Every MCU Movie - Ranked From Worst To Best

11. Captain America: The First Avenger

This was where it all started: it might not have been the first Phase 1 film, but that subtitle was loaded with all sorts of implications and the appearance of Captain America meant with almost concrete certainty that we were heading towards an Avengers ensemble. Luckily it mostly lived up to its billing, and the rest is history.

Strengths

The script is very good, as you'd expect from Steve McFeely and Chris Markus (who've just penned Civil War and have Infinity War next), and the casting of Chris Evans as Steve Rogers is pretty much perfect. So too is Hugo Weaving as Red Skull, a gloriously pulpy villain in a very nostalgia-soaked film.

It also seeded the Winter Soldier arc extremely well, setting up Cap's principle pillars to be knocked down as government corruption and blinkered leaders eat away at him (all apart from his faithful commitment to friends and family).

Weaknesses

It's a little on the slow and understated side - particularly in hindsight an in contrast with the rest of the MCU. It also doesn't really satisfyingly deal with Red Skull, which now looks like a massive error after Hugo Weaving basically refused ever to go back.

It's also a shame the Howling Commandoes were never given an opportunity for their own spin-off, as they're relegated to supporting act when their exploits deserve more. But then it's hard to really pin that blame on The First Avenger.