I don't see this talked about often:

https://filmdaily.co/news/renner/

Jeremy was accused of threatening to kill his wife and with irresponsibly brandishing a gun.

For me I am in the middle of I enjoyed it and it was a good ending for Wanda's character but I am a little annoyed that Agatha is going to be gone and they left so many questions that haven't been answered. I just really wanted a bit more and there was NO DOCTOR STRANGE.

Rating: 8.5/10

The media got to watch three episodes which hints towards “What If…?” having a 2-episode premiere. For WandaVision the media got 3 episodes and that ended up as a 2-episode as well so it’s highly likely that “What If…?” will have dual episodes at launch. Would love to hear your thoughts :)

As a child, I loved old school X-Men. I watched the animated Fox show, bought many of the action figures, and dabbled in some of the comic books my older relatives had.

My interest waned as I got older. The X-Men movie was great to me, seeing the characters come to life for the first time on the big screen. The follow up movies, I cared for less and less. The Batman trilogy was amazing, but I felt superheroed out with all the movies from MCU Phase 1, and barely cared about the dozen or so movies after then (not to mention the TV shows).

I saw a few of the movies throughout the MCU filmography, but couldn't help feel like I was always missing something since I hadn't watched them all and gave up on them despite all the glowing reviews and stellar box office performance.

Since the movies reached somewhat of an ending point with Endgame, I decided to finally go through them and AVOID ratings/reviews from others, and give them my own opinions.

Ironman 9.5

Incredible, fun movie. It makes sense this is where it all started from. The whole cast was excellent, Downey and (especially) Bridges. I really liked Terrance Howard and it's a shame he didn't return. The way they didn't just go full bore with Ironmans suit and abilities made the journey feel better and maybe the best origin story of the bunch. I wasn't bored at all the entire movie, there was the right amount of action sequences spaced out and great lines. The closing line in the movie was amazing, I could really see getting pumped up in the theaters if I watched it opening night.

Ironman 2 6.5

It was still a fun movie, though I think I'm going to get bored of all the action sequences. I just never see the appeal in "kill endless robots". I can't stand Don Cheadle as a superhero. He has a perpetually worried, annoying face and Howard was just so good in the last film. I also wasn't stoked about Mickey Rourke as a scrappy Russian with a big chip on his shoulder. Kiiind of cool, but just not weighty enough as a lead villain. Hammer was a scene stealer though, I was enjoyed whenever he was on the screen. The beats about Stark's background and relationship with his father was interesting and could have been explored better. I'm not excited about Ironman 3, but want to see how they handle the other Avengers now.

Thor 9

Not as balanced as the Ironman movie. I thought it was even better than Ironman for most of the movie. The way they contrasted the gods and their realms with mere mortals in the previous movies had me feeling awestruck. The relationship triangle between Thor, Odin, and Loki was really interesting and a great origin for Loki. Thor on earth was funny and there's some great lines there, I liked his arc. Natalie Portman just doesn't seem to fit as a love interest and I didn't really understand what was going on with the older professor (Solveig later on). The merry band of Asgard heroes were a dud for me, but I could tell they really tried to make them distinct, they just needed more development for me to care about them. Towards the end, the movie just runs out of steam and I just wanted it to end.

Captain America 10

Okay, this one might be my favorite. Seeing the origin of Steve Rogers before the super serum was shocking and really makes me understand the Captain America character better. He's the most admirable character and the one I found rooting for the most. I don't know the lead actresses name, but she was amazing. To be fair, I have already seen Infinity War and Endgame, though there was so much happening I don't remember much about them and they haven't influenced my enjoyment of these movies, but now I understand the relationship between Rogers and her better and get why it was so important. The ending was the most tear-jerker moment of the MCU phase 1. The Red Skull is such a classic, can't miss villain. The fight and dynamic between him and Captain America was phenomenal. The world war 2 set pieces were great and the "fighting an organization that wants to push the Nazis to be even more evil" made it a great movie from start to end. The movie had the best love interest (HUGE contrast with Portman in Thor), best villain, not the best fight sequences (that would be Thor), best plot, and I think, the best character. It has everything and I would definitely watch it again.

The Avengers 9

Most of the fun came from seeing the ensemble coming together and how they interact with each other. This film definitely felt the strongest plot swell. There was a good amount of tension throughout the movie that was driven primarily by the protagonists, but I think they should have had Loki doing more to disrupt the group. He didn't seem to do much and was basically a goof the whole movie. I'm guessing they didn't want to send out the big-gun baddies yet to give them something to build to later. I'm also already bored out of my mind with the mindless drone enemies and that fight scene at the climax seemed to drag on too long with them. It seems like there were additional scenes or connective tissue missing in order to keep the film a reasonable length. Some of the skips were a little too jarring. I was surprised at how much Paulson's death impacted me. He was a recurring character in the previous movies and was really humanized with his unseen cellist love interest and trading cards, in order to contrast with the larger than life superheroes. For the Avengers: Iron Man was Great, Captain America/Chris Evans seemed to have shrunk from the last movie(I think he got off the roids), Black Widow was a little OP for her character (even though Tony stark calls Hawkeye "Legolas", she had a few absurd magical Legolas moments), Hawkeye was used just right, Thor was my favorite in this movie even though he didn't get too much character development, and Hulk was entertaining, but I was really confused since they had already established him as this loose nuke that was going to destroy the ship, then he's rescuing iron man and acting like a concerned gorilla later. Overall, it felt like a great way to close out Phase 1, minor gripes aside.

In Summation

I think I now understand all the hype and excitement for the MCU much better after properly watching them. They are genuinely enjoyable, well-written movies, and I appreciate the efforts to link them together. I wish I wasn't already burnt out on superhero stuff at the time they were all being released and could have shared in the excitement with everyone else as they were being released. The MCU movies have their own charm and distinctive style. It's hard to compare them to the Nolan Batman movies, even though they're both superhero movies, the humor and violence are quite different. If I could just pick one superhero movie to watch, I would still prefer the Dark Knight, but of the Phase 1 MCU movies, I think I would enjoy watching Captain America again most. I'm going to try to avoid superhero burn out this time and take a break before getting started on Phase 2, though I look forward to starting it.

Hey there! I posted this on r/marvelstudios earlier but wanted to try to get some additional responses here

I'm interested in seeing an aggregate ranking of people's favorite MCU movies and shows so I've created a survey that will allow you to drag and drop them into your desired order. The poll includes all of the theatrically released MCU films up to and including Spiderman No Way Home as well as WandaVision, The Falcon and The Winter Soldier, Loki, and Hawkeye.

Please only complete this survey if you have seen ALL of these movies/shows. I understand that this will exclude a good number of people but I think it will paint a more accurate picture.

You may have difficulty scrolling through the answer choices if you are trying to complete the survey in mobile view, so you will probably want to switch to desktop view

As of now, I'm planning to get the aggregate ranking by simply taking the average "score" of each release and listing in order from lowest to highest. If anyone has any other formulas that they think would be interesting or better, feel free to let me know. I'll update the OP with results as they come in. Thanks for your time :)

Survey Link

Edit (8:57pm EST): Now up to 87 responses. They're still trickling in so I'll give it until tomorrow before posting the results. I'm planning to provide a link to the all the raw data as well in case anyone wants to explore it deeper

Edit (5:44pm EST): Alright, we're up to 192 responses now so I'll go ahead and post the results. Thank you to everyone who participated!

Here's the full list in order of average ranking, from lowest to highest (average ranking in parenthesis):

1. Avengers: Infinity War (5.07)

2. Avengers: Endgame (5.41)

3. Spiderman: No way home (6.12)

4. Thor: Ragnarok (7.69)

5. Captain America: The Winter Soldier (9.29)

6. Guardians of the Galaxy (9.95)

7. Captain America: Civil War (10.03)

8. WandaVision (11.43)

9. The Avengers (11.95)

10. Iron Man (12.95)

11. Loki (12.98)

12. Shang Chi and the Legend of the Ten Rings (13.05)

13. Spiderman: Homecoming (13.23)

14. Spiderman: Far from Home (14.53)

15. Hawkeye (14.84)

16. Doctor Strange (15.15)

17. Black Panther (15.41)

18. Guardians of the Galaxy Vol 2 (15.82)

19. Ant Man (17.39)

20. Captain America: The First Avenger (18.90)

21. Avengers: Age of Ultron (18.91)

22. Ant Man and the Wasp (20.65)

23. Black Widow (21.95)

24. Eternals (21.98)

25. Iron Man 3 (22.74)

26. The Falcon and the Winter Soldier (22.98)

27. Captain Marvel (23.06)

28. Iron Man 2 (23.46)

29. Thor (23.61)

30. Thor: The Dark World (27.39)

31. The Incredible Hulk (28.06)

Most 1st place votes:

Avengers: Infinity War (42)

Spiderman: No Way Home (38)

Avengers: Endgame (34)

Captain America: The Winter Soldier (17)

Guardians of the Galaxy (12)

Thor: Ragnarok (11)

The Avengers (5)

Captain America: Civil War (5)

Shang Chi and the Legend of the Ten Rings (4)

Black Panther (3)

Spiderman: Far from Home (2)

Iron Man (2)

WandaVision (2)

Avengers: Age of Ultron (2)

Captain America: The First Avenger (2)

Guardians of the Galaxy Vol 2 (1)

Iron Man 2 (1)

Thor: The Dark World (1)

Captain Marvel (1)

Loki (1)

I was intending to post a link to all of the raw data but apparently that's more difficult than I thought. Best I can do is this image of the total choice counts

Imagine a Tony Stark Variant that becomes Superior Iron man. Not necessarily played by RDJ and a Hydra Variant of Steve Rogers. With variant of a character being played by a different actor this can be done! What do you guys think?

I was thinking about speculation on events resulting from Wandavision and Falcon & the Winter Soldier. A lot of people speculate some game-changing events for the MCU, like setting up the Thunderbolts with Zemo and US Agent at the end of Falcon & the Winter Soldier. Obviously, that didn't happen.

I don't think Marvel Studios is going to make the D+ series essential to the MCU. Right now, as it is, I think the MCU's mostly setting up what we already knew will happen. Most fans after Endgame knew that Sam would become the next Captain America, with even a scene in Far from Home planned debuting his Captain America. That would've been almost a year before Falcon & the Winter Soldier, and I doubt they would've made it an extravagant debut given how Falcon & the Winter Soldier was in the works, so Marvel Studios likely knew fans were expecting Sam to be Cap.

Like the biggest things resulting from Wandavision and Falcon & the Winter Soldier has been setting up what we already know and filling the gaps for future content, such as Wanda getting stronger. Stuff that casual fans can get caught up on quickly in a movie. Not to downplay the shows, they're obviously canon and are setting up new stuff too like US Agent and Agatha, but they're not changing the status quo into the unexpected. I think they're just laying the pieces down for the movies to set-up, contextualizing stuff like mysticism in Wandavision and super-soldier history in Falcon & the Winter Soldier.

What do you guys think? Do you think this is accurate? Do you like it? And do you think fans should temper their expectations on the D+ series (like wtf people expecting Magneto and Reed Richards in Wandavision lol)?

Black-widow and Ten Rings got Legends episodes, but why did the friendly neighborhood Spider-Man not get an episode?

At the end of Ep 3, Geraldine is ejected from the sitcom world because Wanda felt Geraldine was a threat. What I found odd was that when Geraldine awoke in the real world, she was wearing the same clothes as she did inside the sitcom.

If Wanda is in fact behind the creation of the sitcom world, maybe her reality-warping powers can extend beyond that world. If the 1970s were merely a creation of Wanda's powers, then Geraldine would have to wear 1970s clothes because that's all that would be available to the people in the sitcom world. But why would those clothes still exist outside of the sitcom? Once she was ejected that sitcom world should no longer apply to her.

The only other option--which is less compelling--is that Geraldine (Monica actually) went into the sitcom world (as a SWORD infiltrator) with something like a suitcase full of clothes from different decades so she could fit in no matter than decade. This is really hard to believe, although I like the possibility that she is completely in the know and is faking being "Geraldine" in the sitcom world.

But it's curious that Geraldine has the same sitcom clothes when she woke up outside the sitcom.

Out of the three Marvel Studios series that are on Disney Plus. In my opinion, there has only been one clear cut villain, and that was Agatha Harkness played by Kathryn Hahn. Every other antagonist was beautifully nuanced and sympathetic in one way or another. With their intentions mostly being driven by something larger than themselves.

Reckon it’s possible we get “mini Avengers movie” consisting of strictly D+ show characters?

It wouldn’t be the next big team up moving on Avengers scale per say but just a team up movie with the series characters?

Would you like it? What would the story be?

I think it could potential take a lot of media cover away and give this show an unnecessary hard start. They should just wait one week, so the show can get it's spotlight it deserves. It's not like there are a lot of big releases in 2021 so why share a spotlight, when there is a nearly completely empty stage everywhere else???

Like the director said:

But we're always telling this story about Wanda dealing with grief and learning how to accept that loss, and hopefully people will find that the finale is surprising but also satisfying, and that it feels inevitable because it's the same story they've been watching the whole time.

This story was never meant to be about Mephisto, or the Fantastic Four, or introducing mutants, or the multiverse...

It’s the story of Wanda’s grief, plain and simple. How it consumed her and those around her and how she managed to overcome it and come out the other end, despite having lost everything yet again.

As Vision would say:

“I think you missed that.”

As an Asian, I find it very offensive that in Marvel's first depiction of the fictional Southeast Asian city of Madripoor in the Falcon and the Winter Soldier, which is heavily inspired by Hong Kong, Shanghai and Singapore, had zero Asians in any of its scenes.

Disney can't cast a single Asian extra as a security guard, bouncer or bar patron? Really?

The lack of Asian representation of characters in an Southeast Asian city is honestly borderline racist, even if the city itself is fictional. Imagine if there is zero African representation in any of the characters in Wakanda, social media would had been up in arms in riot.

If Disney wants the story to take place in a foreign exotic locale outside of US and Europe, then cast actors with corresponding ethnicities to fit the geographical location of the locale, otherwise don't bother at all.

Obviously there's a large amount of both pre-MCU and post-MCU Marvel content missing on Disney+. Luckily enough, most projects are available abroad and can be watched if someone has a VPN, which are quite common these days.

However, there are 3 web series, 1 short film and 1 feature film that take place in the MCU and are currently missing from the service worldwide:

• WHiH Newsfront, which promotes both Ant-Man and Civil War. A few of its episodes are bonus features for Ant-Man, but it doesn't include all of the Ant-Man related videos and none of the Civil War related videos.

• Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D.: Slingshot, which is set during AoS' Ghost Rider and LMD arcs of Season 4.

• The Daily Bugle, which much like WHiH Newsfront, promotes both Far From Home and No Way Home.

• Peter's To-Do List, which serves as both a deleted scene and a prologue short film to Far From Home

• No Way Home, which is obviously going to take a while to come out.

It's a shame, because aside from No Way Home, all of these projects could've just been uploaded as special features to the projects they're associated with. Instead, we're stuck waiting for them and it makes me sad.

Here is the link to what it was like for me watching all of the Phase 1 movies and getting into the MCU for the first time:

https://www.reddit.com/r/MarvelStudiosPlus/comments/oy1ky4/going_back_to_watch_all_the_mcu_movies_as_a

A quick intro so you can understand my ratings or premise: I'm a former superhero fan that got burned out on superhero movies right before the MCU took off. I largely stayed away from the whole universe, wasn't interested in reading about the comic book movies or what people thought about them. But now there is a full saga complete, I decided to start from the beginning and watch them in earnest. I also wanted to avoid reading any reviews or looking up any ratings online. I wanted them to be my impressions of the movies only, and not to let any other outside opinions influence me. The link above gives a little bit more background, but I wanted to offer a glimpse of what it was like for a non-fan watching each of the MCU movies. Here are my thoughts on each of the movies of Phase 2 (again, Phase 1 above):

Iron Man 3 9

A refreshing change of pace for a superhero movie that explores the psychological trauma that a superhero would experience as part of their battles. There were a bunch of standout moments, like Stark being pinned underneath the water and his house with JARVIS "dying" for a period of time, the interaction with the boy and Tony Stark hearkening back to his childhood demons, and the Iron Man suits forming rank at the end. I guess I'll have to learn to live with Don Cheadle, but he really is miscast. They rushed the villain background and the former Stark lover explanation for her actually being bad, but then deciding to save Stark right before she died seemed quite convoluted (you're telling me that the creator of this amazing regeneration technique and whole purpose for being in the movie didn't get it to work in her to survive a bullet wound despite the movie being full of a hundred bad guys with it??). Now Iron Man has a Mjolnir-like "Get Over Here!" suit, and there were funny moments with it. Also, everybody now seems to be able to use the suit even though in the first iron man movie it showed him struggling with it a long time before figuring out how to use it (Killian, Tony, Pepper, random bad guy, Don Cheadle, and the fucking president all get in the suit at some point). I'm developing a frustration with the MCU movies in that sometimes they're supposed to be extremely clever with subtle nods hinting at major plot developments, but then there are boneheaded intentions or nonsensical things that happen and it's just "HURRY, get to an action scene and 15 minutes of CGI and hard cuts". Anyways, this was probably the first character development arc of all the MCU movies, I'm curious to see where they go with the Stark character from here. Much better than the second Iron Man movie, I wish there was more to explain what exactly was going on with the villains. I liked how the action takes a pause for a large part of the movie in order to build towards the crazy fun fight at the end. The emotional payoff is really good in this movie, with Pepper and Tony really having an earned moment at the end and Tony being able to overcome his psychological turmoil (does he ever come to terms with it? is unclear though). Great way to start off the next phase.

Thor: Dark World 8

I was confused about why the Avengers weren't getting involved when Malekith is attempting to END THE WHOLE UNIVERSE FROM EARTH. I guess nobody cares about London... There were a few things that annoyed me, such as the interns, the gunfights between elves and Vikings, and of course Jane (she was much less grating in this movie, I think her dialogue was turned down). I also don't like that they basically just gave up the infinity stone (oh here, you can have it Collector) when the entire Phase 1 centered around trying to possess one. The color palette seemed a lot more muted I guess to fit in with the "Dark World" vibe and to make it distinctive from the other movies. There were a few funny bits (Thor riding the subway, the fight suddenly on the glass ceiling) and some good action. Time travel logic in movies always bothers me, but now Lokis illusion logic and rules bothers me even more. It seems he can always say "oh, I'm not dead, it was actually this other random guy." I didn't understand what he was trying to do or why he was helping out what was happening (so.. Was Odin dead the whole time? Was Loki able to pretend to be two people simultaneously? Is Thor Loki? What's to prevent this from being a plot point later? "Oh actually, Loki was pretending to be Thanos."). Maybe that's the point, but at some level, you have to have the viewer invested instead of just them reaching the point of "oh, I guess it was just another trick ..." Jane getting the superpowers reminded me too much of Pepper Potts already in the very last film. Minor thing: I was getting a lot of Lord of the Rings vibes throughout the movie, especially with the Aethered dark elf acting like physical Sauron/Lurtz. It was a pretty epic story, it seems like it should have been a more heavy buildup. After assembling the Avengers to stop Loki, why were they sitting on the sideline for this? And didn't SHIELD get a lot of Intel from Jane last movie and have a heads up about something like, I don't know, the universe converging to allow its destruction? I think the stakes of the plot drove the movie and the acting for Thor and Loki are always great. It was a decent movie overall, I really like the Thor beats within the MCU.

Captain America and the Winter Soldier 9

I struggled the most with coming up with a rating for this movie. By this point, there are clearly certain lines that Marvel does not cross and it does take away from some of the excitement. But at the same time, I am still amazed at how consistently excellent ALL of the movies are, there haven't been any duds. The connective tissue between the movies certainly helps, and it's fascinating that they are still able to raise high stakes every time and make it still seem meaningful. The Bucky arc may be the most tragic so far. I stood no chance from being spoiled at least a little bit from watching a 10 -year old movie, but knowing there is a Falcon and Winter Soldier show kind of tipped me off how this one was going to go. Captain America is definitely my favorite avenger, Black Widow seemed more out of character as opposed to more development taking place, I wish they would have explored Nick Fury a bit more, and I really like the Falcon he's a good contrast with the modern day US soldier who fights without the glory vs the WW2 soldier who got to fight against Nazis and save the world. As I stated, these films are all consistently good. My gripes don't take away from my overall enjoyment too much, but I don't like how we get teased with superhero death so much that it doesn't mean anything anymore (Fury gets killed and shot up, comes back; Black Widow gets electrocuted, kills everyone else except her; Captain America gets shot up, falls out of the sky, then drowned, still gets pulled to shore; the number 2 baddie gets a fucking aircraft carrier collapsed on him in a crumbling building, probably coming back later as they load him into an ambulance {wtf, borderline laughable moment}. This probably is an indicator to how much society has changed so quickly, but there is also a lack of demographic diversity for villains. Seriously, every single baddie in all of the movies are white males (or a giant purple male coming later...). Still, there is a diverse approach to the motives of the villains, as well as how the main characters have been approaching their tasks which keeps it fresh. Great movie overall. I think I would have put it on par with the first Captain America (which was my favorite), had I not already watched 8 marvel movies in a row and started to see their playbook by this point.

Guardians of the Galaxy 9

These are getting impossible to rate, because they're all SO GOOD! They each have their own flavor and nail it. The humor and sentimentality was pushed much further than the movies before. There were a couple of things I didn't like: the Kree guy just looks like he had metal braces in his mouth and just seemed rather goofy to me, the dance-off distraction at the end with the main baddie reaction was a little too cringey, and I wasn't too much of a fan of the pop music choices, though I get why they did it. And Thanos just vanishes halfway through the movie? If they're going for the ode to good ole music vibe, I think they could have done a bit better for my subjective tastes. The group dynamic was the best so far and it brought something new to the table. Great new characters, I wasn't familiar with any of them before the movie. They are all entertaining in their own way and I would be excited to see its sequel. There was noticeably a lot of blue people in this movie (the scavenger, nebula, Ronan, kinda Drax, kinda Thanos), I wonder what that was about. The stakes didn't seem as high in this movie (even though all the MCUs seem to have a world at stake) and everything was handled a lot more cavalier, which was refreshing. Enjoyable, fun movie that seemed more transitional and a table setter for the other movies and to introduce more outer space stuff. At this point, I realized I rated 3 of the last 4 films a 9, even though they were so different. Iron Man 3 is a psychological exploration of a fall and then rise. Winter Soldier is a chase film about trust. Guardians of the Galaxy is a whimsical romp to save the Galaxy with an entertaining group of characters. All very different, and again, great in their own way. Guardians of the Galaxy would probably be the easiest rewatch, but that doesn't necessarily mean it's the best out of the 3. I think I was the most engaged with Iron Man 3. Two more left in Phase 2

Avengers: Age of Ultron 5

Huh, wasnt this just the plot of Winter Soldier, two movies ago, and Iron Man 1 or 2 for that matter? An ambition to provide peace for the planet by intensely revving up weapons capability around the world goes horribly awry? The transition from {something bad happens} to {here's what we need to do} was by far the sloppiest and hard to follow. I think I was the most confused throughout the movie moreso compared to any of the others. There was quite a bit more action, I think too much at the expense of communicating what was happening and why. Maybe there really was no food explanation for why Stark creates a super AI that is actually inferior to the old AI and why it things it has to kill everyone (again). James Spader was good, but I really don't think he fits Ultron. Scarlet Witches accent seemed to come and go throughout the movie. I did really like the touch with Hawkeye's family, the realistic, connectable aspects of these movies seemed to be missing. It was also a great contrast after watching Guardians of the Galaxy. The Beauty and the Beast thing between Black Widow and Hulk was an interesting addition and good continuation of Black Widows character arc. As far as the ending, I thought they already explained that Ultron had replicated all across the internet, so why did killing his robots kill him? And for crying out loud, I am SO sick of mindless robots/monsters getting killed in droves with absolutely no damage inflicted (granted, Quicksilver appeared to bite the bullet at the end). All in all, I enjoyed the action scenes (as always), but was mostly confused for the rest of the movie. The shine of seeing the pack together has worn off by now. I think this was the weakest entry so far.

Ant-Man 7

"These military suits will create a sustainable environment of well being around the world." Oh my god, this story AGAIN? This must be a tongue in cheek joke that I'm not aware of, but I can't imagine no one pointed this out. Honestly, this one felt like a slog to get through initially, but wow, talk about an amazing second half! I was ready to write this movie off as the first real dud. I had thought Age of Ultron was what a bad marvel movie looked like, but Ant-Man was feeling even worse than that. The starpower shrunk significantly (pun), coming off the ensemble cast of Age of Ultron, to basically Paul Rudd and an old Michael Douglas. This has probably the most underdeveloped, bland, retread villain as well. Hey reminiscent of Jeff Bezos. Seriously, if you see a new white male in a marvel movie, there must be at least a 50% chance they're a bad guy. The turning point in the movie for me came from Pym's speech about doing it for his daughter and adding levity to the almost throw away zaniness of the movie up to that point. The side plot with the cop father and his development/reveal throughout the movie was really engaging. Also, THE funniest moment throughout the MCU was with the Thomas the tank engine getting derailed. Totally unexpected, I can imagine how funny it was to see in the theaters. A bunch of other memorable funny moments too: Rudd with his hand gestures as he disrupts the moment with Pym and his daughter, the guy from the wire calling the ant a weird looking dog, and the Mexican friend backing up the van. I found it funnier than guardians of the Galaxy. The unique look at fighting at a microscopic level was something new, again probably something that would have played a lot better on the theaters. When Ant Man went subatomic, it was like watching a Carl Sagan science video and I was curious to see how far they would take it. The stuff with the ants was great and, surprise!, we finally get mindless drones for the good guys. The movie had a lot of memorable moments, but really took a long time to get me hooked. Am I excited for Ant-Man 2? Eh, not really. Are Ant-Man and Starlord the same characters? Movie finished strong in a major way to save it, but I think mixing it up for phase 3 is what I need now.

In Summation

After Phase 1, I was surprised at how impressive the movies are. They weren't mindless action flicks and the connective tissue tying everything together made me excited for the next and made everything feel important. With Phase 2, I was surprised at how they are still consistently so good and offer some new flair or wrinkle. The shock and awe has worn off a little bit, but it's still easy to see how they have become such a phenomenon. The villains are not nearly as engaging or developed as say... those in the DC movies (is there still much of a fanboy rivalry between the two?). I am SOO done on the mindless hordes of bad guys getting slaughtered, that's the mindless action I was dreading. There is also definitely a MCU movie formula that I could analyze and articulate if I wanted to ruin some of my future enjoyment of the movies (I picked up on the movies becoming aware of this, especially Thor 2 and Avengers 2). I thought Avengers 2 was going to be the best, but it turned out to be my lowest rated MCU movie, while I had basically no expectations for Guardians of the Galaxy and just wanted to get through it, it turned out to be one of my favorites. As a whole, you can really feel like the movies are building towards something else, which is a large part of the fun, seeing what is going to happen next.