244-2
Hasbro- Marvel Legends Premium: Iron Man
Rating of worst to best of the Marvel Cinematic Universe movies continued; see review 207-2, 210-2, 216-2, 222-2, 228-2, 232-2, 233-2 & 242-2 for the previous instalments.
Marvel Cinematic Universe Rating #14: Captain America: the First Avenger
Captain America: The First Avenger did something fairly remarkable; made me care about Captain America who was the 1st Avenger. Don’t get me wrong, he was always on the radar as a kid given my general enjoyment of all things comic based, but I never really cared for an all American super soldier. At any rate the film, mostly in part to Chris Evans’ fantastic characterization, was really well done and helped the viewer understand what makes Captain America special. The movie also does well to tie itself into the other MCU movies with consistent story beats of the tesseract, involvement of Other characters living in the 20s/30s and sets up some massive relationships that evolve into the 2nd and 3rd movie.
While the movie starts strong, it somewhat falls flat in the second half as it basically becomes a typical war movie. I suppose that it’s important to see Cap (that’s what we call him) in action with his Howling commandos to solidify his legacy, but as the ending is written already it’s just a bit boring. In fact I just watched it and could not tell you what happened outside if Bucky (presumably) dying, Cap and The Red Skull fighting and the plane crashing in the attic. That’s not a lot of cover in an hour of screen time.
For the most part Captain America: The First Avenger does what it set out to do: Introduce Steve Rogers into the lexicon of the MCU in a plausible way, set up other themes and characters for sequels and provide another piece to the larger Avengers puzzle.
Pros: Of all the Legends premium figures Iron Man was probably my least wanted as I was not sure how they were going to pull it off, but for the most part, they did an alright job. The sculpt looks great, the extra fists and energy effects are a nice touch and compliments the figure well plus the extra unmasked Stark looks pretty good. I was also fairly surprised with the range of motion on the figure and can get him in a number of decent poses, something that is not always possible on the regular 6” Legends figures. .
Cons: If I remember correctly these figures cost upwards of $60 on their original release and to be honest, Iron-Man is not worth it at all. I understand that they were marketing these to the collector “Hot Toys” crowd, but these are not even close to being that category and more or less feel like scaled up Marvel Legends. The one exception so far has been Thor, but he benefits from some softgood items that compliment 12” figures; however Iron Man has none of that. I think if they included smore more armor attachments and a helmeted head sculpt with mask up it might have felt like a figure worth the price, but as is, I'm glad I only spend $25.
