My MCU race to watch every Marvel film before Avengers: Endgame
See you April 26.
Before I started this binge two weeks ago, I'd never seen a Marvel movie. Now I've seen six, up through 2012's The Avengers, and I can't wait for more. This one's for all the Marvels.
It all started on March 17, when I gave myself an assignment to see every single film in the Marvel Cinematic Universe before Avengers: Endgame comes out on April 26.
Yes, I'd heard of most of the characters and seen more than my share of Marvel clips as part of my job reviewing TVs for CNET. And I love movies. But I have a serious aversion to starting any story in the middle, I missed the boat on the first few films and since none of them seemed super-interesting until the last few, I shunted them off into the vast uncharted land of "stuff I'll maybe catch up on later."
Later is now. With Avengers: Endgame coming out in less than a month, it's time to finally open my eyes to that cultural blind spot. But I can't just start at the Endgame. I want to watch all of the movies in the MCU, in the right order. Lucky for me, there's an updated canon for that:
How to watch every Marvel movie in the perfect order
One of the MCU experts at CNET, Caitlin Petrakovitz, redesigned her entire Marvel TV show and movie timeline on March 28 -- which happens to be my birthday. Best present ever. Lucky for me she didn't change the order of the ones I'd watched already (I'm skipping TV shows, at least for now). March 28 also happens to be the day I watched The Avengers for the first time, full of cake, enchiladas and sour patch kids.
Avengers: Endgame countdown: How to stream every Marvel movie before April 26
Six down, fifteen to go. Here's my progress and impressions including my live tweeting as I watched each MCU film.
I really liked it. I was totally unfamiliar with the story. The CGI'd small-to-large hero, the Captain's stage career and the period setting in general were refreshing highlights.
This scene from Captain America reminds me of the perspective shot from Fellowship with huge Gandalf and tiny Frodo on the wagon. pic.twitter.com/DUdSRK0FV5
Even better. Tony Stark's playboy character threw me at first but the awesomeness of his gadgets, his personal quest to make real power armor, and the overall humor really won me over.
Starting Iron Man. I can't imagine any scion of a military contractor getting such scads of good press today. Also, there were a lot more magazines in 2008. https://t.co/z0FjelJOVj pic.twitter.com/fI19kWZH6W
Not good. It had its moments, particularly during the setup and with the introduction of wacky Mr. Blue. But overall it's much more of a downer than the first two, and kinda plodded along.
The Incredible Hulk. People have told me it's one of the worst, totally skippable, etc. But I'm no skipper. I'm in it for the whole enchilada. And it's Edward Norton. How bad can it be? https://t.co/SGYWuyxmiw pic.twitter.com/YQDYX7qQvP
Not as good as the first one but still thoroughly enjoyable, especially after The Incredible Hulk. The quintessential scene was Tony drunk at his own birthday party shooting the watermelon. Priceless.
My biggest question going into this one is how he can openly be a super hero, no secret identity, just living his billionaire life as Iron Man. Also, psyched to see Samuel L's real Nick Fury credit! pic.twitter.com/SeUDXKBQeu
All of a sudden the super heroes are gods. There's magic, space travel and mythology set in a breathtaking new fantasy multiverse. To this nerdy D&D alum, Thor was manna from Asgard.
Frost Giants, magical melee weapons, a whirlwind LOTR-style catchup voiceover intro covering Norse mythology: I'm in my element already with this one. Psyched. https://t.co/SGYWuyxmiw pic.twitter.com/Ec3lOzhesJ
Easily the best one yet, and a contender for my top 10 favorite movies of all time. All those personalities, motivations and superpowers kept me enthralled without becoming entangled. Another level altogether.
Tesseract is misbehaving in my house, my house #TheAvengers2012 https://t.co/SGYWuyOXa4 pic.twitter.com/76HXJNUDzn
Next up are Iron Man 3 and Thor: The Dark World. If you want to follow along or have any comments or suggestions, hit me up on Twitter. Just one request: no spoilers.
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