A friend who is an astute watcher of popculture recently confessed to me that they have been intrigued by the phenomenon of the Marvel Studios films, but had not yet sat down to see them. This is a viewing order for the films of the Marvel Cinematic Universe fun for fans but designed for someone coming in cold like my friend — only glancingly familiar with either the movies or the comics they are based on — who is ready to commit to watching most or all of the films. Inspired by the “Machete Order” for watching the two Lucas trilogies of Star Wars — which treats Episode II & III as an extended flashback between V and VI, omitting Episode I entirely — this viewing order is different both from the order in which the films were released and from the chronological order of the events in the world of the films.
Marvel Studios and the fictive “Marvel Cinematic Universe” are interesting and unique for a number of reasons. There have been movie series with multiple sequels before, and superhero movies before, but the MCU is the first to capture the distinctly entangled series quality of superhero comics which fans love. Alan Moore, in his introduction to a collection of comics published in 1987, describes it better than I could:
There are great economic advantages in being able to prop up an ailing, poor-selling comic book with an appearance by a successful guest star. Consequently, all the comic book stories produced by any given publisher are likely to take place in the same imaginary universe. This includes the brightly colored costumed adventurers populating their super-hero titles the shambling monstrosities that dominate thier horror titles, and the odd girzzled cowpoke who’s wandered in from a western title through a convenient time warp. For those more familiar with conventional literature, try to imagine Dr. Frankenstein kidnapping one of the protagonists of Little Women for his medical experiments, only to find himself to the scrutiny of a team-up between Sherlock Holmes and Hercule Poirot. I’m sure that the both the charms and the overwhelming absurdities of this approach will become immediately apparent, and so it is in comic books
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The continuity-expert’s nightmare of a thousand different super-powered characters co-existing in the same continuum can, with the application of a sensitive and sympathetic eye, become a rich and fertile mythic background with fascinating archetypal characters hanging around, waiting to be picked like grapes on the vine. Yes, of course, the whole idea is utterly inane, but to let its predictable inanities blind you to its truly fabulous and breathtaking aspects is to do both oneself and the genre a disservice.
This viewing guide is intended to highlight this quality of superhero stories, the sense that different adventures of different characters made by different creators fit into a sprawling world of wonders and adventure, delivering a story of its developing world across the whole series.
How to use this list
Marvel Studios’ movies famously include one or two post-credits bonus scenes. Many of them are in-jokes for comics nerds or teasers for later movies which may be screwed up by this watch order, so I encourage skipping most of them. I have marked movies with an asterisk when you do want to check out the post-credits bit.
For convenience, this post starts with just the list of movies, then repeats itself with notes on each of the movies & series.
In order to highlight the building narrative, the list is sequenced such that it leaves a lot of the best stuff for late in the series. If your patience runs short, skip ahead to Section B to taste the very best before dropping out. There are also ways to abbreviate the viewing binge less radically …
- Within each section, things are numbered only if the viewing order is important. In other cases, I just provide a list, starting with the ones I recommend most highly.
- Sections with Roman numerals deliver the initial long-sweep story across multiple films in a deliberate order. If you want to focus on that experience, run just through these and skip the lettered sections.
- Sections marked A, B, and S deliver bonus Marvel Studios movies which are not integral to the long-sweep story.
- Sections marked Σ & Χ deliver movies about Marvel characters which were not made by Marvel Studios. They make an interesting contrast which informs what the Marvel Studios movies are doing.
Overview
I — Introducing the Marvel Universe
- Iron Man
- Captain Marvel
- Thor
- The Avengers
II — The Ballad Of Steve Rogers
- Captain America: The First Avenger
- Captain America: The Winter Soldier
III — The Ballad Of Tony Stark
Iron Man 2- Iron Man 3
IV — The Problem Child
- Avengers: Age Of Ultron
A — Bonus stories
- Guardians of the Galaxy vol 1
- Shang-Chi and the Legend of the Ten Rings
- Ant-Man
- Doctor Strange
- Thor: The Dark World
The Incredible Hulk
V — Civil War
- Captain America: Civil War
- Black Widow
B — Marvel’s best
- Thor: Ragnarok
- Guardians of the Galaxy vol 2
- Black Panther
VI — Infinity
- Avengers: Infinity War
- Ant-Man & The Wasp
- Avengers: Endgame
S — Spider-Man
- Spider-Man: Homecoming
- Spider-Man: Away From Home
- Spider-Man: No Way Home
Σ — Alternate Spiders
-
Spider-Man
&
Spider-Man 2 -
Into The Spider-Verse
&
Across The Spider-Verse
X — X-Men
- X-Men: First Class
- X-Men
- X-2: X-Men United
- X-Men: Days Of Future Past
- Logan
-
Deadpool &
Deadpool 2 - Deadpool & Wolverine
VII — After the endgame
- WandaVision
- The Marvels
- Jessica Jones
- Guardians of the Galaxy vol 3
- Agatha All Along
- Ms. Marvel
- Loki
- Luke Cage
- The Falcoln & The Winter Soldier
- Wakanda Forever
- She-Hulk
- Hawkeye
- Captain America: Brave New World
- Thor: Love and Thunder
- Doctor Strange and the Multiverse of Madness
- The Eternals
Ant-Man: Quantumania&Secret Invasion&Iron Fist
More details
I — Introducing the Marvel Universe
A taste of the basic charms of these movies.-
Iron Man
★★★★☆ *
The movie which initially put Marvel Studios on the map. When it was released, Marvel Studios’ first experiment with the Blade movies with Wesley Snipes had done well enough but had not really opened up Marvel’s comics sensibility … Robert Downey, Jr. was considered a has-been … not even comics fans were enthusiastic about Iron Man … and director Jon Favreau was a small-time cult actor / writer / director. But Favreau was a nerd who respected the material, so the movie just worked and was a hit. And the post-credits bonus — then a surprise from out of the blue — teased the series of films which Marvel Studios hoped to build. In this viewing order, we go from that little extra scene into a flashback … -
Captain Marvel
★★★☆☆
Though this was released late in the series, it is a perfect demonstration of the basic charms of Marvel movies — action & spectacle, character melodrama, actors having fun hamming it up — plus it sets up a few things for an ordinary viewer which one had to be a comics fan to appreciate when encountering the films in release order. -
Thor
★★★☆☆ *
Most film industry folks were puzzled when Marvel got Kenneth “Henry V” Branagh to direct a superhero movie. It was the right move, bringing the right note of shameless Shakespearean melodrama. The story is simple but then-unknowns Chris Hemsworth and Tom Hiddleston turn out to be awfully charming, and the supporting cast all have too much fun. -
The Avengers
★★★★☆ *
With this film, the everything-and-the-kitchen-sink pleasures of the Marvel Universe unfold. Uber-nerd director Joss Whedon (not yet disgraced when this was made) made it work with his knack for character ensemble and deep love & understanding of genre tropes. Aliens! Mad science! Super-spies! Hammy pseudo-Shakespearean dialogue! Plus Mark Ruffalo delivers an acting miracle that powers a perfect narrative climax.
II — The Ballad Of Steve Rogers
One could binge the Marvel movies or chip away at this list at a leisurely pace, but these two are a matched set, playing off of each other in a way that demonstrates how superhero stories can exercise the same characters for very different kinds of stories. I recommend watching them in this order as a double feature, or at least within a week or two of each other.-
Captain America: The First Avenger
★★★★☆ *
This origin story set in the Second World War was released before The Avengers, but I think it works better — especially for non-fans — as a flashback after the ensemble movie, which introduces Captain America well enough even if you don’t know anything about him. Marvel once again reached for a cult director with unique qualifications: Joe Johnston had directed the underappreciated, deliberately earnest, dieselpunk retro-pulpy The Rocketeer, and he reprises that voice for this WWII story about a character created in 1941. Chris Evans as our hero makes it look easy to play a character who is an unequivocal good guy, in contrast to most of the interestingly flawed Marvel heroes. -
Captain America: The Winter Soldier
★★★★★
The first Marvel movie to really stretch what the setting and characters can do, this entry contrasts with its predecessor’s earnest tone by delivering as much a crackling 1970s paranoid political thriller as superhero spectacle. (One thing to notice, which this watch order undercuts, is how when it was originally released, we had experienced our heroes as a handful of exceptional individuals in a world otherwise much like our own; Winter Soldier made the Marvel world feel expansive, with weirdness hiding behind every door.)
III — The Ballad Of Tony Stark
Iron Man 2★★☆☆☆
Frankly a mediocre entry in the series. It’s not bad, but it is disappointing, so I recommend skipping it unless you find yourself loving RDJ as Tony Stark … or you are someone who cannot get enough of Sam Rockwell goofing around.-
Iron Man 3
★★★★☆ *
Writer / director Shane Black directed RDJ in the weird comedy-noir masterpiece Kiss Kiss Bang Bang back in 2005. Tapped by Marvel, he delivered a mix of big spectacle, twisty storytelling, and a character turn for Tony Stark which made RDJ work for a living, setting Tony up as interesting enough to serve as the backbone of the whole film series. It’s also worth noting that when Marvel announced that the villain would be The Mandarin — a character who is basically Comics Supervillain Fu Manchu — folks like me were Concerned about how badly racist that could go, but the movie subverted that problem more cleverly than they (or just about anyone) have managed again since.
IV — The Problem Child
This movie swings for the fences … and doesn’t really work. But it includes elements signficantly referenced in later films in the series, so while one can skip it, this is the one film in the series where I encourage you to ride out a weak film in service of enjoying the series as a whole. I recommend nibbling on it a few scenes at a time, which plays to its strengths and mitigates many of its weaknesses: watch a chunk of it when you have some idle time, or as an appetizer before watching a movie from Section A, to get to a point where you have have finished Ultron before digging in to Civil War.-
Avengers: Age Of Ultron
★★☆☆☆
Yeah, it’s a bad movie, but there are a lot of good bits rattling around in it: smarter engagement with the themes of Frankenstein in the age of artificial intelligence than most movies entirely about that, some delightful scenes of our heroes just hanging out together, a direct rebuke to the inhuman callousness of the nearly-fascist Superman film Man Of Steel which was released while this was in production, and a couple of crackerjack action sequences. But the worst bits are bad. The effects for the face of killer robot Ultron are a queasy Uncanny Valley failure, undercutting a superb voice performance by James Spader. And one scene is a horrendous misfire which has Natasha “Black Widow” Romanov saying something gobsmackingly stupid and sexist.
A — Bonus stories
You don’t need any of these to make sense out of the story arc explored in the sections with the Roman numerals, but most of them are pretty good, they show more of the range of things that superhero stories can do, and the more of them you catch the better the callbacks and character stuff from later movies will land.-
Guardians of the Galaxy vol 1 ★★★★☆
A showcase for Marvel movies’ capacity for exuberant fun speaking to our inner ten-year-old, threaded with surprisingly poignant notes. If Star Wars has broken your heart with disappointment, this picture may rekindle your enthusiasm for Wacky Adventures In Space. One can really watch this one at any point, since it takes place In Space, away from our other heroes; the characters don’t get folded in to the rest of the story until Infinity War. -
Shang-Chi and the Legend of the Ten Rings
★★★★☆
A demonstration of superhero sensibilities marrying well with other kinds of stories. If one has any love at all for xianxia or wuxia or kung fu movies, it reflects what Daniel Pinkwater said about Laurel & Hardy — one knows exactly what is coming but the delivery is so perfect that one cackles with delight when it arrives. (Oh, there’s a bunch of bamboo scaffolding on this building? I wonder what will happen!) It stands almost completely on its own, though there is an allusion to Doctor Strange which benefits a bit from having seen that first. -
Ant-Man
★★★★☆
Loose goofy fun, with Paul Rudd characteristically charming and funny, bursting with setpieces more about cleverly playing off of our hero’s superpowers than the special effects. I must note that this was my young neice’s favorite. It does not draw much on other Marvel movies, but one should catch it before seeing Civil War. -
Doctor Strange
★★★☆☆
The story is a little tepid and it does not get as much leverage as it should out of some of its actors, but it has a bunch of unique strengths. Our hero comes up with a very clever resolution at the ending, there are some dazzling unique visual setpieces which folks who found that Inception left a lot of opportunity for extravagant effects on the table will find refreshing. And not only does Strange play a big role in the Infinity movies, this movie sets up my single favorite callback in Endgame. Thor: The Dark World★★☆☆☆
This movie isn’t quite bad but it is weak entry is worth watching if you find that you love Thor & Loki … and it does set up a couple of really terrific callbacks in later, better movies.The Incredible Hulk★★☆☆☆ *
The first MCU film, though release timing had it come right after the original Iron Man; it turns out rough enough around the edges that they re-cast the Hulk’s alter ego Bruce Banner in the later films. But if you love the Hulk, Frankenstein, Ed Norton, or mad science you may find it interesting. (Don’t confuse this with the strange, gutsy, flawed Ang Lee film Hulk, which predates Marvel Studios!)
V — Civil War
-
Captain America: Civil War
★★★☆☆
This picture exercises how superhero comics have a lot in common with long-running melodramatic soap operas, portraying larger-than-life characters who live in a messy, complicated world. Plus it finally delivers the truly extravagent superhero action setpieces fans are accustomed to seeing on the comic page with a lot of superheroes onstage together. The story works a significantly better if you have seen Age Of Ultron, and there’s a fun payoff if you have seen Ant-Man movie is also a plus, but neither is strictly necessary. -
Black Widow
★★★☆☆
This pretty-good spy thriller + family comedy-drama fits right after Civil War in the story sequence despite production problems which wound up deferring its release until much later. If you want to catch it, it benefits a little from watching it shortly after Civil War.
B — Marvel’s best
These three are generally understood to be the best Marvel Studios movies as movies. They benefit significantly from playing off of earlier movies in the sequence but are not necessary to feed the long story of the series.-
Thor: Ragnarok
★★★★★
Somehow this candy-colored delight is both the most fun and funny Marvel movie while also managing to deliver another meditation on colonialism and a resonant story about family, community, and responsibility. -
Guardians of the Galaxy vol 2
★★★★★
A refinement of all the zany, vulgar charm of the previous entry, building to an ending with much more emotional resonance than one would expect. You don’t need to see vol 1 first to make sense of it, but it’s almost as good a movie so you probably want to. -
Black Panther
★★★★★
An allegory of colonialism and global racial injustice through the lens of US Black cultural dreams and sensibilities, which sounds like eating your spinach … but enlivened by superheroes and the exuberance of the Marvel sensibility, it is instead a fun and inspiring modern myth which became a pop culture phenomenon for good reason. If you only see one Marvel movie, this is the one. And it makes a good segue to the end of the story cycle ….
VI — Infinity
This wraps up the initial big ten-year story arc Marvel Studios built with their movies. Though fans’ and Marvel marketing’s use of the word “saga” is overly grandiose, there really is a payoff here from working on such a big canvas. In comics, every few years comics publishers do a “crossover” story which ties together almost everything they publish, touching the stories in each character's individual books and then climaxing in a story which contrives to include as many characters as possible to play a role. This is both a sleazy marketing gimmick and, when it works, the ultimate expression of a unique thing that the superhero storytelling can do with its vast cosmology, numerous genres, and hundreds of characters with interlocking stories. It is a miracle that this works at all, much less as well as it does.-
Avengers: Infinity War
★★★★☆ *
Thanos, the space villain who has been knocking around the edges of the stories told so far, takes center stage in his quest for the Infinity Stone MacGuffins which have played a part in several of the movies. It is worth noting that structurally, Thanos is the protagonist of this movie. -
Ant-Man & The Wasp
★★★☆☆ *
A sequel almost as much fun as the original, with even more clever play with the implicitions of our heroes’ weird superpowers, if you like that sort of thing. Not an important movie in the Big Story, so you could skip it if you didn’t take a shine to the first Ant-Man film, but it’s nice to get a smaller story as a break between the massive spectacles of the two big Avengers movies … and the post-credits scene establishes it as bridging Infinity War to Endgame in an interesting way. -
Avengers: Endgame
★★★★☆
Most superhero stories begin and end with a stable status quo. This movie shows how the world and our characters were transformed by the events of Infinity War, reflects on where our characters came from, plays out what they do next, completes both The Ballad Of Tony Stark and The Ballad Of Steve Rogers, and makes a callback to Age Of Ultron so good that it makes watching that weak entry worthwhile.
S — Spider-Man
The three Marvel Studios Spider-Man movies are not strictly necessary to make sense of the big initial story arc, but are all good.-
Spider-Man: Homecoming
★★★☆☆
Another example of bringing life to stale genres by stirring in superheroics, in this case the teen high school comedy-drama. Not great but solid, with good performances by the cast and a superb twist at a key moment. Properly speaking this takes place shortly after the events of Civil War, but it doesn’t really hurt anything to watch at a different point. -
Spider-Man: Away From Home
★★★☆☆ *
More teen high school comedy-drama, not quite as strong as the first entry (and a few elements which disintegrate if one thinks too hard), but the lead characters are charming and the villain is interesting. Contains major spoilers for Infinity War, so best if you wait to watch this one after that. -
Spider-Man: No Way Home
★★★★☆
The best Marvel Studios Spider-Man feature. Since it plays with ideas from Spider-Man movies which Marvel Studios did not make, so I encourage catching at least one of the two Sam Raimi / Tobey Macguire movies first ….
Σ — Alternate Spiders
For rights reasons, Sony Pictures has made three distinct series of Spider-Man movies unconnected by style or story from the Marvel Studios version of the character. (Four if you count the so-bad-they’re-good Venom movies.) Alas, the two Amazing Spider-Man movies with Andrew Garfield as Peter Parker feature a few technical virtues (Spider-Man moves beautifully in them) but are clumsy enough that I cannot recommend them. Sam Raimi’s Spider-Man 3 with Tobey Maguire’s Peter Parker is better than its reputation, but it too is disappointing enough to skip unless you fall in love with Peter Parker.But these two pairs of movies are terrific:
-
Spider-Man ★★★★☆ &
Spider-Man 2 ★★★★★
Raimi’s first entry is super and the second one is even better, in the running for best superhero movies ever in the eyes of many comics fans. In contrast to the Marvel Studios movies, these commit deeply to the melodramatic storytelling style of the comics of the 1960s. -
Into The Spider-Verse ★★★★★ &
Across The Spider-Verse ★★★★☆
The first is both one of the best superhero movies ever made and also one of the best animated features ever made: visually dazzling, bursting with love for superhero stories, and genuinely moving. The sequel is a hair short of that, but for honest reasons — it suffers the challenges of a second act in a three-act story, and sometimes groans under the weight of its ambitions — but that is praising it with faint damnation.
X — The X-Men
Before Marvel Studios began their MCU sequence, 20th Century Fox started a series of films about this team of Marvel superheroes and their antagonists. Half of the dozen-plus entries in the series are only suited to superhero nerds, which is frustrating because the X-Men are among of the best and most beloved things in Marvel comics. But there are a few that are good, one very good, and one true classic. Disney’s acquisiton of Fox means that these characters will get rebooted in Marvel Studios films to come, so if you want a taste of a different style of Marvel movie than Marvel Studios has made, these are worth a look.-
X-Men: First Class ★★★★☆
The second-best X-Men film. It was made late in the series, but since it flashes back to the origins of the team in the 1960s, it is actually the ideal place to start, making its allegory of the Black, gay, and other liberatory social movements very direct. (I wrote a little review of it when it was new.) -
X-Men ★★★☆☆
The first film made in the series. Seeing it now, in contrast to the matured Marvel Studios approach, it suffers painful failure to trust the material, but at the time it was new fans like me were excited that it was one of the best superhero movies yet made, with gravitas delivered by Ian McKellen & Patrick Stewart, a star-making turn by Hugh Jackman, clever superheroic setpieces, and effective queer allegory. -
X-2: X-Men United ★★★☆☆
A follow-up that improves a bit on its predecessor, with more room for the performances to breathe. -
X-Men: Days Of Future Past ★★☆☆☆
A flawed, fun mess which ties together the casts of the flashback and later versions of the team. If you’re losing patience with the X-Men, skip this one, but it has some virtues, including a couple of terrific superhero action setpieces if you like those. After you see it, search YouTube for “quicksilver sweet dreams” to enjoy a sequel to its most memorable bit, snipped out from the gawdawful movie in which it appears. -
Logan ★★★★★
The last, and by far the best, film in this series. Not just a terrific superhero movie but a classic movie, period, re-framing the characters and world as a John Ford western. It benefits if one has seen the previous movies (especially X-2) but you don’t strictly need any of them. -
Deadpool &
Deadpool 2 ★★★☆☆
A pair of gonzo, vulgar, refuge-in-audacity action-comedies which somehow work much better than they have any right to. They technically belong to this series but have a completely different tone. Worth seeing as a taste of superhero comics sensibilities in their silly Brechtian self-parody mode. -
Deadpool & Wolverine ★★★★☆
Going back to the well a third time really should not have worked, much less turned out the best of the series. Watch it after seeing Logan … ideally quite some time after, for reasons which will become apparent.
VII — After the endgame
With the conclusion of the big “Infinity Saga” arc, there are a growing set of feature films — plus an array of streaming TV series — informed by it. Covid, bad luck, and trying a few too many projects broke Marvel’s stride, undermining the consistency and the sense of an overarching story, but there is some good stuff worth catching. One can dig into most of these in any order after getting to the two Infinity films; I note the few cases where watch order makes a difference.-
WandaVision ★★★★☆
Possibly Marvel Studios’ most gutsy experiment with what one can do with superheroes on screen, and it works, playing with sitcom conventions to deliver both wit and pathos to deliver a cleverly accessible version of David Lynch’s surrealist voice. -
The Marvels ★★★★☆
Maybe I am a sucker, but I adore this trifle. It hits all of the formula elements deliciously, so shameless in its pursuit of fun that it lets Samuel L. Jackson bring his comedic side and has teen superhero Ms. Marvel get a phone call from her mom literally telling her, “you cannot have any more space adventures”. This comes after the events of WandaVision & Ms. Marvel, but you don’t need to see either of those first. -
Jessica Jones ★★★★☆ / ★★★☆☆
The first season is somehow both entertaining and a sophisticated meditation on narcissistic abuse. The later seasons don’t have quite the same depth but do deliver the crime-drama goods. -
Werewolf By Night ★★★☆☆
A shaggy love letter to old horror movies. -
Guardians of the Galaxy vol 3
★★★☆☆
This third installment isn’t quite as strong as the previous ones, but it still delivers the mix-of-tones goods. CW: There’s a bit of animal cruelty which is earned by the story, but if you cannot watch that sort of thing at all, best to skip this movie. -
Agatha All Along ★★★☆☆
Shameless fun with witchy nonsense. If you like queer shenanigans — including Aubrey Plaza in her fully unhinged mode — it’s worth another ★. Spoilers for WandaVision, so catch that first. -
Ms. Marvel ★★★☆☆
A surprisingly sweet story hitting a lot of the notes which make Spider-Man an enduring character — a reflection on nerdy adolescence, family, and friendship. -
Loki ★★★☆☆
A witty, almost-nonsensical romp centered on Tom Hiddleston serving up thick slices of ham. Worth watching the entire thing just to get to a scene where Richard E. Grant miraculously blindsides you with melancholy tears. -
Luke Cage
★★★☆☆
The showrunner of this mostly-pretty-grounded story about Harlem’s local superhero says that he will never get tired of seeing a Black man in a hoodie shrug off gunfire. The show demonstrates why without it feeling like a downer. -
The Falcon & The Winter Soldier ★★★☆☆
A frustratingly uneven thriller. There is a lot of clever stuff in it, but after it opens a door to surprisingly interesting cultural politics, it disappoints by backing off from following through. -
Wakanda Forever ★★★☆☆
It may have been impossible to follow up the cultural moment around Black Panther even without the premature death of star Chadwick Boseman. Unable to fill those boots, this film is still solid — and also serves as a fitting requiem mass for Boseman. -
She-Hulk ★★★☆☆
A sitcom about being a lawyer who takes superhero / supervillain cases … while also being a superhero. Loose-unto-sloppy, but fun. -
Hawkeye ★★★☆☆
A fun trifle, part Holiday Comedy With A Hapless Dad, part Buddy Action Comedy. -
Captain America: Brave New World
★★★☆☆
A weaker attempt at the cocktail of superhero story and political thriller which Captain America: The Winter Soldier delivered, but entertaining enough, if only to see Harrison Ford having some hammy fun. This takes place after The Falcoln & The Winter Soldier and is a bit informed by it. -
Thor: Love and Thunder ★★☆☆☆
A surprisingly weak entry getting the band back together from the sublime Ragnarok. There is fun in there, but unsatisfying as a whole. -
Doctor Strange and the Multiverse of Madness ★★☆☆☆
A messy entry that has its charms if one has developed a taste for specifically-superheroic tropes or enjoys Sam Raimi’s overspiced directoral style. -
The Eternals ★★☆☆☆
This attempt at Big Cosmic Nonsense somehow doesn’t land right, but it has real ideas and is so gorgeously shot that it is an intriguingly noble failure. As with Age Of Ultron, I find it more gratifying a few scenes at a time. Ant-Man: Quantumania&Secret Invasion&Iron Fist★☆☆☆☆
The baseline for the MCU is popcorn entertainments a little better & smarter than they need to be; the lesser works are more weak than bad, entertaining enough for a lazy Sunday afternoon. But these are real turkeys.