MCU Rewatch

We are into phase 2 for our MCU rewatch and thus we have watched Iron Man 3 and Thor: The Dark World. These are regarded as two of the worst films in the MCU so we are going to talk about them. Are they really that bad? Or was the first impression so terrible that simply no one has gone back to check in the last decade. Well we had to and the overall result is that these movies are, in fact, not great. But why? And how could we have fallen so far from the quality that was phase 1?

We will start at the beginning of phase 2 with Iron Man 3. The third film in the Iron Man trilogy falls not quite as far from the original as the second film did but it is still a far cry from the success of the film that started the MCU. Now I will say that the film did maintain the Iron Man specific brand of humor, sarcasm and action. However it lacked in about every other aspect. We were teased with the Mandarin, which was not paid off and was in fact made a joke of. And then we had the fact that most of the character and story was centered on Tony’s mental health and none of that was paid off either. It truly could have been one of the MCU’s best films, it could have given an honest look at the consequences of being a superhero. But we only got a glimpse of Tony’s PTSD and his anxiety and then he was magically healed by the end of the film. They wasted too much time on half baked external villains when we could have simply explored the healing of a broken hero. So much was promised in this film and it simply fell flat. And due to its potential it really felt worse when the film didn’t live up to what it could have been. Therefore it is ruled that Iron Man 3 was in fact bad.

Now we get to Thor: The Dark World. The second film in Thor’s original trilogy often gets a bad review, is that justified? The short answer is yes. There is a reason that until Eternals it was the lowest ranked MCU film on pretty much every review site. Thor: The Dark World’s biggest problem is that it's boring, and inconsistent with the first Thor film. It is very clear that the writers and director didn’t really have a clear vision, nor did they think it was important to actually contribute to the franchise. What makes me most upset personally is that we could have had Patty Jenkins direct this movie but the writers and the production sucked so hard that she left and that is wildly disappointing to me. But now I have Wonder Woman and we all had to suffer through this abysmal excuse for a sequel. Though not as bad as Iron Man 2, it still cements itself as one of the worst MCU movies.

As it stands now these are two of the lowest ranking films though the second Iron Man movie still remains at the bottom. Turns out that revisiting them years later reveals that they do not hold up and they are as bad as you remember them. The films in phase 2 can only be described as mediocre at best, though they do a great job of setting up phase 3, widely regarded as the best era of MCU films. As we continue we will not shy away from calling out the missteps that Marvel made and those missteps have evolved into even the latest movies being produced.