May 2026 [18-24]
Captain America: The First Avenger, Captain Marvel, Iron Man, Iron Man 2, The Incredible Hulk, Lurker
- Captain America: The First Avenger [2011] - 74
As warned in last week’s update, I’m starting a deep dive into the MCU in preparation for Avengers: Doomsday later in the year. I’ll be watching these movies in chronological order, which should offer some interesting perspective as I jump real-world time between films. So, starting us off, Captain America: The First Avenger is… surprisingly solid? I remembered this as one of my least favorites, but was very pleasantly surprised on this rewatch — my first since seeing it in theaters. There’s a lot that has to be let go with any of these films narratively and, though there are moments of horrendous VFX, Captain America: The First Avenger is a mostly interesting and [dare I say] even slightly inspiring little monster. This one has a really different flavor than a lot of the other MCU content that comes after it, and it does a great job of both setting up future dilemmas and concluding current ones in ways that feel satisfying and tense. There’s still plenty to be desired here, and moments of it are incredibly silly but, as an early entry into the series, this lays a very solid foundation.
- Captain Marvel [2019] - 64
Jumping ahead 8-years in real time, Captain Marvel takes place in 1995, so it’s the next in the series here. This one is… fine? It’s kind of bland, it’s kind of shiny, it’s got some amazingly good VFX, some comedically bad ones, and it has a soundtrack, rather than a score, seemingly trying to emulate 2014’s Guardians of the Galaxy, but without any of the flare or narrative relevance that movie carries with it. Though the cast is great and well utilized, Captain Marvel ends up being an unfortunately succinct example of how expressionless these films become in their later releases, as it simply doesn’t seem to have any sense of identity to it; Something shown even more starkly [heh] by being sandwiched between both the first Captain America and Iron Man movies: Films that each not only have strong identities, but ones that influence the MCU as a whole moving forward. This is all kind of unfortunate because Captain Marvel’s plot is actually solid, it just isn’t particularly well justified or executed, and the twist is relayed to the audience in such a spartan way that there’s no reason to ever question its validity… It’s almost like these movies aren’t for thinking. Weird…
- Iron Man [2008] - 76
Three movies in, and we finally get to the one that started it all. 2008’s Iron Man was a feat [trying so hard not to say “marvel”] at the time, and remains truly impressive still. I’ll likely relay similar feelings about The Incredible Hulk below but, out of context, this movie is still [mostly] impressive from a VFX standpoint and, in the context of 2008, is astonishing. If it weren’t for the annoying contrivances that allow the first act of the movie to happen at all, and if the plot had dealt more directly with the muddiness of weapons dealing or the solo-handling of foreign affairs, this would be an easy 8-or-so from me. While these are goofy narrative issues that plague literally every single movie of this type, they’re felt really heavily here because the rest of this movie is legitimately quite good. It’s very clear why this film was chosen as the template for the MCU as we know it today, and not the one that came out just a single month later.
- Iron Man 2 [2010] - 67
I’m sure I’ll talk about all of this more in my final article about these as a group but, Iron Man 2 is a really intriguing watch with the perspective of the films that came before it in this list. Both Captain America and Iron Man have really strong senses of who they are and what sensations they want to relay to the audience. As I mentioned, Captain Marvel has absolutely no concept of either thing and ends up floundering in a sort of soporific stupor for most of its runtime by comparison. Iron Man 2 is… deeply interesting in this context because you can see the slowly bursting mold spores that will come to infect things like Captain Marvel spreading throughout its entire runtime. Achievements aren’t really earned in any meaningful way, conflicts are resolved through simplistic and showy means, rather than clever or difficult ones, and the whole thing manufactures obstacles for characters to overcome, simply so that they have something to overcome and the plot can get to the next point… But none of it builds to anything greater or more interesting. Iron Man 2 is certainly less somnolent than Captain Marvel, but only just.
- The Incredible Hulk [2008] - 68
Coming out in June 2008 to Iron Man’s May of the same year, The Incredible Hulk is pretty clearly the B-side of Marvel’s bid at a successful franchise. Two films with very different approaches to the same genre, there’s a lot of lessons that I wish the MCU had learned from The Incredible Hulk… Even if I think they ultimately chose the right film to be their template. The intro/ opening credits to this movie adeptly inform the viewer of all the introductory pieces one needs to understand the Hulk before getting right into the story. Act 1 of the film feels very different from 2, which feels different from 3. The color pallet, cinematography, and entire approach feels more like 2002’s Resident Evil [in a good way] than anything superhero related. And, best of all, the ending of this movie feels like something the characters truly had to fight for, has real stakes and objectives, and creates a sense that the people involved were truly the only ones who could have accomplished what they did. Though I do think the overall experience is a bit boring and Liv Tyler’s breathy, ASMR line delivery is annoying more than anything else, I still wish that parts of this had been taken more seriously forward into the MCU over a lot of what was ultimately chosen.
- Lurker [2025] - 83
And now for something different… Alex Russell’s inaugural feature film, Lurker, is engaging in a lot of ways, weird in a lot of ways, and clever in a lot ways, but still could have used a little more help or insight to really propel it forward into what I’d call “greatness”. Following main character, Matthew, as he quickly slides from a parasocial to codependent relationship with the up-and-coming Instagram star, Oliver, Lurker is a pretty cut-and-dry “this is going to get compared to The Talented Mr. Ripley” type of movie. It isn’t that transparency of plot is necessarily a bad thing — there’s plenty of instances where knowing what is likely coming actually adds tension, rather than taking it away —, it’s just that this film doesn’t do anything particularly interesting, shocking, or upsetting with that transparency. That said, there are a couple of truly brilliant moments in this film that are worth studying and talking about but, overall, I think the high-points herein are a little overshadowed by a bit of a soft shadow where a harder, sharper silhouette would have served better. Though a solid enough movie despite my critiques, I’d easily recommend my #7 of last year, Femme, over this in a big way.
