Ant-Man and the Wasp: Fun, But Forgettable

After Avengers: Infinity War, Marvel probably figured that a good way to reach fans was to make them laugh. After all, they’ve just killed off half of their characters and left us all on the dark note of “the Avengers have actually been defeated, what now?” So, who do we turn to? Well, what about the fun hero from 2015 who provided the humor we needed after Age of Ultron? The problem with that is simple: while Ant-Man has been one of Marvel’s more humorous exploits, there is the same amount of history and lore with him as with any of the other superheroes that have been brought to the screen since 2008, only he’s not being used that way. The characters are getting very little growth (if any), we’re right back to where we started on poorly constructed villains, and the most interesting part of the story (the shrinking down to new environments) is not being explored to its fullest potential. The first Ant-Man was fun, but it’s become clear now that there’s no real interest in developing his story’s potential beyond that of a comic relief to tide us over until Captain Marvel and Avengers 4.

Marvel Cinematic Universe Quality Spectrum

As of July 2019, the Marvel Cinematic Universe that began in 2008 has put out twenty-three movies, all taking place within the same timeline and created universe (there are also television shows that go along with them, but honestly the Netflix shows are so dark you could almost argue they are an entirely different New York). When you’ve put out twenty-three different movies, there are bound to be some hits and some misses, and the MCU is no exception to the rule. So which ones were hits and which ones were misses? My list has been updated to include Spider-Man: Far From Home, and will continue to be updated as it goes, though there is not another officially announced movie for at least a year.

We will start at the top (aka the best Marvel movie) and work our way down. Where would you rank these movies in relation to each other?

Mystical in Marvel: The Lord of the Rings Crossover

As the Marvel Cinematic Universe (and its spin-off television shows) grows, the number of actors being cast also increases exponentially. Not only do we start to see more cross-over between actors who’ve worked together before (Chris Evans and Scarlett Johansson, for example, have worked together almost a dozen times now), we’re starting to see a great deal of influence from other large bodies of work. Heading in Marvel Phase 4, we’re noticing a recurring trend – there are quite a few cast members from Peter Jackson’s imaginings of Lord of the Rings and The Hobbit trilogies making an appearance in this world of superheroes! Some are fairly obvious, but digging through the two extended universes, it’s actually pretty interesting just how much crossover there is.