1. X-Men: First Class. Lots of kickass mutants in the 1960s. Lots of hot chicks in miniskirts & go-go boots. Magneto hunting down escaped Nazi war criminals. Professor Xavier using his "Mutation has allowed us to evolve..." speech to pick up co-eds in the campus bar. And Mystique breaks my heart. I felt 10 years younger watching this movie. (Although, it is hard to view it objectively this close. I can't wait to get it on DVD and do a proper comparison with the 1st 2
X-Men movies. Speaking of...)
2. X-Men & X2. I can't decide between these 2.
X2 has better action and a greater confidence of style but
X-Men has that slightly better freshness factor. I especially love all of the Wolverine/Rogue scenes.
3. Blade. The epitome of cool style.
4. Spider-Man. In many ways, it's still the standard setter, much in the way
Superman was a couple decades earlier.
5. Thor. This movie is just lots of surprising fun. And all of its humor comes from a very earnest place, which is why I rank it above more cynical fare like
Iron Man. It's easy to crack jokes at the expense of others. It's much trickier to be nice & get others to laugh at your own expense. So extra points for added difficulty.
6. Daredevil. This movie does a great job of capturing the brutal psychological toll of being a superhero, something rarely examined with any seriousness at all in superhero movies. It's also got some great fun performances from Colin Farrell & Jon Favreau.
7. Iron Man & Iron Man 2. Objectively,
Iron Man gets a slight edge over
Iron Man 2 but they're very close. They both have the same basic strength of Robert Downey Jr. being a hilarious jackass to everyone he meets and Gwenyth Paltrow is a good foil for him (though not as good as Jude Law in
Sherlock Holmes).
Iron Man 2 loses a couple of points for unthreatening villains, lack of Jeff Bridges, lack of Terrence Howard, and too much irrelevant
Avengers filler. But still, worthy efforts.
But I'll say this: Spider-Man 3? Criminally underrated. We should all be on our hands and knees begging Topher Grace to reprise Venom, but we're not. I don't get people.
I don't think the movie overall is underrated. It's still got emo-Peter Parker playing his turn to the dark side for laughs. It's still got deus ex butler. But Topher Grace is one of the few things that doesn't suck about it.
