Marvel Cinematic Universe

To be fair to the comics character, that's how has always been, or at least for about 90% of the last 40-50 years. Chris Evans' portrayal (which is perfect) is extremely accurate to the vast bulk of comics involving Cap, and the writing consistently nails the character. I was initially surprised at how well they did with him with the MCU but I shouldn't have been - he's been extremely consistently the guy we see in the MCU, and the couple of times he hasn't been were quickly retcon'd in the comics as someone was impersonating Cap. There are also a number of "Evil Captain America"-types who can be used when the idea of nationalism vs. patriotism or the like needs to be looked at (particularly US Agent, who is now in the MCU).

I had the same reaction before I read the comics though - I thought he was about the dumbest thing I'd ever heard. But he's one of the MCU characters closest to the comics version (Bruce Banner/The Hulk is probably the most distant from the comics, imho, in personality/behaviour, but that's because as other Hulk fans here can better explain, Banner in the comics has a long and very crazy history).

Enjoyed Spiderman. Proper spoilers follow:

I like all the MCU movies. Every single one I've seen. The worst I'd say is some of them are "low-three-stars". I'm so absolutely in the tank for the whole thing that just spending time watching the characters on screen is still perfectly enjoyable.

Having said all that, I do agree that the usual culprits of Iron Man 2, Incredible Hulk, and Dark World are the three worst (I've not seen Eternals to be fair, despite being really excited for it; blame the pandemic). I think Thor and Iron Man are really just unfocussed, like they didn't know what they wanted the films to be about; I reckon IM2 was torn between "now we're building a shared universe" and "character-focussed sequel about Tony's past" and the two sides didn't marry. Thor's troubles are well-known. Hulk is a different beast; it doesn't really feel like an MCU movie at all. It's like the sort of late-nineties/early-noughties superhero films, things like Daredevil or Ghost Rider (or, funnily enough, Venom).

I've seen every film at least twice, many of them three or more times. Some get better, some fade away a bit. Avengers, for instance, has slipped quite far down, whereas The First Avenger has shot up, gets better each time. In fact, apart from Iron Man 3 and the Infinity two-parter, the three Cap films could almost be my three favourites out of the lot.

I may be a little obsessed.

I think the Cap America ones are the only ones I've only watched just the once. But I remember Cap 1 just being awful in the cinema, insane cutting, unfocused, deal with everything in montage. Though I just always want Captain America to suddenly get hit by a bus from off camera and end it. He's just so smug.

I found the first Cap film to be a pretty generic origin story movie.
I mean, I guess the entire first phase of the MCU was origin stories, but Cap1 felt closest to the familiar superhero stories we'd seen in the past. Not bad, but nothing special.
If it'd been the first MCU movie it might have seemed better, but it might also not have set things off in the way that Iron Man did.

It gets big points for introducing Peggy though.

Winter Soldier is ace though, and is also one of my faves. Civil War is a very mixed bag, but good fun.
Actually, no single 'character trilogy' is 3 for 3 imho, unless Guardians 3 manages to be great, so it's hard to pick the best one of those.

Yeah I've definitely thought of it as Avengers 2.5

I prefer GOTG2 the first one felt a bit tryhard, like it would be the sort of person who’d describe themselves as ‘random’ in their MySpace bio

Interestingly, how you describe GOTG1 is pretty much how I feel about GOTG2.

I didn’t take to the second one as much when I saw it the first time in the movies, although the ending with the fireworks was surprisingly moving. But on repeat viewings I think GotG2 is actually brilliant. I do a lot of screenwriting and I think the script for Guardians 2 is a actually fantastic. I think I bounced off it on first viewing on account of it being so different to the first movie, which is also why it’s had a long tail with me. It’s probably up there with my most re-watched MCU movies.

I think the new Spiderman is incredible, might even be my favourite MCU movie. And (major spoilers):

I think individual scenes like that are great, but it just didn't come together as a cohesive whole for me. The momentum didn't really build as the film's focus had to jump around a fair bit between the disparate characters. At least that's how I remember it after my couple of views (no real desire to watch it again)

I think *every* tv channel showing *every* spiderman movie this christmas has caused me to overdose on spiderman, because I really can't summon any enthusiasm to go and watch the new one, even though everyone says its great.

It's actually not, surprisingly.

It draws from all of them but I don’t think you’ll miss a huge amount without Spidey 3 or ASM1, though there’s a fair amount from ASM2.