, the comedy isnt quite there, and I dont care about the villains or find them and their motivations interesting (Im sure you have and will hear that a lot through this list). I still like Tony Stark and his character arc, and I bloody well love Don Cheadle, but thats about all in this film which I appreciate and the first part is more about future movies instead of just this one.

MetalDK
The best of the worst. The commentary of the film being somewhat about what Tony would be like without his friends (Venko) was actually a decent start. But man does it fall flat.

NBIceman
Iron Man 2 has Way too much going on. Tony is dying and doing crazy stuff because of it. Pepper is made CEO and ends up stressed. The government wants Tonys suit. War Machine debuts. Ivan Vanko wants revenge for his dad and also a bird. Justin Hammer is also around. We start to get Avengers involvement as Nick Fury and especially Black Widow show up. The charm of the other two Iron Man movies is almost completely absent here because theres so many other things happening and everyone is angry all the time. RDJ still does a great job for the most part, but he really had his work cut out for him here and it doesnt quite come together.

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TomNook
A big disappointment compared to the first movie. There is no reason to watch this. All anybody even remembers about this movie is that race track scene with Mickey Rourke using his electric whips.

VengefulKaelee
A forgettable movie that squanders a good Mickey Rourke performance on a nothing character, Iron Man 2 is in serious contention for the title of most inherently skippable movie in the MCU.

ZenOfThunder
lmao are you kidding me with this trash, I defended it a lot when I was younger but on rewatch it is comical how badly this one wants to be Iron Man 1 and just can't do it. Bring back Justin Hammer tho I would def kiss Sam Rockwell.

Anagram
Poop.

CoolCly
Iron Man 2 has the charm of RDJ is a crappy plot that goes nowhere. Whiplash just wasnt compelling in his personal vendetta against the Starks because he literally never talked. The facing mortality plot for Tony sucks by itself, but *especially* sucks considering its a major theme in IM1 after surviving the cave AND a major theme in IM3 after what he went through in the Avengers. It was done well in both those instances, which highlights how poorly it was done here. And being used here cheapens both of them.
Justin Hammer, however, is a standout performance. He works perfectly as a wannabe Tony Stark in every way, from the way he tries to play music and dance at the trade show following Tonys rock star entrance, to the way he talks shit about Tony but tries to suck up to Tony at every in person opportunity, and their general
Overall, mediocre movie!

Mega Mana
First Scene That Comes to Mind: Coulson notices the prototype Cap shield; Tony uses it as a level

Iron Man 2 is a movie I've watched several times over, but not a bit of it sticks in my brain. It's one of the very few MCU movies that my mind compares less to other MCU movies and more to pre-MCU sequels. It feels like it's on a similar level to the Raimi Spider-Man movies and the Fantastic Four movies. I like those movies well enough, especially Spider-Man 2, but Iron Man 2 feels like a sequel in that vein where it feels more franchise than world. I feel like there are Daily Bugle style newspaper splashes during Tony's trial at the beginning and I'm pretty sure my mind is just making that up, but that's just how it feels. Justin Hammer is a cornball who doesn't interest me as a villain in the least in this movie (though if Sam Rockwell ever comes back as him, it may well be a refreshing choice). Vanko has a great scene at the racetrack with the Suitcase Suit, but is barely there the rest of the film.

I remember when I first watched, I would always get to a certain point where the movie starts to really pick up, but inadvertently fell asleep .It would always be around when Tony gets inspired to go back and put things right after he and Coulson chat. I would always think, "Man, this movie's not bad. It gets a lot of undue hate." And I'd be super curious to what came next, but I would always want to catch up ten or fifteen minutes earlier because I would forget everything again a few days after.

The rest of the movie was like twenty minutes of rushed nonsense, a generic fight against generic armors, and Hammer didn't get the contract he wanted? It went from Jaws 2, where it was nowhere near as good as the original but still held on pretty well and was a decent movie in its own right, to Jaws 3, which is just awful and forgettable. There's really not much to talk about here.

Raka Putra
A contender for the lamest villain for sure. It also feels very much like an interstitial movie of little importance. Still, it was not terribly boring at least.

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HanOfTheNekos
Most of the MCU movies are watchable. I would say most are enjoyable, or at least neutral. I think two are actively bad. Depending on my mood, this is the worst one. Iron Man 2 suffers from doing just about everything poorly. Whiplash, the marquee villain, is a joke. Hes Russian and yells. Wow. Justin Hammer, whom some praise highly, I feel is cliche. Its even obvious hes being set up as the villain from the beginning. So much that its just like get to the point already.

The subplot with Tony dying from Palladium poisoning takes away from everything else, including itself. Tonys midlife crisis is just boring, and then suddenly he watches some videos of his father and who cares? The moment he fixes his poisoning issue, the movie DOES get better. But scarcely.

Natalie Rushmores introduction is very whatever. She acts well, but breaking into the building sequence is dumb. At least Happy takes out a guy which is cool. Oh, and they just did my boy Coulson dirty.

Best part of the movie is when Iron Man and War Machine team up to fight the robots. And its just like, silly action fun. But its the best part of the movie. Yikes.

Jesse Custer
Has there ever been a lower point for the MCU than Tony Stark pissing himself in the Iron Man suit? Whereas Tonys alcoholism was addressed seriously in the comics, its nothing but a lowbrow joke in Iron Man 2, with Tony going so far as to say you could drink the pee thanks to a filtration system. And its tough to let that moment slide when the rest of the movie has so little going for it. We get a forgettable villain who doesnt seem like a genuine threat, an awkward introduction to Black Widow that felt forced, and Tony never comes across as particularly relatable or likeable in this movie. About the only thing I liked about Iron Man 2 were the scenes involving Walt Dis uh, Howard Stark.

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OUTLIERS:

Eddv - 32
BetrayedTangy - 20
PrinceKaro - 15
Lopen - 13
Mr Crispy - 11
Raka Putra - 11
ScepterOfLove - 11
GavsEvans123 - 9
Snake5555555555 - 9
Inviso - 8
Johnbobb - 8
Corrik7 - 7
Illuminatusbubu - 7
Paratroopa1 - 7
HanOfTheNekos - 6
Jesse Custer - 6
Maniac64 - 6
VengefulKaelee - 6
MetalmindStats - 5
Red13n - 5
StifledSilence - 5
TomNook - 5
XIII Rocks - 5
Anagram - 4
CoolCly - 4
Mega Mana - 4
Whiskey Nick - 3
Cybat - 2
MetalDK - 2
ZenOfThunder - 2
Sheep007 - 1
NBIceman 0

Eddv maintains his lead, but Tangy makes a big jump with his solo top ten placement to take second place. Meanwhile, at the bottom of the list, NBIceman become the sole person to have a perfect score thus far. Everything else is more middling at this point, but the field is definitely starting to diversify.

Spoiler for Number 20: After eliminating three sequels (Incredible Hulk might as well be a sequel to the Ang Lee movie), we finally eliminate the first film in a franchise.

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Jesse_Custer posted...

Weve got this!

Heyyyyyyy!

Next film gotta be Thor 1 then.

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That was no surprise with everyone calling for it to drop.

Maybe it's just nostalgia (IM2 was the first MCU movie I watched in full), but I would have taken IM2 > IM3 pretty easily.

Next pretty much has to be Thor, based on that hint

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Ooh, that sounds like Captain Marvel to me. If its Thor I get it but youre wrong, and I really hope its not Ant-Man.

Anyway, no surprises about Iron Man 2, I think everyone knew that this would be the bottom 3.

I have very little to say about this one. Its... alright. It has this paradoxical thing where it feels both like filler and trying to do far too much to set up The Avengers at the expense of its own plot. And a lot of that set up gets thrown out leaving it strangely skippable despite having a lot of important first appearances. Its not bad, but its just okay.

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I could see the next movie to drop being Cap 1!

Also COULD be Ant-Man, but I find that way more unlikely than Thor or Cap.

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Fantastic Four

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The Iron Man sequels are a shame because the first movie is so great and Iron Man just kinda falls apart after that in a lot of his other movie appearances

Lightning Strikes posted...

Ooh, that sounds like Captain Marvel to me. If its Thor I get it but youre wrong, and I really hope its not Ant-Man.

Anyway, no surprises about Iron Man 2, I think everyone knew that this would be the bottom 3.

I have very little to say about this one. Its... alright. It has this paradoxical thing where it feels both like filler and trying to do far too much to set up The Avengers at the expense of its own plot. And a lot of that set up gets thrown out leaving it strangely skippable despite having a lot of important first appearances. Its not bad, but its just okay.

I wouldn't even say that. I think Iron Man, Thor, Captain America, and Incredible Hulk were at least TRYING to set up Avengers by giving backstories to the important characters. Sure, IM2 introduced Black Widow, but it feels less like a planned film and more like "Iron Man was popular. Let's make another Iron Man movie as fast as possible to capitalize on that popularity!" It's just very weird to me how frontloaded the Iron Man movies are, while Cap and Thor are spread across all three phases.

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Iron Man 3 is great though

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Hey, just like I said at the beginning of this topic, my opinions are perfectly curated and my list immaculately reflective of the MCU's true ranking.

This post will be deleted when things go extremely off the rails for me in the teens.

Anyway, I feel like my attempts to be concise for my writeups have led me to look more negative on these bottom-of-the-list eliminations, so I want to clarify that I really don't dislike any of the movies in the franchise. I've done multiple rewatches in recent years alongside a couple of people who had never seen any of the MCU before in addition to the one for this project and at no point have I dreaded an upcoming entry or not enjoyed myself while actually watching them. There's just some where the flaws are more readily apparent, and obviously something's gotta be at the bottom.

Oh, yeah, and I agree with the Thor 1 prediction. I don't think Cap 1 is hanging around a whole lot longer, but I don't see how it finishes below Kat Dennings.

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Thor 1 dropping seems like a guarantee

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Justin Hammer is probably the only really stand-out thing about Iron Man 2.

Also anti-shoutout to the Elon Musk cameo, but I guess he was still a little bit acceptable back then.

Thor 1 is probably next. I could see Ant-Man too. The heist movie is a neat concept, but god, it really does not hold well after seeing everything. I was just bored the entire time and Ant-Man and the Wasp really feels like it should have been the first Ant-Man movie.

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Its kind of weird for me to see so many mentions of Justin Hammer. His character didnt make any impression on me and I had forgotten he even existed until reading all these write-ups. Thats not to criticize Rockwell, but I think he was wasted in a boring role.

Boo.

I just love that IM2 is so easy to laugh at in how ridiculous it is. It really stands out from a lot of the more generic MCU movies.

I want to say Thor 1 is next, but I'm thinking its Captain Marvel, fully expecting Loki to carry it a bit further

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20. Thor: The Dark World
21. ???
22. Iron Man 3
23. The Incredible Hulk

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Jesse_Custer posted...

Its kind of weird for me to see so many mentions of Justin Hammer. His character didnt make any impression on me and I had forgotten he even existed until reading all these write-ups. Thats not to criticize Rockwell, but I think he was wasted in a boring role.

I can fully agree with this. It's a shame that Rockwell was wasted so early on. In Phase 3, he could've been in a role similar to Martin Freeman's in Black Panther.

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