In which I revisit old articles from Filmquisition and Unreality.
I know that it’s a bit premature with Ant-Man still over two months away, but with Age of Ultron starting its
theatric run this week, I felt that it was time to look back on Marvel’s
uncanny Phase 2 and weigh the efforts against one another. If Phase 1 was
all about establishing the characters and world of the Marvel Cinematic
Universe, then Phase 2 was all about tearing them down to their core and taking
them in darker directions than Phase 1’s lighter tone.
5) Thor: The Dark World – While Iron Man 3 has undoubtedly been the most
controversial of the second wave Marvel movies, I would argue that Thor‘s sequel was the worst.
I of course use the word “worse” solely in comparison to the Avengers
meta-franchise, since the most astounding feature of these movies is that none
of them have actually been bad. Sure, Iron Man 2 tried
to be, but it was still better than most action blockbusters (and certainly
better than most sequels).
So while The Dark World‘s Malaketh was a wasted villain that
was all too eager cast aside for literally star-crossed romance between Thor
and Jane, it did everything else right. Owing to his popularity in The Avengers especially, Loki’s part in the movie
was heavily played up, leading to some of the funniest scenes of the entire
MCU. The narrative was better paced than its predecessor and the
direction more even, if a bit less inspired. And to top things off, it
ends on what’s probably the strongest note of any Marvel film to date.
4) Iron Man 3 – This is certainly the most divisive movie in Marvel’s
eleven movie canon, and for good reason. The majority of non-comic
fans bemoaned Trevor Slattery’s deconstruction of the Mandarin as a waste of a good villain. Those more familiar with Iron Man‘s publication history hated the fact that the
character’s one good villain was reduced to a punch-line. And while his
defenders pointed out how intelligently handled, unexpected and confident the
twist was handled, they could hardly get a word in edgewise over the uproar.
When it comes to the Mandarin controversy, I belong firmly to the “yea” camp.
It was intelligent. It was bold. It was unexpected, and yet I
never felt cheated by it. It gave this small cross-section of the MCU
something that it had lacked since the first movie’s second act: actual depth.
I would further argue that the reveal
didn’t close off quite as many options with the franchise as people want to
believe. The one-shot “All Hail the King” established an actual, factual,
magical Mandarin who was tired of Slattery slandering his “good” name. If we do get an Iron Man 4, we
could very well see the “real” Mandarin turn everything that we thought we knew
about the MCU on its head. Or Iron Man 3, in retrospect, could be viewed as a
Mandarin origin story: how Trevor Slattery went from being a drug addict actor
to a hardened criminal, to the protege of a true villain. The potential
is all there, so long as Downey’s still willing to throw on the suit.
3) Avengers: Age of Ultron – I’m shocked at this movie was as far down on this
list as it was. It certainly wasn’t a bad movie by any means. In
fact, it was freaking awesome. It just needed to tighten up its script
a touch in order to bring it up to Avengers-level awesome.
The main thing that disappointed me about
this movie was that it lacked the somewhat darker Winter Soldier tone that all of its marketing
materials had promised. Again, this isn’t inherently a bad thing, just
something that I had been looking forward to and never really happened.
It is in every sense a worthy successor to the surprisingly comedic,
incessantly witty and thoroughly entertaining first Avengers, it just never seemed to
do any of it quite as well as the first go-around.
2) Guardians of the
Galaxy – I still don’tknow how Marvel got away with this movie. It’s just so utterly bizarre on
its surface: basically Star Wars starring
Indiana Jones, an Orion Slave Girl, a raccoon, an Ent and Dave Bautista.
It’s based on a comic that next to nobody read and even fewer people knew
about. It bucked Marvel’s game plan of making every new movie a direct
sequel, prequel or midquel to every other Marvel movie by divorcing it entirely
from the MCU’s terrestrial canon. Sure, it’ll catch up with everybody in Infinity War, but that’s still
three years away (four if they enter the scene in Part II).
And yet, despite everything going against
it, it was damned close to being the best blockbuster – and best movie – of
last year. It was easily the most confident, idiosyncratic and original
movie to come out in all of 2014 and somehow made wrestler petting a raccoon
who was crying over his splintered friend the most emotional scene that I
saw in theaters in years. Of all the movies that followed, it came the
closest to touching on what made The Avengers so
amazing to begin with.
1) Captain America: The
Winter Solder – This
should really come as no surprise to anybody who remembered my review of the
movie back in September. Captain America: The Winter Soldier was hands down last year’s best movie
for me, even beating out The Avengers for
my favorite Marvel movie. It boldly brought Captain America into the 21stCentury and forced him to come to terms with his own legacy.
Beyond just being a good spy movie, it’s
probably the most politically aggressive blockbuster that I’ve ever seen:
transforming a seemingly innocent action set-piece like The Avengers‘ Battle of New York
into an indicting metaphor for 9-11, and S.H.I.E.L.D.’s heavy-handed approach
to terrorism a reproachful look into Bush-era policies that encroached on
American freedoms. And how does the living embodiment of all that is
right and just with America handle grossly immoral (and illegal) covert actions
taken on behalf of the government? He dumps everything onto the Internet
Snowden-style and lets the public sort it out. Say what you will about
its politics, but it’s a miracle that a Disney-backed popcorn flick was allowed
to flaunt them the way that it did.
So what is your favorite movie in Marvel's Phase 2? Share your thoughts in the comment section below.
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