So, I'm adding this to the Dr Strange thread...
Variety's film critics, Owen Gliberman and Peter Debruge, have
ranked all the movies in the Marvel Cinematic Universe. I think they took a ball peen hammer and whacked each other in the head a few times before doing it. Here is their ranking.
- Guardians of the Galaxy
- Dr. Strange
- Captain America: The Winter Soldier
- Iron Man
- The Avengers
- Iron Man 3
- Captain America: The First Avenger
- Thor
- Captain America: Civil War
- The Incredible Hulk
- Ant Man
- Iron Man 2
- Avengers: Age of Ultron
- Thor: The Dark World
I think we can all agree that list is certifiably insane. Once you see Dr. Strange, you will certainly agree with me that it is waaaay too high. I think The Incredible Hulk is also too high. Civil War is much lower than it should be. I'm barely comfortable including Guardians in the cannon as it is set in an utterly different set of circumstances than all the others (maybe 2% of Guardians takes place in our world, all the others -- even the Thor films -- are grounded in some Earth-bound realities).
In any event, I would probably rank them thusly:
- The Avengers
- Captain America: Civil War
- Iron Man
- Captain America: The Winter Soldier
- Guardians of the Galaxy
- Thor
- Iron Man 3
- Avengers: Age of Ultron
- Captain America: The First Avenger
- Dr. Strange
- Ant Man
- Thor: The Dark World
- The Incredible Hulk
- Iron Man 2
To me, there are tiers here. The first 4 are amazing and I could put them in just about any order. Guardians is a close 5th. It is a bit of a drop down from those films to the tier that goes from Thor to Ant Man. These are all really good movies that are a solid notch below the best but still very watchable and bear up through repeat viewings. The bottom three are kinda weak. Loki almost saves The Dark World, but the ending battle with the lead Dark Elf is just horrible. Incredible Hulk and Iron Man 2 are so bad, if they were on my TV right now, I would channel surf to see if I could find something better (something I do not do with any of the other films on this list unless I have seen them very recently).
-Jason "once folks see Dr. Strange, I hope they too will chime in" Evans