Amph "You think you're the only superhero in the world?" - The Marvel Cinematic Universe

I still find it surprising so many people dislike IM2- it's far better/more rewatchable than several other MCU films (IM3, Thor 2, TIH, Strange, etc). It even has a stronger finale than IM1, even if IM1 has stronger opening & (in particular) middle acts.

I mean, I get that Rockwell makes or breaks the film for a lot of people and that a lot of its negative reputation is a result of misguided/inaccurate pre-Avengers conceptions that have just snowballed for years despite being outdated views at this point, but that doesn't account for all of the reaction to it.

 



Well, I don't dislike any MCU films (even Hulk is a decent Bourne-light clone and overcame very low initial expectations), but I still find IM2 to be a stronger film than some.


In the case of IM3, while the three major action sequences are great and the character banter is fine (if a bit too dry at times), the majority film is built towards a threat that ends up being a joke- and while I can enjoy the joke, that's usually never a good idea in any film as it undermines what your film has been building towards. In this case, as illustrated in the initial trailer, it also underlines a huge missed opportunity, thematically, for the first post-Avengers film to explore (ie: villains trying to cut off the very idea of heroes before it gets out of hand).


Thor 2 gets a worse rep than it deserves- it improves on the first film in almost every way (mew mew!) except the main villain. And the near utter lack of development for that character and his motivations makes confronting him monotonous despite the other imaginative bits going on around him (the portal hopping and effect on the hammer, for instance).


Strange falters slightly by making "the Marvel formula" more obvious due to the familiarity to Iron Man and such, but it manages to work in inventive visuals and a creative climax that uses that familiarity to it's advantage- but the rest of the film isn't quite so devious.


IM1, I think, it's pretty great but once Stane puts on the Iron Monger suit, his character becomes terribly generic with stock villain one-liners. This is not a disappointment mirrored by IM2's drone battle, thus i give that the film the edge in that department.






See, i actually totally disagree with your assessment there- the multiple storylines are connected with the main theme of IM2, which it definitely has: it's about showing Tony that he can't do everything alone, as that path is self destructive and pushes everyone he cares about away. It's only when he learns to accept help from Pepper, Happy, Rhodes, Fury and his father that he's able to cure himself and take on those personal fractures being manipulated by the 'sharks in the water'.


And I rather like that arc of Tony's in the film (especially the "still taking me to school" scene) and find it more satisfying than the PTSD arc in IM3 (don't get me wrong, I like the idea of Tony having issues after what he experiences in Avengers, but IM3 dwells on it as a major element [though generally just an excuse for Tony to pause a few times in the movie] and kinda just forgets about it by the end of the movie- whereas the "can't do this alone" theme runs solidly from beginning to end throughout IM2 and is carried on through the subsequent films as arguably the basis for Tony's entire character arc in the MCU as a whole).


IM2 isn't without its flaws- Rourke is so good as Whiplash that the lack of a real face-to-face encounter at the end of the film is incredibly disappointing*, though repeat viewings make the strategic-battle-of-minds aspect of the drone battle more clear so they do have a non face-to-face showdown at least.


*I still prefer the alternate ending they shot which keeps Whiplash out of a random Iron Monger rip-off and provides that face to face showdown. It might lack a little oomph (and something-bad-will-happen-to-Pepper is telegraphed too much) but it's still more satisfying, IMO (though a combination of the two would have probably been ideal).








If you're doing everything, you'll want to watch the One-Shot short films if you haven't already been doing so (you didn't mention them in your post). There's five of them in total and they're located across the various Blu-Ray releases as bonus features.



Other misc MCU content include two series of Newsfront videos (news segments and interviews with characters) (one set prior to Ant-Man, the other, Civil War) which are on youtube (and the Ant-Man BD has the first series), the Slingshot webseries (set mid-Season 4 of Agents of SHIELD) and 4 of the 5 Jessica Jones teasers (which are very small glimpses into her life pre-series, but still original content). Also, someone posted a couple of commercials tied into Spider-Man which seem to be set after the film and also appear to still work as in-universe content.


 

I think it will end in the GOTG2/WW range domestically, maybe a bit lower. But at this point, Marvel's immune to anything other than box office disaster.

As for Sony - domestically, Homecoming has already beaten ASM2 and should pass ASM today or tomorrow, their full runs. Worldwide (I imagine there are still some markets that are unopened), it will pass both within a week. Can't really make an argument that the franchise has dipped with Marvel - that's not even taking the critical acclaim into account.

 

That drop was due to the audience cannibalizing from Apes, mostly. It's domestic total has already surpassed ASM2 and will pass ASM1 today, though it probably won't touch the Raimi trilogy.

Worldwide it'll end up above the ASM films and might top SM2 but will probably be below SM1 & SM3.

Within the MCU it already topped Strange domestically, will soon pass Winter Soldier and will may end up in the IM & GOTG territory. Worldwide MCU, it'll also probably end up in that GOTG territory.

So probably no need to worry about poor Peter Parker at the moment.

EDIT- ninja'd

 

It really hasn't, if you think about it. It's more the release schedule that did a lot of films in. We've had GOTG2, WW, SMH, WFTPOTA, Baby Driver and Dunkirk so far, with Atomic Blonde and Dark Tower to go and maybe Hitman's Bodyguard taking the traditional end-of-summer B-movie action film role. That averages out to be about 2 tentpoles a month that were good-to-great (ok, maybe Baby Driver isn't a tentpole, but still).

Other franchises had middling or debatable success (Pirates, Alien). Even The Mummy will probably break even on a financial level (and will have left some lessons that would seemingly bode well for future DU films). The only truly terrible tentpole has been Transformers- but at least we now have a TF film that can be universally agreed to being the worst of that series and its performance may help keep Bay away from future installments, so that's a huge win for moviegoers there at least.