Things really start to pick up in the EYG MCU Rewatch as we get the second Captain America solo movie, Captain America: The Winter Soldier.

This is a perfect example of why Marvel Studios has been very successful with many of their film franchises.  The Winter Soldier is really not just a super hero movie.  It is a political thriller told with super heroes.  That allowed Marvel to tell all kinds of different stories within the genre of a super hero movie.  Heck, this even had Robert Redford in it.

This was also a major paradigm shift for the Marvel Cinematic Universe as the organization of SHIELD is shown to have been compromised by Hydra.  Since Iron Man, SHIELD had been shown to be on the side of the good, but now, after eight movies, we get a new reality.

We also get a new way to have solo hero movies.  This is a Captain America story, but within that story we get Black Widow, an introduction of Falcon, re-introduction of Bucky, and Nick Fury.  The Winter Soldier is really the first of the stand alone movies that takes advantage of the one universe to use characters.  Yet, the film never loses sight of the fact that this is a Steve Rogers story, as he deals with his disillusionment with the government of the modern day United States and the grayness of SHIELD’s operation.

We begin with a fantastic introduction of Sam Wilson (AnthonyMackie) as he and Steve bond and then we get an opening action scene aboard the ship is so bad ass that is establishes Captain America as a massive brute immediately.  Watching Cap dismantle that crew on the ship was so entertaining that one could watch that the entire time.

However, Marvel movies are never just about the action and always deal with character and we get tons of character development of Steve Rogers.  The scene with Steve and Peggy is heart breaking and can bring tears to your eyes.  Steve’s uncertainty of what he wants to do in this new world is a great use of the fish out of water trope.

We live in a crazy world that has Robert Redford in a comic book movie.  Anything can happen now.  Redford is fantastic as Alexander Pierce and brings a gravitas to the film.

Captain America: The Winter Soldier is one of the best films in the entire MCU and really started a trend of excellence that would run right through to today.

Next up in the EYG MCU Rewatch is the movie that most place at the bottom of the list when compiling the MCU films.  The sequel is called Thor: The Dark World.

Although the movie is not that terrible compared to many other comic book movies, there are more weaknesses om this one than other MCU films.  Still, it still can entertain if you allow it to.

The biggest problem with the film is the reliance on Jane Foster (Natalie Portman).  This character is vastly underwritten and no where near as engaging as the movie wants her to be.  And she is at the center of the film’s biggest storyline, the discovery of the Aether, a powerful element that can cause mass destruction.

The second problem is the use of the villain Malekith (Christopher Eccleston).  Malekith is a great villain in the comics, one of the main forces behind the current War of the Realms series in Marvel Comics.  However, the film completely undervalues him and wastes the character by turning him into a one note villain just after power.  In the MCU, Malekith is, arguably, the worst of the major villains used in the entire franchise.

Easily, the best part of this movie is the relationship between Thor (Chris Hemsworth) and Loki (Tom Hiddleston) and Loki and Frigga (Rene Russo).  These two relationships are everything the the film has going for it.  The constant struggle between Loki and Thor, between brothers who love one another and gods who want to see the other gone. is the core component for each character.  We see deeper into Loki here than we have yet.  Always before, we saw how important Loki was to Thor, but Loki always betrayed him.  Yet, here, we see the tender side of Loki and how important his Asgardian family truly was to him, despite his efforts to ignore them or push them away or let his anger over what he perceived to be his birthright get in the way.

Most of the film’s side characters are wastes of time and bring little to the table.

However, the end credit scene does introduce The Collector (Benicio del Toro) to the MCU and we learn that the Aether is, in reality, one of the Infinity Stones.

Thor: The Dark World is one of the weakest installments of the MCU, but it is still a decent time.

Now, in the EYG MCU Rewatched, we come to, easily, the most divisive film in the MCU library.  Iron Man 3 has people who love it and people who hate it.  Shane Black created a film that took chances and felt different than other Marvel films.

The biggest issue that the haters have with Shane Black’s vision was the handling of the Mandarin.  The film introduces the beloved and iconic Iron Man villain as a terrorist played by Sir Ben Kingsley.  However, in a move that showed how many guts Marvel Studios have, they took Kingsley and made him NOT the Mandarin but an actor playing a facade of the Mandarin.

If you like or did not mind that twist, then you probably enjoyed Iron Man 3.  However, if you did not like this twist, then you did not like the movie.  And if you hated it… well, you get the idea.

I will admit that my first impression was negative.  Then upon second viewing, it did not bother me at all.

The film takes the events of The Avengers and builds on it.  Tony Stark (Robert Downey Jr) is dealing with PTSD from his trip into the wormhole and that is a fascinating topic to look at in a super hero movie.

Black also spent way more time with Tony Stark outside of the armor than in.  That was another risky venture that should be admired.

Unfortunately, the film’s third act fall apart, and I don’t mean with the Mandarin twist.  The story becomes convoluted and the whole battle with Killian is disappointing.

There are a lot of great things with the third installment of Iron Man, both highs and lows.  Either way, it does not deserve the amount of vitriol that it sometimes receives.

The EYG MCU Rewatch has hit a milestone.  After five films setting up the characters, Marvel Studios brought them all together in a crossover event unlike any Hollywood had ever seen.  In an unprecedented move, Marvel Studios combined the heroes into a super hero team known as the Avengers.

Captain America, Iron Man, The Incredible Hulk, Thor, Black Widow and Hawkeye had all been introduced prior to the film, whether in their own film or as a guest star, and now the team-up of all movie team ups brought them together.

Marvel’s The Avengers was inducted into the EYG Hall of Fame in 2012.

The question about whether or not director/writer Joss Whedon was going to be able to provide proper screen time for his large cast of heroes was a huge point of contention before the film was released.  One of the elements of The Avengers was that each hero had his/her moment to shine.  Hawkeye (Jeremy Renner) may have been the one to suffer because of the plot point of Loki (Tom Hiddleston) taking control of Hawkeye’s mind.  Other than that, the members of the Avengers (and Fury, Coulson, Loki) all had their moments.

There are so many awesome parts of the Avengers including the Thor/Iron Man/Cap fight, the Hulk and Thor, the Hulk rag-dolling Loki, Stark and Cap, Stark and Banner, the Battle of New York, the death of Coulson and so on.

The success of The Avengers really started Marvel Studios rolling.  This was the first film released by Marvel Studios after the purchase by Disney and made the Mouse over a billion and a half dollars at the box office.

The Alan Silvestri score is outstanding as well, punctuating each moment of power and drama with sound and fury.

And even with all of the pomp and circumstance of the movie, they did not forget that the Marvel movies are about character, first and foremost.  The film found moments for character growth for everybody.  We learned more about the relationship between Natasha and Clint.  We see Stark’s continued evolution.  The relationship between Thor and Loki gets its moment.  And Phil Coulson is unexpectedly vital to the film.

The Avengers is still one of the great event films of all time and was a tribute to planning and execution.  Many studios tried to copy the idea of Marvel Studios but few could succeed.  Marvel Studios did and The Avengers is the first jewel in the crown.

The fifth movie of the Marvel Cinematic Universe is Captain America: The First Avenger, another film that posed a unique series of challenges for Marvel Studios.

First, Captain America was such a straight-laced character that he can be considered boring.  The boy scout characters can be difficult to relate to and Cap has had that issue in the comic books.

Second, the casting of Chris Evans was a shock and caused a stir.  Chris Evans was in the Tim Story Fantastic Four movies as Johnny Storm and he was perfectly cast as the Human Torch.  There was no way he could play Johnny Storm and still work as Steve Rogers.

Finally, this was the last film before the epic team up of the Avengers and if this film did not work, it would have really given the crossover event a black eye and hurt the momentum of phase one.

Throw in the fact that Captain America: The First Avenger was a period piece from World War II, well, there were a ton of things working against this movie.

In the end, it was my favorite movie of 2011.

Director Joe Johnston found a way to make Steve Rogers the underdog and he made him unbelievably relatable.  Chris Evans turned out to be the perfect Steve Rogers in every way and the movie kept the momentum going toward Avengers.

There are so many scenes showing how Chris Evans perfectly encapsulated Steve Rogers:  the scene in the alley where he delivers the classic line, “I could do this all day,” the scene where he throws himself onto the grenade, the scene where he captures the flag, his scenes with Peggy Carter (Hayley Atwell), among many others.  I was very worried about Chris Evans, but I was convinced early in the film that they had made the right choice.  Now, of course, I can’t think of anyone else ever playing Cap.

The skinny Chris Evans was a bit awkward, but you get used to the CGI as the film progressed, and, of course, this is only until the Super Soldier Experiment.

Hugo Weaving was great as the Red Skull, though there could have been much more done with the character.  It is unfortunate that Weaving was not a fan of the character.  Tommy Lee Jones and Hayley Atwell make wonderful supporting characters here.  Dominic Cooper brought the film a young Howard Stark, a role he would bring back several times.

Then, went I had heard rumors of Cap joining the USO in the film, I thought this was the worst idea possible.  And yet, “The Star Spangled Man” song is one of the greatest moments in the MCU.

The film made Bucky Barnes an adult and a friend of Steve and gave the role to Sebastian Stan (who, of course, would eventually become the Winter Soldier).  Every choice the film made to adjust the comic lore to a cinematic one worked.

I loved The First Avenger.  This was one of the best MCU origin stories and just about everything worked with it.

The next film of the EYG MCU Rewatch is one of the biggest risks the MCU took.  After a hugely successful Iron Man, a fun-if-not-successful Incredible Hulk, and a messy Iron Man 2, Marvel Studios had their next tentpole film Thor.

Thor was a character that was not very well known and was going to be a difficult translation from the comic page to the cinematic screen.  Again, had this film flopped, the entire tapestry that was being laid out would have been in danger of unraveling.

Instead, the film, directed by actor/director Kenneth Branagh, was great and worked beautifully.  And this was another step in the direction of the formation of the Avengers.

The best thing that this movie did was the casting of two of the main characters.  In the great history of casting for the MCU, there were some early missteps.  The casting of Chris Hemsworth as Thor and Tom Hiddleston as Loki were as perfect of a casting job as could be.  No one could have played Thor and his half-brother Loki better than Hemsworth and Hiddleston.  The chemistry between them was off the charts and they were the personification of the characters they were playing, portraying the complex and difficult relationship between them.

The fantasy elements of the story worked very well, and showed the strength of Kenneth Branagh as a storyteller.  They also fit surprisingly well inside the MCU, which up to this point was a world bathed in technology over magic.  The movie Thor seamlessly blended the two together.

Not that everything worked perfectly in Thor.  Jane Foster, played by Natalie Portman, was a disaster.  She did not have the chemistry with Hemsworth that she needed and turned into a damsel in distress.  Portman did not ever fully embrace that role and it was severely under written.  The Thor/Jane Foster dynamic was far below the Tony Stark/Pepper Potts relationship and was the second relationship in a row (Banner/Betty Ross) that did not work.

Sir Anthony Hopkins appeared as Odin in a wonderful bit of casting.  Idris Elba was overlooked as Heimdall.  Rene Russo was Lady Frigga, Thor and Loki’s mother, but she was a small part.  The Warriors Three and Lady Sif (Jaime Alexander) are never really developed.  Agent Coulson continues to be the glue that holds these films together.

In the end, it really comes down to the Thor-Loki dynamic and, because of that, this film works so well.  It introduces us to Thor and sends us on the path toward The Avengers.  The character of Thor goes through a strong character arc and will become even deeper over his subsequent film appearances.

The third movie of the Marvel Cinematic Universe is the first sequel.  Iron Man 2 came out quickly and it showed some early issues.  However, Iron Man 2 was a film that Marvel Studios learned a lot from.

Iron Man 2 was not terrible, but there are definite problems with the film.  The film is too full of world building.  The movie would have been a better film if it had been streamlined.  There are too many threadlines going through the film.  The Whiplash story.  The palladium poisoning.  Tony’s drinking issue.   Tony’s daddy issue.  The introduction of the Black Widow.  The US Government’s attempts to confiscate the Iron Man “weapon.”  Hammer Industries.  SHIELD.

There could have been two really good movies with all of this, but crammed together felt messy.  Marvel Studio learned their lesson from this film and did not repeat those mistakes as the franchise continued.  The lesson… do not put world building ahead of the story or the characters.  I supposed Iron Man 2 is a necessary evil.

Not to say that the film is bad.  There are some wonderful, winning moments. Heck, we get to hear Clark Gregg’s Agent Coulson say to Tony Stark, “…I will taze you and watch Super Nanny while you drool into the carpet.”

Iron Man 2 has some great action and introduces us to the War Machine (Don Cheadle).  I know some were unhappy with Terrence Howard being replaced as James Rhodes, but I am a fan of Don Cheadle since the Picket Fences days so I was ready to accept him immediately.

The good in Iron Man 2 outweighs the bad, but just barely.  It is still a fun movie to watch because, not in smart part, of Robert Downey Jr. as Tony Stark.  He is as witty and entertaining as he has ever been.  He is also growing into the role of Stark.  You can see the character beginning to develop into what we know him as today.  Tony Stark is the heart of the film and, because of him, this film is fun, despite its flaws.

Marvel Studios followed up the smash hit Iron Man with the lesser successful film featuring the Emerald Giant, The Incredible Hulk, and it was released by Universal Pictures.

The Incredible Hulk had several challenges facing it.  First, it was coming off the tails of Hulk, the Ang Lee film with the Hulk dogs, Nick Nolte as Banner’s daddy who turns into the Absorbing Man, and an unexpectedly dumb story.  Second, the Hulk, as a character, is notoriously difficult because when you get someone that strong, it is a challenge for the audience to relate to him.  Third, while Edward Norton was fine as Bruce Banner, there was just something about him that did not scream a good fit.  Maybe that is because, in retrospect, when we think back, we have to remember that we wound up with a perfect Bruce Banner with the casting of Mark Ruffalo.

However, with all of this going against it, The Incredible Hulk is still a fine film and a solid second movie in the Marvel Cinematic Universe, which we were still not sure that we had.  Now a days, this film feels like an outlier in the 21 film series, and feels more like a stand alone film than a franchise film.  There are some hints of ties to the greater MCU, including the arrival of Tony Stark in the post credit scene.  There is a connection to the Super Soldier program that becomes important in Captain America, too.

The Bruce Banner/US Army/Emil Blonsky(Tim Roth) footrace through Rocinha, Rio de Janeiro is excellent and the first arrival of the Hulk really drives home the fact that he is an unstoppable force of anger and power.

There were some solid antagonists in this film, especially William Hurt’s Thaddeus “Thunderbolt” Ross. who would continue into the Avengers movies as a thorn in the team’s side.  Emil Blonsky’s transformation into the Abomination is well done, but the film does seem to miss the boat on the origin of the Leader, who has never been seen since.

I am also not a big fan of Liv Tyler’s rendition of Betty Ross as I did not feel that she brought much chemistry to the role of Bruce Banner’s great love.  I do not think it is coincidental that she has never returned to the MCU and that they even went as far as pairing Banner with Black Widow.

I enjoyed a lot of the nods and winks back to the 1970s CBS TV series with Bill Bixby and Lou Ferrigno, both making cameos, in a way.  Ferrigno was in the movie, while a scene from The Courtship of Eddie’s Father played featuring Bixby, who died in 1993.  There was a fun use of the end theme from the series too, a recognizable piano score that was always sad and highlighted what a tragic life Bruce Banner (David Banner in the TV show) had.

I enjoyed how the film used their opening credits to recount an origin that many people already knew and not have to waste time on it, though I am not sure why they did not choose to use an origin closer to the comic.  It actually seemed closer to the TV series origin.  The montage, though, was a good way to process a ton of material in a quick way and get the audience into the story.

The Incredible Hulk may not be as great as most of the MCU films, but it is better than it gets credit for and it works as a Hulk movie, which is difficult to say.

In honor of the upcoming Avengers: Endgame, the conclusion of a 22-movie arc that is unprecedented in the world of movies, I am beginning the great Marvel Cinematic Universe Movie Re-Watch leading up to Endgame’s release on April 25th. The MCU is unlike anything that has happened before and the re-watch for the Doc’s Classic Movies Reviewed section at EYG is going to be a chore.  But I am looking forward to the challenge.

We start, by following order of release, with 2008’s Iron Man.  The film that kicked the whole thing off.  Directed by Jon Favreau, and with the MCU just a pipe dream yet, Iron Man took talented and troubled Robert Downey Jr. and cast him in the role he was born to play.  You did not know before we saw the film that RDJ was perfect as the billionaire playboy.  In fact, one could argue that this film would not have worked nearly as well as it did without the quipping, funny, fully-human Robert Downey Jr. as Tony Stark.  With Downey Jr.’s spotted past, the casting was a risk, but it was a risk that paid off royally for everyone involved.

Watching Iron Man, the film is different than the current MCU formula, much darker than I remembered it.  Though you could see the Marvel formula developing as the film progressed.  Iron Man was pre-Marvel Studios (officially) and there is a look to the film that feels more like a smaller independent film than a big budget blockbuster.

One of the best parts of the film was the beginning of the on-screen relationship between Tony Stark and Pepper Potts (Gwyneth Paltrow).  The first couple in the MCU, Tony and Pepper have chemistry unlike few couples in the franchise.  Watching this pairing develop over the movies has been joyous, and seeing the origin of the match is great.  Of course, we did not see when they meet for the first time, but the film introduces the relationship in such a wonderful manner that you knew they were soulmates even when they did not.

Obadiah Stane was an underrated villain in the MCU hierarchy of villains.  As the opposite of the hero, Stane was the first of that archetype that filled MCU movies.  However, this villain is played by the always epic Jeff Bridges.  He does transition into Iron Monger a bit too quickly in the third act, but other than that, Iron Monger is way better of a villain than he gets credit for.

Terrence Howard appeared as James “Rhodey” Rhodes in this film before being replaced by Don Cheadle in Iron Man 2.  Howard was fine as Rhodey in the minimal screen time that he received, but apparently there was some behind the scenes issues that led to the change.

Iron Man was not just about a super hero in a metal suit.  It is about character, which is why these Marvel movies have been so successful.  It introduces us to characters who we fall in love with and then give us reasons to root for them.  Tony Stark could easily be a one-note character but he is deep and driven and amazingly human.  The character drama is at the heart of all of these movies, and clearly on display in Iron Man.

Iron Man also features some tense situation.  I was so worried when Pepper and Obadiah are in Tony’s office, I was so scared that something would happen to Pepper and that made me anxious.  Seeing how she is saved by Phil Coulson is cool too, with as much history as we have with that character.

It is mind boggling to think how important this film was, because, if Iron Man did not work, if it were a flop or critically panned, we would not have gotten the franchise that has entertained us for the last 10 years.  Everything that happened in Iron Man gave us the road map to what we have now and have seeds that will be paid off inside Avengers; Endgame.