Far From Home Ends the Saga

We’re twenty-three films deep into the Marvel universe now, and we’ve officially reached the end of Phase 3. Comic-Con just announced the movies coming to the line-up, as well as the TV shows coming to the new Disney Streaming Service (which I kind of hate myself for wanting to get). So, when Spider-Man: Far From Home hit theaters, it needed to be the perfect closer; we said goodbye to the original six Avengers (at least in the way that we knew them), and now it was time for us to say goodbye to the MCU as we knew it, because it’s all going to change from here. Because of that change, Far From Home not only had to outperform its Homecoming predecessor; it had to be one of the MCU’s best (while being helmed by Sony). And, though sometimes it’s connection to the last MCU film is a little shaky (honestly there needed to be a short or something about the effects of what happened in Avengers: Endgame because no movie was going to satisfactorily explain how things changed), but as an overall film, it’s a great time. It’s fun, it’s fresh, it’s completely different from the first film, and it’s a great way to not only deal with the changing of a universe we know and love, but to enjoy the fact that it’s changing. It’s not the same, but if Far From Home is any indication, that doesn’t have to be a bad thing.

Avengers: Endgame – The Unpacking

After Avengers: Endgame came out in theaters, I saw Marvel fans take to social media to say that now the series with the original characters has ended, they are finished with Marvel movies. I personally can’t understand that mindset – how can you have come this far, seen the stories of these amazing characters play out, and not care about how they move forward from here? Maybe Marvel has successfully brainwashed me, but short of a film on the same level of The Incredible Hulk, I can’t imagine just deciding to give it all up now. And Avengers: Endgame, with its crazy-long run-time, bouts of fan-service nostalgia, and occasional hurried misuse of the story we’ve come to know and love, never stoops to the lower levels of the Quality Spectrum. Though it never quite matches the intensity and magnitude of Avengers: Infinity War (despite being a good half hour longer), it still ends in a way that brings closure to an audience who’s followed it for almost ten years. Whether you’re happy or upset (should be more of the former, I think), Avengers: Endgame feels like the end of the story that the characters have built to, and it closes the book on a pretty great chapter in the MCU. While I have included a score at the end of this post (like always), I feel that this is less of a review and more of an unpacking of all of the elements that make up the film. You can understand my point of view and take that as a review if you wish, but it’s intended to look at the different pieces of this large movie and understand how they came together, as well as what did and didn’t work.

Black Panther: All Hail the King

For many years, Marvel has been trying to shake things up and give us a movie that seems new, fresh, special. Black Panther, which was already following in the steps of Wonder Woman by creating a superhero for a very specific demographic – black viewers, who have yet to see a superhero who looks like them take the role of the main hero – has also become the shake-up that Marvel needed, a new type of superhero movie that we all needed. Instead of focusing on just the hero and his commitment to fighting his specific bad guy, Black Panther tells the story of a country, a history, a people who are vibrant and breathing and alive, bringing a new life to superhero films that does not just focus on one character or one team. Black Panther focuses on a whole new world, and its characters both inhabit it and bring it to life in a way that we haven’t seen from Marvel yet.

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?