Avengers: Infinity War comes out this weekend and we still have three movies left in our Marvel Studios retrospective series. The goal is to catch you up before you head out to see what is the biggest film yet in the Marvel Cinematic Universe opening weekend (you are going to see it this weekend, right?). Let’s get to it, shall we?
Spider-Man: Homecoming was a nice play on words as the movie was set during the time of year for Peter’s high school Homecoming dance but also the movie itself was a homecoming for Spider-Man. In order to save itself from complete financial ruin, Marvel sold off many of its most popular heroes to other film companies, Spider-Man being at the top of that list. For years Sony has tried their hand at making Spider-Man movies, some of them being more successful than others.
It was not an insignificant thing when Kevin Feige and Marvel made a deal with Sony to allow Spider-Man to be in the MCU. Not only was Spider-Man “coming home” as it were, but fans also began speculating what could happen if Marvel made a similar deal with Fox. Then, Disney announced it was acquiring Fox and fans went nuts. What would it look like for the Fantastic Four or the X-Men to join the MCU?
The movie itself did what all the other Spider-Man movies failed to do which is give us someone who is convincing both as Spider-Man and as Peter Parker. It also did what many other MCU movies have failed to do which is give us an interesting and compelling villain.
As a life-long Spider-Man fan, I have my criticisms of the movie, but as a whole it is a great addition to the MCU line up and its nice to see the Web head back under Marvel’s umbrella.
Next up is Thor: Ragnarok. Chris Hemsworth as Thor and Tom Hiddleston as Loki have been fan favorites since the 2011, but despite that, the Thor movies themselves are often at the bottom of fans’ lists of favorite MCU movies. The third entry in the Thor franchise needed to shake things up and shake things up Thor: Ragnarok did. Taika Waititi breathed new life into the franchise by bringing in his sense of humor and visuals that, honestly, connect this movie more to the Guardians of the Galaxy movies than with the previous Thor movies.
Ragnarok also put some of the final pieces into place that sets the stage for Infinity War including revealing that the gauntlet in Odin’s treasure room is a fake, showing us how Loki gets the Tesseract back and giving us our first glimpse of Thanos’ ship.
The last movie on our list is Black Panther. It’s hard to understate the significance of this movie not just for the MCU but for cinema and pop culture in general. That said, since the movie has only been out a few months, it’s also hard to really understand what its full impact will be over the next few years (this also makes it hard to do a “retrospective” for the movie). What I can say is that Black Panther widen the scope of the MCU in some really interesting ways that I can’t wait to see explored in the next few years.
What’s your favorite Marvel Cinematic Movie? How have your opinions changed over the years?
Honestly… probably either Captain America: The First Avenger or The Incredible Hulk.
I just LOVE Hulk more than anyone else in the MCU so I had more fun watching his movie. It’s not the most well made but I think it’s the most enjoyable for me.
And CA: TFA just nails it. Just so perfectly nostalgically retro wholesome.
Gotta love GotG too because they’re basically National Lampoons versions of Star Wars with a surprising amount of heart and depth.
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