In re-watching this film with the benefit of hindsight, I have to admit I was a bit disappointed. Our introduction to Captain America (Chris Evans) in the Marvel Cinematic Universe brings us to WWII and introduces another key element of the battle between good and evil, S.H.I.E.L.D.'s evil counterpart, Hydra.

Don't get me wrong, The First Avenger is a fun film that does an adequate job of introducing an additional critical character to the world. It also gives us background on the Tesseract which contains one of the Infinity Stones that we will start to hear so much about in another few films.

The film stars with Steve Rogers as a scrawny kid who has tried multiple times to sign up for the army during the war, only to be told no every time due to a number of ailments. He tries once more and catches the attention of a former German scientist (Stanley Tucci) who brings him into a new army program testing the development of super soldiers by injecting them with a special serum. Rogers receives the injection and emerges several inches taller, and many muscles larger, immediately taking off to chase down a Nazi/Hyrda agent who sabotages the experiment.

Following his heroics, Rogers joins a traveling revue complete with a chorus line and "Hilter" himself, trying to get the country to pony up for war bonds to fund the fighting. After receiving applause across the country, the show moves to Italy, just miles from the front lines and receives a much different response. Upon hearing that his childhood friend James "Bucky" Barnes (Sebastian Stan) was captured or killed nearby, he takes it on himself to free the prisoners and receives a hero's welcome upon returning to camp.

Other than The Incredible Hulk, this film feels the most "comic-booky" in the series so far. You really get the wartime feel, even if this is not a great "war movie." It could have easily been twenty to thirty minutes longer in order to flesh out some of the story better. Trying to pack the entire backstory of America's greatest hero into a little over two hours is really tight, but with The Avengers needing to come together in the next film, it had to be done here.

Captain America: The First Avenger did not receive any nominations for Academy Awards.

Had I written this review when the film was first released, I probably would have given it a 7 or 8 out of ten. As it is, I can only muster a 6 for the film today.

​​6 out of 10

Previous: Thor | Next: Marvel's The Avengers

Get Ready for Endgame

In what might have been another dud along the lines of The Incredible Hulk, the Marvel Cinematic Universe took a turn away from Earth to introduce us to Thor, the Asgardian God of Thunder (Chris Hemsworth), along with his father Odin (Anthony Hopkins) and trickster brother Loki (Tom Hiddleston).

Thor is the introduction to two additional members of The Avengers, Thor himself along with Hawkeye (Jeremy Renner) who has a small part in this film but will expand in upcoming films. We also meet a myriad of supporting characters including Thor's friends from Asgard, Heimdall (Idris Elba), the guardian of Asgard, and the Earthbound friends Jane Foster (Natalie Portman), Dr. Erik Selvig (Stellan Skarsgård), and Darcy Lewis (Kat Dennings). Unlike The Incredible Hulk, Thor introduces these characters with ease by making them relatable and connecting them to familiar characters Agent Coulson (Clark Gregg) and Nick Fury (Samuel L. Jackson)

The story here is simple enough. Thor is the selected heir to the throne of Asgard but is also brash and searches out a fight with the Frost Giants of Jotunheim after a small band of them break into Asgard even though Odin had forbidden such action. As a reward for his insubordination, Thor is stripped of his powers, along with his hammer Mjölnir, and banished to Earth.

Odin's health takes a turn for the worse and Loki takes the opportunity to seize the throne of Asgard, sending a powerful machine to Earth to eradicate Thor. Thor must learn to accept his limitations in order to be deemed worthy of his hammer and powers once again.

We begin to see the intertwining of the stories between multiple films here with a repeat of the credits scene with Agent Coulson from Iron Man 2. We also find out the full meaning of his being sent to New Mexico and start to see the team of Avengers coming together. 

Thor did not receive any nominations for Academy Awards.

Ultimately, this is a good addition to the MCU and provides a welcome respite from fighting only earthbound foes. The inclusion of more mystical elements helps show that there is way more at stake in the universe than Tony Stark's ego or Bruce Banner's rage.

​​7 out of 10

Previous: Iron Man 2 | Next: Captain America: The First Avenger

Get Ready for Endgame

The Marvel Cinematic Universe gets back on track with the second installment in the trilogy of Iron Man films. Despite the bad guys feeling like alter egos of characters from the first film, the second Iron Man continues to provide intense action, a few doses of comedy, and budding relationships (romantic and professional) that will last through the rest of the MCU films.

We are introduced to several new characters throughout this film, from the vicious Ivan Vanko (Mickey Rourke) and the conniving Justin Hammer (Sam Rockwell) to the Tony Stark's sultry new secretary Natalie Rushman (Scarlett Johansson) who turns out to be none other than Black Widow, a S.H.I.E.L.D. agent assigned by Nick Fury (Samuel L. Jackson) to work undercover within Stark Enterprises. It may be the first time we are meeting these individuals, but they all have a realness about them allowing us to easily accept who they are and what motivates them.

​The plot here is simple, and a bit derivative of the first film. Tony is dying because of the arc reactor he build into his chest in the first film. He is back to being the flashy billionaire, only made worse as he faces his mortality and feels powerless to change it.

The two villains feel familiar and basically come across as two sides of the main villain from the first film. Hammer is the billionaire side that really wants to make money selling weapons and will go to just about any length to do so. Vanko on the other hand is the scientist side, dedicated to bringing down Stark by using the technology that their fathers worked on a generation earlier. In Vanko we see what Stark could have become, had he fallen to the "dark side," to mix film metaphors.

We are also introduced to the fact that there is a much larger story at work for the first time in this film. Agent Phil Coulson (Clark Gregg) is assigned by Fury to keep Stark under house arrest until such time as he can find a non-lethal compound to power the reactor in his chest. However, once Stark returns from breaking house arrest, Coulson announces that he's being reassigned and heading out to New Mexico, a comment that is explained in the post-credits scene. These scenes have become something of a cult favorite, but they really started hitting their stride with this scene.

Iron Man 2 received one nomination from the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences, for Best Visual Effects, but was beaten out by Inception.

In the final analysis, Iron Man 2 is a tremendous film and helped propel the MCU forward. I couldn't quite give it a full 10 out of 10 since some of the material felt a bit recycled from the first film, but applaud what it accomplished in setting the tone for the next several films in the series.

​​9 out of 10

Previous: The Incredible Hulk | Next: Thor

Get Ready for Endgame

Bruce Banner (Edward Norton) arrives with his alter ego, The Incredible Hulk, in the second film set in the Marvel Cinematic Universe.

Unlike Iron Man, The Incredible Hulk drops us right into the story with little background on how Banner found himself in this predicament other than some broken flashbacks during the opening credits. From the beginning, this film feels less cohesive, not sure exactly if it's an origin story (it's not) or a story about Hulk finding himself and becoming one of the "good guys."

Hulk also feels like it is trying to give too many nods to the past portrayals of the big green guy. Lou Ferrigno makes what feels like an obligatory cameo in one scene, Banner utters the now famous line that "you wouldn't like me when I'm angry," and Betty Ross (Liv Tyler) shows up with super baggy purple pants as an option for him to wear. While they're funny, they get old quick and you just want the film to get back to the story at hand.

That story ends up going all over the place. As I noted above, we drop in with Banner on the run in Brazil at the beginning of the film and soon end up with him making his way through Central America back to the U.S. to try and find a mysterious "Mr. Blue" he has been communicating with online. The core cast is small, including Norton, Tyler, William Hurt as Ross's father, General Thaddeus Ross, and Tim Roth as Emil Blonsky, the special forces soldier tasked with taking down Banner. There is little chemistry between any of the actors and similar levels of character development. The filmmakers try to show the relationship between Betty and Banner during one scene with them together in a cave, but it falls flat.

One last note is the effects in this film. It is obvious that Hulk is entirely computer animated throughout the film, but the animation here looks generally cartoonish. In many scenes, Hulk doesn't feel like he's part of the world so much as animated on top of the scenery around him. There is also some inconsistency in the size of the Hulk. In certain scenes he appears to be a mere 10-12 feet tall while in others,like when he rips apart a police car to use as boxing gloves, he comes across much bigger.

It may not be fair to compare this film to Iron Man as the two characters are from different worlds, but after the thrill of the first MCU film, this one is a big disappointment. Unlike Iron Man, it was not nominated for any Academy Awards. If you're going through the films to catch up like I am, this is worth a watch, but this is definitely one of the lesser MCU films.

​​5 out of 10

Previous: Iron Man | Next: Iron Man 2

Get Ready for Endgame

The first of (currently) twenty one films that make up the Marvel Cinematic Universe kicked off a grand story arc that has taken over ten years to tell. It spans films, television series, and comic books and a cast of thousands both in front of and behind the camera.

Iron Man was our introduction to Robert Downey, Jr. as Tony Stark, the fast-talking, womanizing businessman who is kidnapped by Middle Eastern terrorists that want him to build them a new weapon to use against their Western foes. Stark uses the materials they provide him to build his first Iron Man suit and lead an escape from captivity.

​We get to see the progression of the Iron Man suit throughout the film from a crude first model developed in a Syrian cave to the version we know from the trailers and posters we've seen over the last decade. The film also presents the early hints at a developing, yet complex, relationship between Tony and his assistant, Pepper Potts.

As an introduction to a central character in the entire series of films, this works very well, giving us a look into Tony as the playboy (including greeting the Stan Lee cameo by calling him "Hef") but also showing that while he can be a loose cannon at times, he ultimately wants to do the right thing. We will continue to see this conflict through many more films, but this first installment serves to set up that story line.

The film was nominated for two Academy Awards in 2009 (Best Sound Editing and Best Visual Effects) but failed to win in either category.

​​8 out of 10

Next: The Incredible Hulk

Get Ready for Endgame

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