As a bit of an indulgence, I've been watching/rewatching some of these to fill in the gaps. An interesting experience to have connections and resonances emerge, or be fleshed out, after so much out-of-sequence exposure along the way.
Having recently watched the first
Captain America film, and in general developed a bit more investment in the principals and more familiarity with their personalities and their multi-movie character arcs,
The Avengers was a notch more enjoyable than
last time, when I was missing a fair bit of context.
Iron Man 3 was a first watch. Thoughts prompted included: particularly in an age of Elon Musk et al, the character of Iron Man is far from unproblematic; the extent to which Jarvis comes off as an actual character is quite impressive (and adds more weight to the developments of the later
Age of Ultron); it tackles the PTSD head on and I liked that aspect; it wraps up his story quite neatly (though of course we, and by then the studio too, know/knew there was plenty to come).
Ant-Man, as promised, was more of a goof, a fun and fast-moving heist movie. Paul Rudd is really quite charming.
Like
The Avengers but more so,
Captain America: Civil War made much more sense with the benefit of now having several more of these under my belt. This one particularly, but also the others I've been watching or rewatching, brought home how much of a balancing act each film walks between standing alone and being a satisfying part of the wider 'MCU', as well as the extent to which many of them tip in the latter direction.
The
Guardians of the Galaxy movies seemed skippable in terms of rewatches but I figured I might as well flesh out my attachment to the characters (on this watch,
volume 2 in particular puts a lot of work into all its principals, significantly building on the
first one). And they turned out to be an apt lead-in to
Thor: Ragnarok by way of space adventures, which I'm going to say is probably my favourite of the lot (its only real competitor being
Black Panther, which is still fresh enough in my mind that I've skipped it in this refreshing) - a winner in terms of pace, tone, humour and style, as well as super enjoyable characters and about the right amount of advancing of the longer arcs.
Spider-Man: Homecoming was neat, getting the stakes right and doing a good job with the 'high school important / adult world important' thing, as well as using the big previous Avengers events as worldbuilding context. Tony Stark also becomes increasingly more enjoyable the more films I see him in.
On the back of all that,
Infinity War landed with more weight this time, mostly because all the threads it pulls together were fresh in my mind but also because there was more depth in my understanding of the (many) characters. Also, Thanos is an intriguingly philosophical, melancholy, and at times almost sympathetic sociopath of a big bad.
And, most recently,
Ant-Man and the Wasp - another fun entry.
