My Review of the All the Phase Two Marvel Movies

Again, my brothers (and sometimes dad) and I are watching all relevant Marvel movies before Infinity Wars is released. We just finished watching Phase Two. (Sadly, even though Big Hero 6 was released during Phase Two, it's not canonically significant, so we didn't watch that one. Though a small part of me thinks it would be hilarious if all Big Hero 6 characters were cartoonily CGIed into Infinity Wars.)

Here's what I thought of Phase Two.

Iron Man 3: A hot, nonsensical mess with a flimsy emotional base. +10 for the cute kid, the cool battle with the suits at the end, and the funny Bruce Banner cameo. -10 million for RESOLVING ALL THE PROBLEMS AT THE END OF THE MOVIE WITH A FEW LINES OF THROWAWAY DIALOGUE?!!

Thor: The Dark World: I don't understand why Iron Man's sequels are merely numbered while everyone else's sequels get subtitles. That being said, a better name for this movie would be Space Lord of the Rings. Although I get that Tolkien's stories were built heavily off of Norse, Saxon, and Welsh mythology, it's not great that I was able to crack some really on-point Lord of the Rings jokes the entire time. It showed that the movie was wanting originality. However, there are some cool moments. I really like Darcy and Ian the intern (and I'm sad that they've been outed from the MCU). But frankly, although there are significant improvements over Thor's first adventure, the whole thing is strongly tinged with boredom and confusion. And it ends with Thor thinking Loki is dead which, um, happened at the end of the first Thor movie...right? Either way, I still don't care very much about Thor or Loki.

Captain America: The Winter Soldier: I already gave a few thoughts on this movie, but I'm going to re-emphasize how needlessly violent it is. There's a scene of...ten minutes? twenty minutes? where Nick Fury takes machine-gunfire during a car chase. Sorry, but I wanted to see Captain America be adorable, not see Nick Fury get shot to pieces. Also, there is quite a bit of dragging. And so. Much. Broken glass!!! (The subtitle should more accurately be "Breaking Glass.") But we meet Falcon, who has grown on me a lot recently.

Guardians of the Galaxy: This was the second Marvel movie I saw in theaters. It represents a significant and welcome shift in Marvel movies: a commitment to cut back on the boring stuff and take themselves even less seriously than they already did. It's rougher and cruder than previous Marvel movies, but I think the characters are excellent and well-cast, and the space adventures are far more compelling than Thor's.

Avengers: Age of Ultron: This movie weighs itself down so unnecessarily. Ultron speaks in weird poetic phrases (I think the idea is that his speech patterns are canned from human culture, but it just kind of comes across like the studio could only afford a philosophy major to write the dialogue). Hawkeye is secretly married even though we all know that he loves Black Widow (I am still pretending this never happened). Black Widow believes she's as much of a monster as the Hulk because neither of them can have children (I don't think that's what they're trying to say, but it kind of comes across that way). The movie seems 50% longer than it actually is. But the Vision is pretty cool, and the Avengers finally acknowledge the existence of the infinity stones.

Ant-Man: I honestly believe this is one of the best Marvel movies. It's got good heart, it's sharp and fast-paced, and its characters are likable and relatable. It is similar to Guardians of the Galaxy and gives off a similar vibe, but it's able to play off criminal-turned-hero differently enough that it works.