Grant vs. The World

-- Transparent aluminum?

20. Thor: The Dark World: A dreadful film. With the discovery that audiences enjoy comedy, Disney stuffed this movie with more comic relief characters than principals, literally turned Natalie Portman’s character into a prop, and nearly cut Christopher Eccleston’s villain out of the film entirely. Why do this when Chris Hemsworth can supply genuine, unforced laughs? Much like Age of Ultron, audiences were promised a gripping film and then handed a high school variety show.

19. Thor: Ragnarok: This movie was interesting for the 10-15 minutes it went without a joke. The rest of it seems to be geared toward slow 14-year-old girls. Asgard is destroyed, and, yes, there is a joke. Because this is Disney, all the people were evacuated (one giant spaceship!). I hope you don’t like animals.

18. Captain America: Civil War: It opens with the worst shakey-cam action ever put on screen, and that’s saying something. It’s like they put Paul Greengrass on speed behind the camera and then had to get another cinematographer after his heart exploded. In subsequent action scenes, the camera is constantly trying to catch up to the action. Remember that amazing shot in Highlander that was accomplished by kicking the camera dolly across the floor? It’s not like that. Iron Man’s transformation into a really immature Batman is completed. Many useless characters, such as Black Panther and Spider-Man, are introduced to get butts in seats. An elementary school playground brawl ensues.

17. Spider-Man: Homecoming: Spider-Man, once the heavy-hitter of Marvel comics is an annoying kid constantly tugging at Tony Stark’s ankles. I haven’t hated Spider-Man this much since Toby Maguire was cast. Michael Keaton tries his best to make this watchable, but it’s tough. There is one genuine laugh when Spidey’s biggest weakness – no buildings to swing from – is exploited.

16. Avengers: Age of Ultron: The beginning of the end. I thought this was just a tragic misfire, but little did I know how much worse these movies could get. A great villain and actor is wasted. It is truly amazing how often this happens in the MCU. There’s a shocking death in this movie: production values. The 80 jokes that go by in the opening scene (the “payoff” for suffering through Agents of Shield) are bad, but not as bad as the slow-motion godawful CGI that if shown as concept art would get a movie scrapped. Paul Bettany creates a couple great moments as Vision, but the story is so sloppily written and the characters so haphazardly handled, it cemented Joss Whedon as the guy you bring in when you want to send a movie straight down the shitter.

15. Ant-Man and The Wasp: When your lead character’s sole motivation is to stay out of prison, your movie is in trouble. Much-needed character development is sacrificed in favor of repeated, repeated, repeated jokes. Michelle Pfeiffer is great, for the 5 minutes she’s in it. Scenes that could have impact are intercut with other scenes so that you don’t care. The ?villain? is motivated by chronic pain. Fortunately all pain can be healed through magic.

14. Doctor Strange: Nice Tom Selleck impression, Sherlock. Some good visuals and a lot of dumb jokes to prevent you from ever taking anything that transpires too seriously.

13. Avengers: Infinity War: So much pussy-footing, the entire cast should be #MeToo’d. It’s like an editor was hired last-minute to make the second half watchable. It is surprisingly pretty to look at it (if you close your eyes every time the shitty CGI Spider-Man and Iron Man suits are on screen). There is a pretty good Thor movie buried in this picture, but I don't know what Peter Dinklage was doing. It's like he was just goofing around and they decided to use it. I fell asleep on my first attempt and missed the entire final battle (Battle of Naboo 3.0), but as it turned out, nothing of consequence happened! I hope a few character deaths stick because some actors don’t deserve franchises, much less multiple franchises. Actual locations are used for Wakanda this time (no more CGI rocks!), but let’s face it, they just needed a place to fight where no white people would get hurt. The airplane hangar from Civil War wasn’t available.

12. Guardians of the Galaxy: Volume 2: Kurt Russell, you beautiful bastard! You could never have a son who is such an inconsistent actor. I’m sorry that your character makes no sense and Disney was too cheap to slowly explore this B story. It was a noble experiment to make a film composed entirely of B stories, but it doesn’t pay off. Clearly James Gunn is a fan of the Ratchet & Clank games because this movie brings those environments to the screen beautifully.

11. Ant-Man: Not bad, but it’s Ant-Man! Nobody cares. What’s the coolest thing about Ant-Man? He made Ultron! But Joss Whedon ruined that. Fuck you, Joss Whedon.

10. Black Panther: What begins as a James Bond film suddenly becomes Creed 2.0, which might work if we had any reason to care about the hero. The hero’s journey is as artificially inserted as the CGI environments. (How woke is a movie that thinks Africa isn’t pretty enough?) Ryan Coogler must have had a very impressionable summer of 1999. I’ve got to hand it to him for a finale that blends the Battle of Naboo 2.0 with The Matrix. And he gave me the first MCU film in years that I didn’t straight-up hate. But how do you go from a visceral boxing film to rubbery CGI catsuits that completely disengage me from the action?

9. The Incredible Hulk: Back when these movies were what they were. This is (somehow!) still the best the Hulk has ever looked and fought on-screen. Ed Norton is the George Lazenby of the franchise, injecting some much-needed humanity and humor into the character while advancing the Hulk beyond a useless rage monster by being the first to “aim it” at something.

8. Iron Man 2: “Give me a fat beat to beat my buddy’s ass too.” Forced to do the heavy lifting of building the MCU, Jon Favreau’s sequel has it’s share of problems (Does Iron Man do anything besides fight Iron Man suits?), but it’s the closest we’ll ever get to the Tony Stark, alcoholic, storyline, and it has some fun. It’s also the only time ScarJo’s Black Widow worked.

7. The Avengers: The success that destroyed superhero films. To quote Matthew Ealer, “Here’s the plot: There’s a Macguffin.” This movie was a blast the first time, even the second time. But if you drill down, there isn’t much there.

We had never seen so many colorful superheroes put together before. It was fun to see. It had some good gags, enough to get me past rolling my eyes at the classic Whedon, “Let’s all stand around being angry at each other and talk about maybe doing something someday.” I still don’t know, was Banner being influenced by the scepter in that scene? Who knows? But adults with the weight of the world on their shoulders shouldn’t all behave like teenage girls. You might have one personality like that, but it can’t be everyone, and from this point on in the MCU, every character has acted like a child and we had to have a joke every minute because people are children and need bright colors and laughter to sit through something for more than two hours and don’t like to think or be challenged in any capacity. If there’s a lesson to be learned, explain it in dialogue, like you would to a child … because people are stupid.

6. Captain America: The Winter Soldier: The Russos, like Whedon, are not very good at action. Just when you want to see a punch or kick connect, they cut. This isn’t really a political thriller. The philosophical exploration of surveillance storyline is thrown away for “Heil Hydra,” to which we are supposed to go, “Oooooh!” And apparently audiences are so cynical that we can’t just have Captain America. We need a rogue Captain America (There’s nothing more edgy than that). TWICE (I know I didn’t mention him, but he was in Captain America: Civil War)! But at least he throws his shield in this and isn’t reduced to wearing a beard and gritting his teeth.

5. Iron Man 3: Thanks to Robert Downey Jr. having director approval, we got the first director-driven MCU film, and it was almost GREAT! Almost. Disney shot down Shane Black’s female villain (won’t sell enough action figures!) and mandated that the ending be 20 minutes of RDJ jumping into Iron Man suits (more toys to sell). But until that point, this movie dared to be different – and to be a throwback to 90s buddy cop films – and for all the hate toward it today, it made a WHOLE LOT of money, paving the way for the unrealistic Avengers standard of $1 billion for a superhero film.

4. Captain America: The First Avenger: So many early outings were nearly home runs. Captain America shooting Nazis like he’s RoboCop as bullets bounce off his shield? Fucking great! Too bad it’s just a brief montage. Probably too rough for Disney, which is too bad because what this movie is missing is payoffs after a slow-paced (but enjoyable) start. Somehow Hugo Weaving as Red Skull doesn’t make the movie? No one remembers this movie’s finale. Not everyone can chain climaxes together like George Lucas and have it be memorable. Maybe call Justin Lin next time.

3. Guardians of the Galaxy: When you don’t know what to expect, you can be pleasantly surprised. Weak villain aside (Thanos is coming, someday, and we already gave you Loki, you cashwads), the movie looks great (no big names means you can afford good FX on a budget) and is a fun ride. I do cringe, however, at the throwaway lines of dialogue added to explain to the audience what is happening onscreen because people are morons.

2. Iron Man: Out of the gate we got a nearly perfect film. Remember when we were surprised that RDJ could stay off drugs long enough to make a movie? Who knew the whole universe would end up built around him and one day we’d just want to punch him in the face! This was a great origin film and didn’t feel like it existed solely to set up a cinematic universe. The post-credits sequence (before it became a cliché) was great. Weakness? Villain in an Iron Man suit. And it’s Jeff Bridges! Why doesn’t it work? Bad writing, I guess. You can’t out-smug RDJ, so what are you going to do. But those 5 seconds where Iron Man killed terrorists were badass. (Note that these brief moments in the early films where shit got real were highlights, and now we get none of that, just repeated jokes.) And I appreciate how much the final fight emulates RoboCop 2.

Zack Snyder: You deserve love and respect.