Opposed to earlier MCU films, Evans performance of Cap seems to land pretty much immediately, even in (and almost especially in) the pre-serum Steve.
The movie overall has good pacing, remains enjoyable, and the performance of most of the main actors is solid throughout. Special shoutout to Stanley Tucci's character, delivering some of cap's most character shaping words of wisdom with an incredibly believable warmth and fatherlyness.
The plot has some gaping holes and inconstistencies, showing the final plane capable of detailed, live position mapping while also making it seemingly impossible for cap to communicate a basic location for search & rescue, and also showing most of the wreck to be above ground after the crash makes the ending feel careless and an arbitrary choice. Also, for the supposed enormous technical advantage Hydra's units should have compared to 40s guns, Hydra sure is never shown as particularly powerful, threatening or winning any engagements, reducing them from a serious source of on-screen tension to comedic goons with glowy blasters. That may have been intentional, but in that case I didn't enjoy the outcome of that intention, and woud have preferred the high stakes set with the acquisition of the tesseract to have been followed through by showcasing the power and threat that this tech enabled.
But overall, it's a great setup movie for cap's background, and Evan's feels right at home from minute one.
Captain America: The First Avenger
Thor
It kicks off Thor's & Loki's storylines decently. Those two characters definitely struggle the most in this movie with finding their safe footing on how they will be portrayed in the end, luckily both of them land on very solid ground both in writing and acting later. Movie suffers a bit from slow pacing throughout the middle section. Anthony Hopkins and Idris Elba are my highlight performances in this one, producing gravitas for their respective characters that no other performances can measure up to in this one. Honorable mention to Skarsgards performance, but I simply can't get enough of that man in any role.
Thor
Iron Man 2
While overall a little weaker on plot and pacing than the first one, it still sports tons of enjoyable dialogue, well paced action scenes, and feels like the first true opening up into the wider MCU with the introduction of Black Widow, Howard Stark and War Machine. The Elon Musk cameo is a wonderful reminder that not everything was okay in 2010, but makes for a refreshing cringe in the middle of an otherwise great movie.
I can't believe we had Liv Tyler in the MCU and wasted her on this movie. Probably the most isolated and out-of-place feeling movie in the early MCU. Odd pacing, action bits that sometimes stretch past their needed duration, fairly flat characters, and an emotionally interesting arc around Betty's relationship with her current partner and Bruce's return that gets started but not explored or resolved despite good potential. I actually look forward to seeing Tim Roth back as Emil Blonsky later in She Hulk. Edward Norton gave it a good shot as Bruce, but his more snarky portrayal does not convince as much as Mark Ruffalos truly tortured, sad spirit take that will charm audiences throughout the rest of the MCU.
It's the kickoff to a series that may have been dead in the water with a worse opening movie. RDJ carries the role, and it's this fit that sucks you into the characters flaws and charisma. An overall charming movie that sets the tone for much of the MCUs overall journey. Still sad Terrence Howard did not remain in the role of Rhodey, I felt their on-screen chemistry was always more present and friendly than with Don Cheadle, whose Rhodey felt borderline nagging and generally discontent.
Iron Man
Loki
Loki
John Wick: Chapter 3 - Parabellum
With each movie in this series, one might expect the plot to widen and characters to deepen beyond multiple pages of [they fight], and this movie certainly did this best out of the series, despite a lot of [fighting].
