Which of the 5 Avengers Prequels Is the Best?
The movie I have waited my entire life to see arrives in all its IMAX and 3D glory this week. My desire for this movie to happen echoes in the declaration of its director, Joss Whedon, who said at ComicCon, “I have had a dream, all my life, and it was not this good!”
The Avengers is the culmination of years of planning by the folks behind Marvel’s modern movie successes. It is what Robert Downey, Jr. said it is: the most ambitious movie I’ve ever seen.
What makes this movie so fantastic is how they have been able to build up with five different movies, each essentially a prequel to this one. And then they were able to bring the original actors — with the exception of Ed Norton or Eric Bana for the Hulk — and put them all in one epic.
Each of those movies stood on their own feet as blockbusters, but some were better than others. Which was the best? Why was one not as good as the others?
Great questions. Let’s find out. Starting with the movie that was, ironically, the weakest of the five:
The Incredible Hulk
This is the second installment of the Hulk, building off of the awful Ang Lee version without even acknowledging it.
The one thing I hear about this movie is how great Ed Norton is as Bruce Banner.
Sorry. I’m just not seeing it.
In fact, I think Norton’s performance is overshadowed by Tim Roth’s. When you watch the trailer, it reminds you just how well Roth embodied the attitude of Emil Blonsky, a confidence that mutates into arrogance before devolving into an unrestrained lust for power.
Roth’s performance allows you to accept that the flawed super-soldier formula not only amplified Blonsky physically, but mentally. The arrogance and recklessness are boosted, leading him to eventually force Sam Sterns to give him the power the Hulk has and, incidentally, creating yet another Hulk villain in Sterns. That was well done and possibly sets up the premise for the next Hulk movie.
Bottom line: Roth acted circles around the others in this film.
And I’ve already talked about my thoughts on General Thunderbolt Ross.
The scenes with the Hulk look amazing and the action sequences are some of the best ever in a comic book movie. The movie also does a great job in humanizing the Hulk, showing that he isn’t just a mindless monster, but can act out of love and concern for others.
Overall, the movie is a great way to further the character without actually rebooting him, and by itself was a great adaption of the comic to film. But it’s just not as good as the other films that help bring <em>The Avengers</em> to life.
Iron Man 2
Robert Downey, Jr. returns as genius, billionaire, playboy philanthropist Anthony Stark and he was every bit as good as the first time. In this movie, Mickey Rourke brilliantly plays the villain Ivan Vanko, an amalgam of two classic Iron Man villains.
In the comics, Anton Vanko created the Crimson Dynamo armor for the Soviet Union and was tasked with destroying Iron Man. Over the years many different pilots wore variations of the Crimson Dynamo armor.
The other villain is Whiplash, who had never been a Vanko. Originally a brilliant scientist working for Stark, he felt unrecognized for his work. So, like any rational person, he created an electrified bullwhip weapon that could rip through almost any metal and went to work for organized crime.
The movie takes these two and mashes them into one, and not for the better. Were Rourke to play the original Anton Vanko, employed by the current Russian government to create a Russian version of the Iron Man armor, aka the Crimson Dynamo, and motivated by the same need to redeem his father’s name, it would have been a much better adaptation of the comic.
Same if he were to play Mark Scarlotti, the original Whiplash, and be a disgruntled employee who turns to a life of crime.
For the fanboy, it was difficult to see the mashup. At the end, I was thinking, “Oh, great. They took Whiplash and put him in a super powered suit.”
And what’s with Sam Rockwell as Justin Hammer?
Now that I think about it, that casting calamity should have been included here.
I liked the depth the movie brought to the relationship between Tony Stark and his father. Busy fathers can relate to characters like Stark, pulled in a hundred different directions and inadvertently making your kids feel unloved, all while you work to provide a better future for them. I thought Downey did a great job showing how Tony Stark now understood his father for the first time, and began to love him.
Finally, the movie introduces us to the Black Widow, played by Scarlett Johansson. Her origin couldn’t be farther from the comics, but to the non-fanboy, it works well as a way to introduce her to the films. Was she needed? No. I would’ve preferred the Wasp, but then, I’m picky like that.
As with The Incredible Hulk, this wasn’t a bad movie. I enjoy watching it. It just wasn’t as solid as the next three.
Thor
The movie did justice to Asgard. They took the comic’s creation and spared nothing to bring it to life.
True, there were some changes from the original. While Odin still casts Thor out of Asgard to teach him humility, he doesn’t take his memory and put him in the body of Donald Blake. But really, there’s no time for that. Thor needed this modification of the history and it worked.
And brilliant casting: everyone from Chris Hemsworth as Thor to Tom Hiddleston as Loki not only fit the bill, but acted the part. And Anthony Hopkins as Odin? Inspired.
Also, note how closely they kept to the comic with The Destroyer. Here’s a side-by-side comparison:
A menacing weapon of mass destruction.
The action slows down in the middle, but it was necessary to build the relationship between Thor and Natalie Portman’s Jane Foster (that’s the key to Thor regaining his power). I don’t think the lack of action detracts from the picture.
There were really only two things I could say about this movie that are not positive. First, it introduces us to a new character in SHIELD agent Clint Barton, referred to only as “Barton.” This is a wild departure from the comic book origin of the character, who actually started out as an Iron Man villain. It seemed like they were trying to force a character they wanted in The Avengers into the story, but I suppose to someone unfamiliar with the comics, it makes sense.
I didn’t like it. I would have preferred Hawkeye wasn’t used. Why not find a way to introduce Henry Pym instead? At least he was one of the original Avengers and would look epic fighting Loki’s army in New York City as Giant Man.
The other problem I had was the fact that Volstagg wasn’t towering over the other members of the Warriors Three. I know, a minor point that only fanboys would notice. But we noticed.
A fantastic movie that took us closer to The Avengers, and left the door open for future Thor sequels, which are being worked on now.
Captain America: The First Avenger
Like Thor, this was just a beautiful film. No expense was spared in creating a World War II setting for the movie, from the pre-Super-Soldier Steve Rogers to the fighting with Red Skull in the final battle.
Chris Evans, hot off his role as the Human Torch in the botched Fantastic Four movies, takes the role of Steve Rogers and owns it. A little CGI is needed to make him small and wimpy, but it is seemless. Evans plays Steve Rogers, bringing to life a man who is noble, brave and humble, only wanting to help his country. Given the opportunity to take the Super-Soldier formula, Rogers steps up and becomes Captain America.
The story was basically true to the comic, except for a few points which don’t really take anything away from the overall movie. First, Bucky Barnes was more than just a friend to Captain America in the comics. He was his teenage sidekick, trained by the military and assigned to help Captain America. Even by the most liberal suspensions of disbelief, this would be hard to swallow. The change was necessary.
The second change, and one that bothered me more, was the lack of adamantium in Cap’s shield. Howard Stark presents him different options for a shield when Cap finds one he likes. He asks what it’s made of and Stark resonds, “Vibranium. Stronger than steel and a third the weight.”
How hard would it have been to say, “A mixture of vibranium and adamantium. Vibranium will absorb the impact of a hit and adamantium is the strongest metal know to man.” There was really no reason to leave Marvel’s signature metal out of the film.
It’s a minor point, but it bothered me.
The rest of the film is fantastic. The costume for Captain America is very realistic and true to the comic. I know, in the comic the uniform is chain mail or scale mail. Leather was a more realistic option.
Hugo Weaving’s portrayal of the Red Skull was spot on.
There’s very little not to like about this movie. And the ending took us to The Avengers.
But first we need to talk about…
Iron Man
This is the best Marvel comic book movie ever.
The movie took the comic and brought it to today. Rather than being captured in Southeast Asia, Tony Stark is kidnapped in the Middle East and forced to create a weapon for a terrorist leader. Instead, Stark works with a fellow prisoner to build a rough suit of high-tech armor for his escape.
I loved two things about this. First, they didn’t blow off this part of the origin story. They spent time here, showing the relationship between Tony and Ho Yinsen, the man who helped make the armor.
Second was how true to the book they made the armor look. Another side by side is necessary to appreciate it:
As I wrote before, casting Robert Downey, Jr. as Tony Start was one one of the best decisions ever made in comic book movie history. He plays the role masterfully.
And I think because of him, Iron Man is one of the more popular comic book movies. The character is cool, but Downey brings so much cool factor with him, it adds to the attraction of the film.
Overall, the movie shows how flippant Stark is about matters of no importance to him, and how matters that once were trivial become center stage. It creates a motivation for a selfish, egocentric billionaire playboy to become an armored super-hero who risks his life to help the helpless.
Throw a little AC/DC in the soundtrack and you have the coolest super-hero ever, making it possible to spend millions on future comic book movies, ultimately leading up to May 4th and the U.S. opening of The Avengers.
All of the movies were enjoyable and stand by themselves. But like The Avengers director Joss Whedon said at ComicCon, this team is more than the sum of the parts.
I know you disagree with me, so just say: Which movie was your favorite? Which did you like least? And what did I get wrong? Let me know in the comments.
Not a Fan Boy here, more of a Dilettante but,
That being said.. I would them in the following order from least to best.
5. Thor.. it was well acted and had a spectacular cast, but the visuals reminded me of Highlander 2 the Quickening.. arguably the worst movie of all time.
4. The Incredible Hulk.. While head an shoulders above the Ang Lee abortion, I still found the plot ponderous and slow moving.
3. Captain America… An enjoyable film, well shot and acted, but never really had me on the edge of my seat..
the Top two slots were a tossup… and I know I might get grief for this choice but here goes..
2. Iron Man.. Excellent film, Downey JR is excellent..Effects were great plot was good, action sequences Top Notch.. However… The Battle with Iron Monger at the end.. Formulaic and Cliche.. thats why it leads me to..
# 1.. Iron Man 2.. Loved the Congressional Hearing where Downey Jr called the Goverment “a$$clowns” and told them they couldnt have his Personal Property. Rockwell played Justin Hammer like a completely smarmy D-Bag, down to the Self tanner on his hands when he meets Vanko. Loved the thing with Starks Father, Tony facing death from the Palladium and emotionally coming apart from it.. I didnt care one whit that they combined the Crimson Dynamo and Whiplash.. Didnt care about Scarlett Jo in it, she was window dressing. I thought Don Cheadle was much better than Terrance Howard as Rhodey… I could go on… but I wont
CDM
Please forgive me for my attrocious spelling, capitalization and punctuation.
I was typing at a mile a minute.
“Highlander 2 the Quickening.. arguably the worst movie of all time”
I had really enjoyed the first Highlander, and when I heard they were making a sequel i was excited. Made sure to see it the weekend it opened.
The last of my youthful hope and faith in mankind was brutally torn away that day.
There can only be one.
Highlander 2: The Sickening.
There should have been only one.
Yeah, but that’s some damn nice window dressing.
Great list just reverse Incredible Hulk and I.M. 2 Hulk suffered another miscast with Liv Tyler as Betty so they got all the Ross family wrong. I.M 2 had some great comedic moments but the joining of two of his enemies into one bad one ruined it, and Happy came of as a total idiot. Everything else was spot on.
I have to go with the Iron Man movies as well, with 2 slightly edging out the 1st. Downey’s Stark was so well played that he actually became less interesting when he put the suit on.
Solid casting for the secondary roles as well. I slightly preferred Bridges’ Stane to Rourke’s Whiplash, but both were excellent. I think one reason that the Iron Man comic had always been a second tier one for Marvel was that the character never had any well-defined archnemesis. X-Men had Magneto, the Fantastic Four had Doctor Doom, but the best Iron Man could muster was the Mandarin. (Don’t think I’ve read a new comic in 20+ years, but for years I was an unabashed Marvel nerd…)
As an added bonus, Tony Stark may have the one garage that Jay Leno would look at with envy. If you can get past the shock of horror at the fate of the Cobra in the 1st film. Just keep telling yourself “it was only a kitcar…it was only a kitcar”.
I totally concur on the garage..
I had the same thought in IM1 – not the Cobra!
Iron Man 1 then Iron Man 2. The other three were fun, but are utterly forgettable. I can watch Iron Man 1 and 2 everyday and still be entertained.
Iron Man 1, Cap, and Thor are REALLY close to each other in terms of quality. I honestly don’t know which one I’d give the top slot to, though I might actually lean against Iron Man, simply because the villain’s grand plan doesn’t quite measure up:
– Loki: win father’s favor through genocide
– Red Skull: decapitate every major world power in one strike
– Stane: …uh, escape the feds?
Iron Man 2, though still awesome, I’d rank as the weakest. At first it sets itself up to be the most ambitious and substantive, by asking an interesting, challenging question: can one man be trusted to wield so much power autonomously? When Tony gets drunk in what’s basically a WMD, threatens his guests, and demolishes his house, the answer seems to be no, which was pretty gutsy, making you wonder how our hero will redeem himself. And then…..they almost completely ignore it for the rest of the movie. Tony doesn’t make amends, Nick Fury doesn’t care, Pepper and Rhodey only treat him like it’s just a personal dispute, and nobody else brings it up. Plus, we really don’t see Tony proactively being heroic all that much.
Lastly, one point about Cap’s shield: adamantium is probably tied up with the X-Men film rights, making it off limits to Marvel Studios.
Hey! Escaping the feds would actually be more difficult than decapitating all the major world powers, or winning a god’s favor through genocide!
Seriously, I am generally bored by action pictures and am NOT a comics nerd – I consider the entire panoply a mere footnote to Will Eisner, so there – and I like these movies. They’re doing something right to draw in the rest of us.
“Captain America.” Now one of my top ten movies of all time. I had been waiting about 40 years to see that movie!
I never cared for Cap until I saw the movie. It had a great pulp feel in an Indiana Jones kind of way. Very enjoyable.
Mrs. Emma Peel will always be the best Avenger.
– all these comics back in the Sixties, it is amazing to see them go from varying forms of animation to poor television adaptations to superlative 3-D special effect CGI films. Stan Lee, in his 90 years, lived to see it; just wish Jack Kirby had too.
While I read all the Marvel comics I could get my hands on back in the day, I haven’t seen any of the movies listed, at least not all the way through. Whatever fanboy points you give the logic, I find them painful to watch, they don’t work as movies.
LOTR worked reasonably well as a movie, it was both (mostly) true to the books and the media translation was done brilliantly. And hey, maybe the source material was stronger, too.
I waited impatiently for decades until the CGI could bring us comic book movies, but like any move adaptation of a good book, success is rare. All the hype of this Avengers, well, we’ll see.
A lot of the virtue in comic books is the great art of the drawings. The whole idea of guys in their underwear saving the universe maybe works better at lo res, at hi res you look at it and at least I can’t keep from going, “hey what?”
Iron Man by a wide margin. Everything was simply perfect.
I’d put The Hulk next. I simply liked Ed Norton as Banner, and while Tim Roth overshadowed him that seems a common element in these superhero comic movies where the hero is expected to have carry over effect but the villain only gets one shot at being relevant.
Next is Captain America, which was generally good but seemed to be missing that extra something to make a major classic.
Then Iron Man 2. It suffered from having two villains, which wound up in neither getting sufficient character development, and seemed a bit forced in getting Jim Rhodes into a suit of armor, but it still had a solid performance from Robert Downey Jr.
Thor comes in last. While the characters and setting were well done, too much of the story came off as just a set up for The Avengers, unlike the other movies which had solid standalone stories. Thor just doesn’t have that without knowing The Avengers is coming next.
About the “botched” Fantastic Four movies: the problem was in the portrayal of Reed Richards and Sue Storm, and their relationship. In the original comic (memories of fifty years past coming to the fore, here), Reed Richards was a strong, confident man — a brilliant and hard-working scientist who did not lack for confidence. Sue Storm, likewise, was a strong woman, confident woman who nonetheless did not have her future husband’s ambition or intellect. Richards had rivals for Sue’s heart (Prince Namor, for one), but was generally confident that he would win in the end, and if not, life would go on. Like any alpha male.
The curse of modern movies is they have to make the woman into a man’s rival. If he’s strong, she has to be stronger. If he’s smart, she has to be smarter. I. Am. Freaking. Woman. It gets old.
Ioan Gruffudd’s Reed Richards (and I like Gruffudd’s work, he was terrific in the Hornblower series), not to put too fine a spin on it, was a wimp. Effortlessly browbeaten both by his erstwhile rival, Victor von Doom, and even by his erstwhile fiance, Richards was portrayed as a passive, desperate ‘yes’ man. Sue had to chew him out at one point for being such a wuss, and still fell for him again anyway? Not in any parallel world I’m familiar with. Women don’t like wimps, and they won’t marry them.
But to make the woman stronger, too many writers take the easy way out, of making the man look weaker. And besides, lovely as she is, Jessica Alba was miscast as Sue Storm. The Sue Storm of the comic book was not a flashy beauty — more Earth-mother than pole dancer. She was tall and dignified and not a youngster — someone more along the lines of Teri Polo.
I really disliked the last Hulk movie. I thought the Ang Lee one was much better – I wish they had just made a sequel.
Otherwise, I liked Iron Man the best followed by Thor, Captain America, and Iron Man 2.
My girlfriend is 50 -ish and has never read a comic book in her life. She is an interior designer, gardener, furniture restorer. You get the picture. She loved Iron Man.
I agree with your ranking.
#7 – Yes
#11 – Also yes. Johnny Storm and the Thing were great, but I also am sick of the Hollywood “war on Real Men”.
Yeah because we all know that “real men” are just like Stark and Bannner.
A difficult comparison, but I suppose that I enjoyed Captain America the most. It is a well-told origin story, with plenty of character development; like Spiderman, or Batman Begins, or X-Men: First Class.
Iron Man is also an origin story, but I got the feeling that it was a bit rushed. I got the same feeling with Thor. Still pretty good though.
The Incredible Hulk is underrated in my opinion; the plot gets a bit confusing towards the end, but “Hulk, Smash!” is worth the price of admission.
I’d rate Iron Man, Thor, and Hulk about the same, and unfortunately I missed Iron Man 2.
I’m 53 so I remember when comics were 12¢. I wish I would have saved mine.
I think all the movies were great and yah, Iron Man was the best ride of them all. It seems the Avengers side of the Marvel universe, and Spiderman, got all the good scripts.
Is DCs Superman just too damn over “powered” to get a good script? The international-male version of Superman we got in the last installment was even worse than the Chris Reeve Superman movies. At least we have the Dark Knight.
Admittedly not a movie, but the Smallville series did a generally decent job with the character once they moved past the ‘freak of the week’ early shows and started to develop the character arcs.
The Luthors, especially Lionel (John Glover), probably had the best writing in the series though.
Iron Man
Not a fan boy, so the jarring differences the author found never affected me. So from my view point and in order of the most enjoyable to least enjoyable.
1. Iron Man 2
2. Iron Man 1
3. Thor
4. Hulk 2
5. Hulk 1
I feel Robert Downey Jr. was absolutely inspired and made a name for himself and the Iron Man franchise, “He is Iron Man”. Reminds me of Arnold Schwarzenegger and his Terminator role only better.
Where’s Captain America?
The hands down winner is Capt. America. None of the other films understood or really used the tone of their source material. Capt. America, for those of you who read Avengers #4 on, know this film knew what it was about. It understood the little things about Marvel that made it Marvel.
The mistake the Iron Man films made was that it had high profile actors and then had to give them something to do as actors rather than let them subvert themselves to the larger project. Downey is not Stark, and Rourke was a mistake. Having the Mandarin would’ve be much better. There was a reason for the build up in Capt. America, and maybe one can argue in the first Iron Man, but there’s no excuse for all the hemming and hawing and the ‘acting’ in Iron Man 2.
I only wish the people who’d made Capt. America had made John Carter, an unfortunate project bad from the first word, and the exact opposite when it came to understanding the source material. John Carter is so bad, an adaptation of that book can arguably not yet exist, so misdone was the entire tone.
#1: THOR!
Reason – Chris Hemsworth.
Iron Man stands out. Growing up, I was always a Hulk fan. That may be why I was disappointed by the Hulk movies. As for Captain America, they killed Bucky.
guess the censor didn’t like my comment how bs this is?
I think I’m the only one who liked Ang Lee’s “Hulk”. Casting was great and Eric Bana was the best Dr. Banner of the three. I liked the set-up of the dysfunctional and homicidal family life that made Banner so full of rage, and the way Col. Ross so casually tossed the young boy aside as ‘collateral damge’. There was no super-villian, only all the selfishness, greed and carelessnes of the people involved with Banner and his alter-ego. It was a good story and I also liked the comic book-like panels that were used to shift scenes. Bring back Sam Elliot as Thunderbolt Ross for Avengers 2!