So I think it’s safe to say that superhero movies have had a bit of a renaissance in
recent years.
In fact, since 2010 these movies have become some of the most successful of their years,
if not of all time.
So, I thought it could be fun to look at some of the really good movies from the past 7
years and try to figure out which is the best.
Alright, let’s get into it.
So, the way I did this, I found the 16 highest rated superhero movies of the 2010s on Rotten
Tomatoes, yes I know, Rotten Tomatoes can be weird sometimes but for the purposes of
this video it works, I ranked them from highest to lowest and then pitted them against each
other by going number 1 against number 16, number 2 against number 15, number 3 against
you get the point.
Also I got out this giant piece of paper and wrote all of this stuff down on it to make
this slightly less confusing for both you and me.
So let’s see if this works.
First round, the highest vs the lowest, Logan vs Ant-Man.
These are gonna start off fairly easy and get progressively harder as we move along.
I mean, I definitely enjoy Ant-Man.
Especially all the parts that you can tell are somewhat still Edgar Wright’s ideas,
all that’s great.
But on the whole, it’s just fun.
And it’s one of the more forgettable MCU movies for me.
Logan on the other hand was an awesome risk for a superhero movie that payed off big time.
Giving James Mangold much more control to make something of a western study of damaged
heroes past their prime made for one of the most interesting superhero movies I’ve ever
seen.
Mix that with an r-rating, some incredible action scenes, phenomenal performances from
Jackman, Stewart, and the whole cast, and some of the most genuinely emotional scenes
I’ve seen in a movie in a while, and yeah, I think I’m gonna have to give Logan the
win here.
Next up, a 2017 battle for the ages that I’m probably gonna get some hate for, Wonder Woman
vs Guardians of the Galaxy Volume 2.
Now I have some maybe slightly controversial opinions here, I don’t really know, people
on the internet can get mad at you for pretty much any reason, but really, I’d say I like
the movies pretty much equally.
Which means I probably like Guardians 2 more than most people, and I probably like Wonder
Woman less than most people.
For the record, i’ve got reviews of both of these up on my channel if you wanna check
those out, but really, I think Wonder Woman is a great movie with good performances and
action and likeable characters and a story that makes sense, which is a big step up for
DCEU movies, and I also recognize how important it is for women in the movie industry, that’s
all great, but I don’t love it.
Really I think the third act kind of falls apart and gets way too cliched, and kind of
ends in a slightly anticlimactic way.
Guardians 2 on the other hand, is a super fun romp of a movie that is visually one of
the most beautiful superhero movies ever, that also isn’t perfect.
I mean, despite some actual emotional character moments and good arcs, some of these emotional
backstories, seem maybe a tad forced?
Or maybe not forced, but just crammed in too quickly.
I think it’s a very impressive movie and I applaud James Gunn for the creativity he
shows in a lot of this.
Also, following up a beloved movie is a super tough job, and I’d say this is a very good
sequel to the first, but it just doesn’t really stack up to that one.
It’s hilarious and fun leaves you satisfied, but I just didn’t leave the cinema with
the same feeling of total joy I did leaving some of the other films we’ll get to.
But on the whole, which did I enjoy watching more and which would I watch again first?
I’m gonna have to go with Guardians of the Galaxy 2 here, sue me.
Alright, Spider-Man Homecoming vs Deadpool is our next match up.
And lemme tell ya, these do not get easier from here.
Alright, look, Spider-Man Homecoming is probably the most surprising superhero movie that I’ve
seen in a long time.
Cuz even with something like Deadpool, which was a bit of a risk, based on the marketing
and team involved, I was pretty sure it was gonna be good.
But Homecoming, I had a feeling it was just gonna be another good Marvel movie that I
kind of just forget about and never really revisit again.
Like Ant-Man.
But watching this, this was so incredibly fun.
I had such a blast from start to finish with Homecoming, from Spider-Man’s day to day
life to his very relatable high school troubles to the action sequences being pretty top notch.
Tom Holland is easily my favorite Spider-Man and this might be my favorite Spider-Man movie.
It’s certainly the funniest.
No it isn’t perfect, The Vulture is a great villain but there’s a certain aspect of
his character that I...I wasn’t a huge fan of.
And there’s one kind of weird and very cliche Spider-Man scene that I didn’t really like.
But besides that, I totally loved this movie.
On the other side, Deadpool is also pretty fantastic.
And seeing it for the first time on the big screen, with that truly amazing bridge action
scene and some great jokes and blood shooting everywhere, that was awesome.
However, I do have to say, as much as I enjoyed it on the first watch, the second and third,
while still fun, have gotten less good.
And to be fair, I’ve only seen Spider-Man once.
But that origin story for Deadpool, it can drag a little bit on rewatches.
Jokes and action, some of the best.
But I think the same can kind of be said for Homecoming.
And while I do appreciate how much Deadpool did for the superhero genre, and how many
risks it took by having graphic sex scenes and having a man getting his head cut off
and then said head being used as a soccer ball in a Marvel Fox film, on the whole I
overall think I enjoyed Homecoming more.
So, yeah, Homecoming’s moving on.
Moving, the next round is The Avengers vs X-Men First
Class.
I mean, if you know me at all, you pretty much know how this is gonna go.
But let me just say first, I love X-Men First Class.
Matthew Vaughn is definitely one of my favorite directors working today, I’m interested
in whatever he makes.
And I think First Class is probably his second best film.
What makes it great is that it’s not just a very fun superhero origin movie, which it
is, but it also completely revitalized the X-Men franchise after two soul crushing messes.
It also has some of the strongest performances I’d say in any superhero film, and beneath
all the awesome action there’s a lot of heart too, and some actually very emotional
scenes, in particular between Charles and Erik.
I enjoy watching it so much that I’m really quite sad that it’s getting knocked out
in its first round.
It’s really great and it’s one of the best X-Men movies.
But it’s not Avengers.
The Avengers is pretty much everything First Class is for me, and then just a little bit
more.
I mean, seeing all these heroes come together was completely unprecedented, and it could've
been such a huge anticlimax.
And it ended up being anything but that, all these characters play off each other perfectly
with that Joss Whedon writing.
And the action and the villain and everything.
We’ll get more into Avengers later on, I’m sure, but yeah, for now I’m gonna have to
pick that for this one.
Ok, Guardians of the Galaxy vs The Dark Knight Rises.
I rewatched the Dark Knight Rises recently, and it is a lot better than I remember.
I know people love to make fun of it cuz of some stupid moments in it, yes, I do concede
that there is some stupid and kind of illogical stuff here.
But it seems to me like that happens with a lot of Nolan’s films.
I wouldn’t say they’re perfect, but they’re so full of layers and they’re so beloved
that now I feel like people really look for the holes in the story even if they aren’t
that major, just because Nolan is held to such a high standard.
So I guess he should take that as a compliment?
Regardless, the first time I saw Dark Knight Rises I wasn’t a huge fan, but watching
it now that I’m a bit older, it’s fantastic.
Action, performances, cinematography, and it has this epic feel to it that is lacking
from a lot of superhero movies.
But I would say it’s the weakest of the trilogy.
I didn’t enjoy it as much as Batman Begins, and I didn’t think it was as masterfully
put together as the Dark Knight.
Alternatively, Guardians of the Galaxy is a super different tonally.
And it takes that Marvel comedic style to the extreme, jokes upon jokes upon jokes,
and does it perfectly.
I still find a lot of these jokes hilarious after having watched the movie a good 7 or
so times.
Plus, despite it being the funniest superhero movie I’ve ever seen, it still actually
has scenes that make you kind of choke up, which I think is really impressive.
Also it made this scene work, somehow.
So, I’m giving this to Guardians of the Galaxy.
So now we have maybe the toughest matchup of this whole thing for me, two movies from
2014, X-Men Days of Future Past vs Captain America The Winter Soldier.
I love both of these so much, almost exactly equally.
I’ve been flip flopping on this one for a while.
I put out a Twitter poll to help and everything.
Days of Future Past I believe is the best X-Men film.
And Winter Soldier I believe is the best Captain America film.
They’re both near perfect examples of how to do a summer blockbuster.
Ultimately, I think I’m gonna have to go with Winter Soldier though.
Days of Future Past has hilarious moments, good characters, one of the best superhero
movie scenes period, and it did a great job of melding the two X-Men worlds together and
kind of passing the torch from the old cast to the new.
But Winter Soldier is such a spectacularly put together movie.
I’ve mentioned this before, but I think this is probably the best paced superhero
movie ever.
There isn’t a single kind of boring scene in this movie, or a long stretch with no action
or something like that.
It’s so well made and entertaining, so I’m gonna have to go with that.
Next up, another Captain America movie.
Civil War vs one of the more unique superhero movies here, Big Hero 6.
This one’s a little easier for me.
Big Hero 6 is a very fun Disney movie, one of the best of their modern movies.
And Baymax had a lot of potential to get annoying, but he remained adorable and hilarious all
the way through.
I’d say he’s even better than baby Groot.
It’s not Civil War though.
It doesn’t have as much excitement and it isn’t as memorable in my opinion.
So yeah, Captain America: Civil War is moving on.
Alright, Lego Batman vs Doctor Strange, let’s do this.
Look, this is a very odd pairing.
I mean, these are two movies that are pretty much aimed at different audiences.
But hey I enjoyed both pretty equally.
Both are great, and both have a few flaws.
I’d say they’re kind of the reverse of each other in some ways, where with Doctor
Strange I feel like the first act is the weakest part of the film and then the entire third
act is totally spectacular, while Lego Batman I think the first two thirds are hysterical,
and then the final act is yeah pretty fun but not as good.
So, which wins here?
Well I am tempted to give this to Doctor Strange, because on the whole it’s a lot of fun and
it has great performances, but mainly because that that third act is one of my favorite
third acts in a superhero movie I’ve seen in awhile.
Much like Civil War it manages to do something different from a whole city’s destroyed
by the heroes fighting.
In this one, the heroes are actually fighting around a city being destroyed in reverse,
and or flipping onto walls and all kinds of crazy nonsense.
The movie looks amazing too by the way.
And that whole thing with Dormammu was creative and unexpected and I personally loved it.
But, that start does drag a little bit for me.
It’s kind of weirdly paced, because it takes a while for everything to kind of get going,
and once it does, it zooms through a lot of stuff that I wish we could’ve seen more
of.
Like his training, I really couldn't tell how long it took and at one point he learned
what things.
Lego Batman on the other hand, while the third act isn’t as good as the rest, it’s still
fun.
And I just had so much fun throughout the whole thing, I was laughing almost every minute.
As a Batman fan all the little in jokes and whatnot were hilarious, but the movie on the
whole for anyone is also incredibly funny.
Plus the animation's amazing.
So with all that in mind, people might disagree, but I’m gonna say Lego Batman.
Alright, now let’s move on to the second round.
First match up here is a crazy one, Logan vs The Avengers.
This is going to be kind of divisive for some people.
And it’s a super tough choice for me, trust me.
It’s kind of hard to compare these movies, because they’re so different.
They’re essentially polar opposites of the genre.
On one hand you have fun, fast moving action packed colorful popcorn blockbuster, and on
the other you have a dark, thought-provoking violent character study.
I would personally say they’re both close to perfect for me.
Yes there are plot holes in both, but it’s not anything movie breaking.
The way I can decide this I think is really which I will and have re-watched more times.
And while Logan is phenomenal, it’s a little harder to sit through multiple times just
cuz of how emotionally draining it is.
I’m not saying that makes it necessarily worse than the Avengers, I guess it’s just
a matter of personal taste.
This is hard alright, I need to find something here.
Yeah, I’m gonna have to give this to the Avengers.
Sorry Logan.
Still love you.
Now we have another 2017 superhero movie matchup, Guardians 2 vs Spider-Man Homecoming.
And you know what, I realize that this whole video might make my inevitable best superhero
movie of 2017 video a bit redundant, soooo...whatever, I’ll figure something out.
I gotta make that sweet sweet YouTube money alright.
As for this, yeah, I don’t really wanna repeat myself, you already really know how
this is gonna go.
Both super fun, but one stayed with me a lot more than the other and I overall left one
just more satisfied than the other.
Maybe that’s based on my somewhat different expectations for each going in?
I don’t know.
Regardless, I’m giving this one to Homecoming.
Alright, now a little bit of a harder one, Guardians of the Galaxy vs Captain America
Civil War.
Look, Civil War has been a little bit of a weird movie for me.
When I first saw it, I was like, hey that was pretty awesome, but I didn’t really
love it.
I don’t know, I remember leaving the cinema with kind of an empty feeling, and I feel
like that’s because I wasn’t at all prepared for the Zemo story which took up a surprising
amount of the film.
The more times I’ve watched it though, I’ve really started to love it.
I think it has potentially the best Marvel action ever, that airport fight scene is insane,
and the ending is more low key than that airport battle, but I’d say it’s almost as good,
and it has real stakes to it, unlike the final battles in a lot of these movies.
Guardians though, I loved it when I first saw it, and I love it to this day.
There’s a feeling that I have when I leave the cinema, and I’m sure I can’t be the
only one, where sometimes it’s a really fun movie like Civil War and I leave happy
but not ecstatic or anything, i just kind of move along with my day.
And then there’s another feeling, like when I left Baby Driver or Get Out or in this case,
Guardians of the Galaxy, where I’m just so hyped up because of how much I loved the
past two hours, and I don’t shut up about how good it is for the next few days or so,
and it’s just the best.
And yeah, that’s why I think I’m gonna give Guardians the edge here.
Alright, Lego Batman vs Winter Soldier.
Uhhhhh Winter Soldier.
Yeah sorry, Lego Batman’s very fun and a very enjoyable kids movie, but Winter Soldier
is on another level of awesome.
I’ve talked about it a lot already and I’m about to talk about it more, so let’s just
leave it at that.
Winter Soldier moving on.
Ok, we’re all the way down to the third round now, with the fight of the MCU team
ups, Avengers vs Guardians.
Part of me is really tempted to give this Guardians.
Because when I first saw it, I was super impressed by the fact that James Gunn managed to make
characters who were not only kind of unknown in the comics, but entirely unknown cinematically,
and make them as popular and likeable as the Avengers, where almost each character had
already had a film to set up what they're all about.
That’s amazing, and I also think James Gunn deserves a lot of credit for setting up this
cosmic side of the MCU.
As far as the Avengers though, the thing is, I literally can’t think of anything I don’t
like in it.
And that’s entirely subjective, and that may very well be biased, but this is an entirely
subjective and biased video.
These are my thoughts, and I don’t really dislike anything in that film.
The opening with that car chase with Loki, don’t dislike it.
The fact that Thor just kind of shows up with not a ton of explanation which kind of negates
the whole climax of his own film, I don’t care.
I know, I know, this isn’t true for a lot of people and maybe I’m a bit biased by
nostalgia, actually that’s not a maybe, I am.
But this is my video, and I love the Avengers.
So, Avengers, moving on.
Alright, Spiderman Homecoming vs Captain America Winter Soldier.
Two pretty beloved MCU movies.
The problem with these kinds of videos is that by the time I get to the later rounds
I’ve kind of exhausted everything I wanna say about certain movies.
You know I love both, Winter Soldier has amazing action, Homecoming has amazing comedy and
has the best portrayal of Spider-Man I think we’ve ever seen.
Yada yada yada.
If I’m just going to pick the one that I think is the better film, Winter Soldier.
The one that I also enjoyed watching the most.
Also, I could be wrong, but I feel like as time goes by, Winter Soldier will still be
remembered as one of the great superhero movies of all time and Homecoming might fade a little
bit.
We’ll see though.
Anyway, yes, Winter Soldier will be fighting in the title bout.
And speaking of which, here we are, the grand finale.
Two movies that I’d honestly probably give a 10/10 to.
The Avengers vs Captain America The Winter Soldier.
Really at this point I’ve said almost all I could say about these movies, and to be
perfectly honest they’re pretty much the same in terms of quality, for different reasons.
So this all comes down to personal preference.
And really, while I love The Winter Soldier, the Avengers is one of my favorite movies,
but also seeing it in the cinema was one of my favorite experiences of all time.
A lot of people talk about how, oh seeing Star Wars on the big screen or oh seeing Jurassic
Park on the big screen, one of the coolest experiences of my childhood, that’s what
made me love movies.
And for me, and I think a lot of people around my age, The Avengers is that movie.
Come on, I saw this movie when I was 10 years old, and it blew my mind.
And I’ve seen it about a dozen times still and I still love it.
I guess this comes down somewhat to nostalgia, which will annoy some people, but there are
few things that can make me as nostalgic as hearing that Avengers theme song kick in while
watching these heroes teaming up.
Winter Soldier is fantastic, but I don’t have that same connection to it.
So for that, although I love both, I’m gonna say that The Avengers is the best superhero
movie of the 2010s.
So those were my thoughts on the superhero movies from the 2010s.
What did you think of this?
Let me know all of your thoughts down below in the comments.
While you’re at it be sure to like this video, check out my Instagram and Twitter
@bhl_hudson, check out this podcast about movies and TV and whatnot I do every other
week with a friend of mine, it’s called The Poorly Planned Podcast (link down below),
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Thanks for watching and I’ll see ya next time.