Marvel Cinematic Universe Rewatch Part 1
"I am Iron Man."
I haven’t actually watched all of the Marvel Cinematic Universe (MCU) Films in a while. I used to revisit them pretty regularly. They’re easy watches, and basically comfort food. But since they have basically exploded in quantity in the last few years, it’s been more of an effort to keep up with the new ones, let alone revisit the older ones. The last time I did this, in the lead up to Avengers: Infinity War in 2018, there were 18 movies in the MCU. Now there are 30 films and 8 television shows that are officially part of the shared universe (the canon status of the shows before WandaVision is questionable).
In this project I will be going through the films as I rewatch them, with updates planned each Tuesday. I also have a week blocked off for the Disney+ shows, but will not have time to watch them all in full, but suggestions are welcome for how I should cover those. These are going to go in release order, by the way. Because it’s just easier to trace the evolution here. So without further delay…
1. Iron Man (dir. Jon Favreau, 2008)
Putting this movie on immediately transported me back 14 years. Tony Stark mentions MySpace. People have flip phones. George W. Bush was president, we were still actively fighting the War on Terror, and Osama bin Laden was still alive. We are further away in time from Iron Man than Iron Man was from 9/11. The entire world has changed at least twice over in the last 14 years, and this feels so different from where the MCU is now. Not just in terms of scale and the weirder elements they’ve introduced since, but even tonally. Tony Stark has sex in this movie. There is sex appeal. Much of that would bleed away, and by the time Disney acquired Marvel it was already gone.
“That’s how dad did it…” - Tony Stark
All of the Marvel films deal with the idea of legacies and fathers (literal or figurative). Every single one of them. Iron Man establishes that from the beginning. At the core of Tony Stark’s character is that he lost his father, but he is the “prodigal son” who returned to take over his father’s company. His need to rebel against his heritage because he feels he can never live up to the expectations of his father can be traced through all of the Marvel films, and comes to a violent head in Captain America: Civil War. The only thing left from there is reconciliation, actual fatherhood, and death.
Up until the Marvel Cinematic Universe, it was the villains that stole the spotlight in superhero films. The film is entirely structured around Tony Stark. The actual villain is a mystery for much of the runtime, and this lets us just hang out with Tony Stark while he figures out how to be Iron Man. There is some decent overlap with Batman Begins here in terms of structure, but of course the tone here is lighter and more fun, even if it does gently rib the military-industrial complex. Plus, some of the best scenes in the film happen when Tony and Pepper know that he is the bad guy, but Stane doesn’t know that they know.
This is clearly built as a crowd pleaser, especially ending on such a perfect on a high note. The only suggestion of a wider universe is in the famous post-credits scene, and it makes it feel like Marvel really could have stood up a solo Iron Man franchise if the other movies hadn’t worked.
2. The Incredible Hulk (dir. Louis Leterrier, 2008)
This is the worst film in the MCU so far. And at this point, if it wasn’t for the ongoing appearances of William Hurt as Thunderbolt Ross (soon to be Harrison Ford) and Tim Roth as Emil Blonsky’s sudden resurgence, it would feel like a complete vestigial organ to the whole thing. It’s not that it’s bad, but it is the most workmanlike movie, not having enough comic book flair to be memorable, and not really aiming very high. While Ang Lee’s Hulk dove headfirst into the psychosis of the big green guy, this is a Bruce Banner movie with some smash-y action sequences. It’s all fine. The action is serviceable, and I do like the Bruce/Betty stuff. It would be wild if they brought back Liv Tyler at this point, but never say never at this point. Same for Tim Blake Nelson and Ty Burrell, all people you forgot were in the MCU.
There’s not too much to say about this one, but revisiting it for the first time in a few years made me sad that due to some legal nonsense with Universal, it’s been 14 years since we’ve gotten a movie that was just focused on Bruce Banner. I wasn’t into the Hulk too much as a kid because I thought he was boring, but as I’ve read more of the comics, I find the focus on psychology and the push into more mental-based science fiction fascinating.
Updated ranking:
I’ll be doing a new ranking as I go along, but there’s not too much to say so far.
Iron Man
The Incredible Hulk