So after going nearly FOUR DAYS without being in charge of a tournament pick'em, I introduced my daughters to Guardians of the Galaxy today and well, here we are back in another pick'em. Since there is an odd number of movies (23) - I went with the seeding by IMDB rating. The bottom 3 movies (Hulk, Dark World, and surprisingly Captain America: The First Avenger) all missed the cut, leaving us with 20.

The top 12 seeds are guaranteed, the other 8 are in a quartet of play-ins that will start tonight and go through the same time Monday, after which the Sweet 16 will commence. So seeds #13-20 will square off in individual matchups to earn seeds 13-16.

These IMDB ratings are way off from my personal ones, but it seemed like the best way to keep it somewhat objective. Here are the preliminary matchups. Vote on the playins HERE.


#1 End Game vs. #16 Ant-Man and the Wasp / #17 Iron Man 3
#2 Infinity War vs. #15 Ant Man / #18 Captain Marvel
#3 The Avengers vs. #14 Age of Ultron / #19 Thor
#4 Guardians of the Galaxy vs. #13 Black Panther/ #20 Iron Man 2
#5 Iron Man vs. #12 Spiderman: Homecoming
#6 Thor: Ragnaork vs. #11 Spiderman: Far From Home
#7 Captain America: The Winter Soldier vs. #10 Dr. Strange
#8 Captain America: Civil War vs. #9 Guardians of the Galaxy 2

Unless something goes horribly wrong, all the favorites will win in round 1. (Personally I'd go GOTG 2 over CW, but most people seem to love CW.)

Thing get reeal interesting in round 2 with Infinity War vs Winter Soldier...

It's easily in my top 10, but I felt I was going against my own rules by including it.

I was a bit surprised Captain America 1 didn't make the IMDb cut, too, but it's not like it was going to win the tourney.

The dreaded 5/12 match up awaits...

Sex Panther said:

---

Leaving Cap 1 out seems like a crime. I'd put it in over Iron Man 2

---

I would put it in over about half of the movies listed

As Brian and Cinco can attest to, when you're the one who makes the bracket, the only sure thing is that everyone will tell you how it should have been. Then you've just got to channel Ricky Nelson and enjoy the ride.

Brian Earl Spilner said:

---

Personally I would have left our Captain Marvel or one of the Ant-Mans instead.

---

I'll take any of those over Black Panther, the first 2 Thors, and Iron Man 2. The first Capt America should have been in, never understood why people have that one so low.

My family has watched all of them during the quarantine (except for AM & W, and the last two Acengers). I'll have to get my boys to come vote with me for it.

ETA: I got outvoted on IronMan 3 and Antman.

I wonder if the WW II setting for Cap 1 has an affect that skews the voting. Maybe younger people can't relate to that era, or maybe older people don't like the comic/fantasy aspect of something real they know all too well?

redline248 said:

---

I wonder if the WW II setting for Cap 1 has an affect that skews the voting. Maybe younger people can't relate to that era, or maybe older people don't like the comic/fantasy aspect of something real they know all too well?

---

I think two other things worked against Captain America 1 besides the WW2 setting. First a lot of the pay off in Captain America didn't come into play until Winter Solider and Civil War. So at the time of its release it felt a little stagnant. Two everyone was super pumped up for the Avengers so another introduction movie felt like a place holder/a movie going through the motions setting up another character for Avengers.

Plus in the new chronological order, Captain America as the first movie is a pretty awesome way to start. Putting it as the fifth movie and the third intro movie made it a little duller.

Just my thoughts.

This was kinda discussed in the MCU thread recently. I think it has boring action and the villain pretty much disappears for the last half of the movie. The final act is pretty weak IMO. He just drives a motorcycle at their final base. That's how the finale starts. "How will we stop this unstoppable force?" "I dunno let's just go get em."

For Cap 1 and Avengers, Cap's action scenes were just "I can punch you hard." Very Jessica Jones - not dynamic or interesting, not much different than any other strong hero (aside from a couple shield throws). Thankfully he got a massive upgrade in Winter Soldier and never looked back.

Cap 1 gets a retroactive boost by making Peggy Carter his canonical love interest and by making Endgame go full circle. If Cap ended up with Sharon Carter, Cap1 would be nothing but another largely-forgettable Phase 1 origin film. IMO.

Cap, Bucky and Hydra are all way cooler for what came after than from how it all started.

Is Spider-Man:Into the Spiderverse considered as part of the MCU? If not, add it in and you can put the other 3 back.

My personal opinion: its the best Spider-Man movie, and quite possibly the best comic book movie ever made.

In our marathon it was crazy that there's a 50 year break between CA and CM if you're watching them chronologically. I guess now Black Widow would go between them depending on when they're placing that.

CA:tFA has always had a special place in my heart because the scenes between Evans and Tucci were really endearing and that final realization of missing his dance were honestly the first time they pulled on your heartstrings. Honestly I didn't feel any angst like that again till GotGv2.

Based on the early returns, it appears that texags, much like george w bush, hates black people. And women. At least as superheroes.

Black Widow now apparently takes place just after Civil War and before Infinity War. So it likely won't be filling any part of that gap.

No, just those two movies are not great.

Brian Earl Spilner said:

---

No, just those two movies are not great.

---

that's why Black Panther made $700m?

I had to think the longest on BP vs IM2. They are pretty equal in my mind. One has the the introduction of Black Widow, though.


Side note: on the page where someone references Bush not liking black people I get an ad for Bush 41

I think to myself what an awesome cast was in Iron Man 2 - led by American treasure Sam Rockwell - and I still have very little interest in seeing it again outside of the race car fight sequence. That tells me all I need to know. It's still better than Iron Man 3 though.

I need to rewatch IM3. I did t like the first and only time I saw it but lots of people rank it pretty high.

It's just very "Shane Black" (the writer/director). He's very witty, but his style can be kind of exhausting.

Was typing as you posted. I get the "exhausting" thing, but I never felt IM3, in particular, got there.

I like him, I just think that's a way some people would describe his movies/dialogue... Lethal Weapon is one of my all-time favorites.


I will say the Mandarin fakeout was pretty nuts if you think about it. That's Iron Man's Joker, and they just completely threw it out the window. And the MCU's biggest complaint has always been that it's very safe and paint by numbers... But there's an example of them taking a risk and doing something completely unexpected.

I remember mainly just being so shocked they did that in the theater. It was definitely funny (maybe a little too slapstick) but afterwards I was in the camp that would've probably rather just seen Ben Kingsley be the actual Mandarin... Keep in mind the hype for Iron Man 3 was HUGE and Ben Kingsley was amazing and so badass in the trailers. People were pumped for that movie and role. So I think a lot of fans, especially the comic readers, just didn't think it was as fun as the casual fans did and it became polarizing.


But hey, now we're getting the real Mandarin. So problem solved!

Captain America: the Winter Soldier at #7?

Not even going to bother now; this list is wrong.

That's fair. I knew next to nothing about The Mandarin going into that movie, so that's probably why it worked so well on me. I had no idea about his history with Iron Man or anything like that, so it didn't bug me at all. But I can understand being pissed if, say, there was a movie where an actor in-movie was just pretending to be the Joker.

Where is the real Mandarin appearing next? I vaguely remember hearing that, but I can't remember which movie/show he's scheduled to appear in.

https://www.cinemablend.com/news/2477181/the-mandarin-everything-you-need-to-know-about-marvels-shang-chi-villain

Oh, yeah, that's right. Nice.

TCTTS said:

---

But I can understand being pissed if, say, there was a movie where an actor in-movie was just pretending to be the Joker.

---

I've got bad news...