Avengers Age of Ultron
Simply put…not as good as the original. The magic and excitement of seeing the Avengers team up in the first film had already been achieved by this stage, and whilst some people loved Ultron for many he didn’t compare to Loki, and we already knew we were building up to Thanos by this stage. Great but not as great as the first. Still an essential film which would also give us Vision and the first real outing for Wanda and Quicksilver.
Guardians of the Galaxy Volume 2
James Gunn was clearly much more confident with his style and the characters with Guardians Volume 2, and this film is dripping with detail and easter eggs from start to finish. At some point Disney need to make the baby Groot vs Baby Yoda film we all need in our lives. Kurt Russell also shines as Ego the living planet in this film.
Spider-Man Far From Home
Spider-Man Far From Home gave us the first post End Game story to show how the world has been affected by the blip (should have been called the snap). It also gave us the first major step toward the multiverse. Spider-Man Far From Home really upped the relationship stakes between Peter and MJ and the change of setting also allowed us to get his alter ego as Night Monkey.
Captain America The First Avenger
This origin film of Captain America wowed everyone with it’s incredible effects which showed Chris Evans go from a skinny dweeb type into a hench super soldier. The World War 2 setting gave the film a different vibe to the other phase 1 movies and it set Cap on a path towards being a leader of the Avengers where as he had been a shield throwing boy scout in the eyes of many before this.
Avengers Endgame
The final act of this film is fantastic, and there’s an awful lot to enjoy along the way. It does take longer to get going than the previos Avengers movie and introducing time travel both gives some fun Back to the Future 2 style movie within a movie antics, but does raise some plot issues as can be found in every movie that has time travel.
Iron Man
The film that started it all. Simply put, if this hadn’t been awesome we wouldn’t have this list to rank. It’s amazing to think that Iron Man was a lesser known character to the main stream and yet was chosen to be the lead film for the idea of a cinematic universe simply because at the time Marvel had sold off the rights to all their bigger characters such as Spidey, the Fantastic Four and the X-Men.
Robert Downey Jr is perhaps the best cast actor in all the MCU and his natural charisma and an explosive plot and action scenes made this an instant classic.
