Over 15 years and 33 films, the Marvel Cinematic Universe has thrown countless seemingly insurmountable obstacles and more than a few apocalyptic events at their line-up of superheroes trying to save the world, the universe and reality itself. Their villains are at the head of all of this; crazed scientists, treacherous government agents, brutal alien warlords, amoral industrialists, gods and monsters and everything in between, an MCU villain can be so many things. Some were unfortunately the weakest elements in the movies they appeared in, being either generic, poorly served by the script or misjudged in their performances, while others ended up being memorable highlights even above the title costumed characters. 

There are often multiple antagonists in these superhero stories so we’ve tried to stick to one villain per MCU film. This is except where it’s the same antagonist carried over into a sequel film, and in cases where there’s more than one threat to our heroes. In these instances, we’ve focussed on the most active baddies or the masterminds of the various diabolical plots.

This ranking will be based on the level of threat the various bad guys pose to our supremely skilled and miraculously superpowered heroes, the diabolical creativity of their respective master plans and the sheer evilness of their actions. Spoilers ahead!

Follow @thefilmagazine on Twitter.

31. Malekith – Thor: The Dark World (2013)

“Look upon my legacy, Algrim. I can barely remember a time before the light.” 

A dark elf conqueror with a vendetta against Asgard for a defeat in ancient times, Malekith is reawakened and plots to snuff out the light across the universe (because his kind really like the darkness of the void).

A hugely distinct and memorable villain from the comics became one of the most boring to ever antagonise a superhero movie. Whatever Christopher Eccleston was trying to do with his performance after undergoing many uncomfortable hours in the makeup chair was lost in a brutally hacked film edit and an all-round po-faced determination to live up to the “dark” of the title.

Note: dark is not the same as interesting. 

30. Ivan Vanko/Whiplash – Iron Man 2 (2010)

“You come from a family of thieves and butchers, and like all guilty men, you try to rewrite your history.”

Whiplash is a Stark-hating, parrot-loving nuclear physicist/inventor with arc reactor-powered whips and an army of drones to carry out his revenge.

Mickey Rourke got a lot of jobs in quick succession as various shades of tough guy in this period. The Wrestler this is not, and he doesn’t exactly stretch himself as Ivan, offering a barely passable Russian accent and playing with a toothpick as a poor substitute for a more intricate characterisation as he plots vaguely defined Cold War-fuelled vengeance on Tony Stark and the American Military Industrial Complex.

29. Emil Blonsky/Abomination – The Incredible Hulk (2008)

“If I took what I had now, and put it in a body that I had ten years ago, that would be someone I wouldn’t want to fight.”

Abomination is an unstable British Black Ops asset who volunteers for a series of dangerous experimental super soldier treatments in order to capture the Hulk.

The Incredible Hulk worked best when it was Marvel’s answer to a Universal Monster movie, but one of its weakest elements was having Blonsky as its villain. Roth is fine, but he just wasn’t all that threatening, the character thinly sketched as a violent jerk with a superiority complex. When he finally transforms into his bony green alter ego Abomination for a CG smashathon in Harlem, it becomes almost impossible to care.

Recommended for you: Once More with Feeling – 10 More of the Best Remakes

28. Dar-Benn – The Marvels (2023)

“I always come back.”

Continuing what Ronan the Accuser started, Kree warrior Dar-Benn seeks to unite the two powerful Cosmic Bands in order to open portals across the galaxy to pillage resources from countless worlds to restore her dying planet of Hala and reassert her species’ dominance in the galaxy.

The problem with Dar-Benn is not her evil-for-the-right-reasons master plan or her relative threat level to our heroes (which is considerable considering that with space-magical enhancement she can hold her own against three formidable supes at once), it’s that there’s nothing else to her.

We needed more time for layers to come though Zawe Ashton’s broad, pantomimey performance and she too often feels like a retread of the kinds of villains we’ve seen in the MCU many times before, just a means to an end.

27. Ava Starr/Ghost – Ant-Man and the Wasp (2018)

“It hurts. It always hurts.”

The Marvels Review

A scientist’s daughter with an unnatural condition that causes her to painfully phase in and out of the physical realm, Ghost resorts to stealing Pymtech to survive.

Ghost is an admirable attempt to make something interesting out of a gimmicky physics-based villain. The character is let down not by Hannah John-Kamen’s engaging and tortured performance but by her essential irrelevance to the film’s main plot and lack of enough meaningful screen time. It’s almost like they only decided late in the day that Ant-Man and the Wasp should have an antagonist at all, and that may have been the wrong decision for this particular movie. 

26. Ronan – Guardians of the Galaxy (2014)

“I don’t recall killing your family. I doubt I’ll remember killing you either.”

Ronan is a Kree fanatic who courts war and is gathering enough power to wipe the planet Xandar from the galaxy.

Ronan, with his war paint, samurai helmet and big hammer has a strong look, and thanks to Lee Pace he is given an imposing presence and a rumbling voice. But you’d struggle to claim he had much in the way of depth as a character. He wants a weapon to destroy a planet because because he’s from a war-like race and that’s about it, though Pace’s affronted expression and confused “what are you doing?” as Star-Lord dances in front of him as he’s trying to trigger an apocalypse is pretty memorable.

25. Darren Cross/Yellowjacket – Ant-Man (2015)

“Did you think you could stop the future with a heist?”

Ant-Man Review

Hank Pym’s protégé, ouster and successor at his company, Yellowjacket seeks to weaponise and sell Pym’s shrinking technology to the highest bidder.

Marvel has a lot of evil CEOs in its rogues gallery and Corey Stoll brings plenty of punchable arrogance to his performance as Darren Cross. He murders rivals and exterminates animal test subjects without second thought, seemingly motivated by Pym not trusting him with the secrets of his technology (though really it’s because he enjoys doing it). 

Cross does have probably the most gruesome villain death in the MCU so far, and it’s no more than he deserves.

“There was an idea…”

Said idea was different to almost every version of the big screen superhero seen previously. Rather than each costumed hero existing in their own sealed-off vivariums, what if they could all share one interconnected universe containing a single ever-evolving and expansive story?

Once the idea gained traction, billions of dollars, and many “phases” of franchise continuity, the Marvel Cinematic Universe (MCU) became the envy of every studio with a lucrative intellectual property to siphon and thus many attempts were made to replicate the success of the “Marvel Formula”.

Much like the James Bond series in the decades before it, the MCU is primarily a producer-led franchise, the ultimate mastermind behind the project being Marvel Studios president Kevin Feige, though distinct directors like Jon Favreau, Joss Whedon and Taika Waititi have certainly left their mark on their respective entries in the ongoing series.

What keeps us (and wider box office audiences) coming back, aside from the ever-increasing levels of superhero spectacle and long-form storytelling borrowing liberally from 80-plus years of comic books, is the time you’re afforded to grow to love the characters and their relationships with each other, especially in the ambitious team-up Avengers movies.

In this edition of Ranked we at The Film Magazine are assessing every entry in the Marvel Cinematic Universe, and because fans have very different opinions on the best, the worst and everything in between regarding this series, we’ve attempted to find a balance between average critical consensus and general audience reception, as well as genre innovation and the lasting impact on popular culture, to order all of them definitively from worst to best.

Ladies and gentlemen, for your consideration… Every MCU Marvel Cinematic Universe Movie Ranked.

Follow @thefilmagazine on X (Twitter).

33. Ant-Man and the Wasp: Quantumania (2023)

“A guy dressed like a bee tried to kill me when I was six. I’ve never had a normal life.”

Ant-Man and the Wasp: Quantumania Review

The Ant-Man films are probably the most inconstant sub-series in the MCU, quality wise, but because the final chapter of their trilogy tries to go both big and small, it well and truly overreaches itself.

Pitting the Lang/Van Dyne family against Kang the Conqueror in the Quantum Realm, force of nature Jonathan Majors playing a fascinating villain isn’t quite enough to save Peyton Reed’s threequel from being just an eye-catching jumble of mismatched, tonally confusing ideas.

For Kang’s first, less maniacal appearance and the start of this whole Multiverse Saga, make sure to watch Season 1 of ‘Loki’.

32. Eternals (2021)

“We have loved these people since the day we arrived. When you love something, you protect it.”

Eternals Review

Chloé Zhao (Nomadland) is a great director, no doubt, but she was just not a good fit for the MCU in this story of space gods guiding humanity’s progress. Considering the usually grounded and singular vision of her work, this was a particularly crushing disappointment for most audiences.

The ambition and epic millennia-spanning scope of Eternals sadly did not pay off in this jarring, misjudged slog of a final product that couldn’t even be saved by a stellar and diverse cast. 

31. The Marvels (2023)

“Listen to me, you are chosen for a greater purpose. So you must go. But I will never let you go.”

The Marvels Review

The Marvels smartly builds a lot of its appeal around its central team-up of Carol Danvers, Monica Rambeau and Kamala Khan as their power usage causes them to swap places across the universe, but their found family warmth and oodles of charisma can’t overcome all the film’s flaws.

This needed more purposeful storytelling, a villain that doesn’t feel like a retread of what came before and more direct confrontation of the darker implications of the story. The musical elements will likely make an already decisive movie more so, but the MCU overall could do with some more audacious imagery like what Nia DaCosta does with alien cats.

Watching ‘Wandavision’ and ‘Ms Marvel’ through beforehand will certainly help you connect with two of the three leads that bit quicker.

30. Thor: Love and Thunder (2022)

“Whosoever holds these weapons, and believes in getting home, if they be true of heart is therefore worthy, and shall possess… for limited time only, the power… of Thor!”

Thor: Love and Thunder Review

Taika Waititi is the kind of distinct voice that gave the MCU a jolt in the arm when it was most needed, and he was vital in reinvigorating the Thor series, but the tonal balance and technical polish certainly felt off in 2022 release Thor: Love and Thunder.

Good performances from Chris Hemsworth, Natalie Portman and Christian Bale, and some memorable set pieces aside, Thor’s latest adventure battling a god-killer with his now superpowered ex-girlfriend Jane Foster at his side feels like too many mismatched stories smashed together.

Recommended for you: Taika Waititi Films Ranked

29. Thor: The Dark World (2013)

“One son who wanted the throne too much, and other who will not take it. Is this my legacy?”

The God of Thunder’s third film appearance tries to live up to its title with a story of dark elves trying to snuff out all light in the universe. Sadly, a late change in director – Alan Taylor taking over from would-be Wonder Woman director Patty Jenkins – and extensive Loki-centric reshoots didn’t help an already disjointed film feel any less so.

Thor’s dynamic with his Earthbound friends is still funny and more Loki (shoehorned in or not) is always a good thing with Tom Hiddleston in the role, but the storytelling is inconsistent at best and Christopher Eccleston under heavy prosthetics as Malekith may be the most boring villain in the MCU so far.

28. Iron Man 2 (2010)

“The suit and I are one. To turn over the Iron Man suit would be to turn over myself, which is tantamount to indentured servitude or prostitution, depending on what state you’re in.”

The MCU’s first direct sequel went bigger and darker with Robert Downey Jr’s Tony Stark fighting a vengeful Russian inventor, a rival industrialist and potentially fatal health problems. Unfortunately, this ended up being a much less focussed, overblown and not all that compelling movie.

Scarlet Johansson makes her debut as Black Widow here, though she’s just a generic sexy spy at this point and not yet given the dimensions other writers would later bestow. The action is decent enough, but you wouldn’t lose out on much of you skipped over Iron Man 2 on your next MCU rewatch.

27. The Incredible Hulk (2008)

“You know, I know a few techniques that could help you manage that anger effectively.”

Lacking the clear intentions and boldness of many subsequent MCU movies, The Incredible Hulk is stylistically old-fashioned but works slightly better if you view this as a big-budget tribute to sympathetic monster movies (this one was made by Universal, after all).

A movie filled with false starts and one-off appearances (most obviously Edward Norton’s Bruce Banner would be recast with Mark Ruffalo for The Avengers in 2012), very little was carried over to the wider franchise right up until Tim Roth’s reappearance in ‘She-Hulk’ fourteen years later.

This is generally uninspiring stuff, with its most interesting man-on-the-run elements cribbed from the 1970s ‘Incredible Hulk’ TV show.

Recommended for you: Where to Start with Universal Classic Monsters

On the screen, Marvel Studios’ trusted output has been received positively by critics and audiences alike, the majority of its thirty feature releases being well received and worthy of their hype, even their so-called “calculated risks” being more often refreshing to their already established formula than detrimental to their overall output.

Cinema has been forever changed by the dawn of Marvel’s big screen dominance and old-school serial approach to storytelling, Disney’s newly ordained crown jewel inspiring every rival studio and aspirational production company to gobble up trusted IPs and set forth plans for so-called Movie Universes based around everything from fellow superheroes to famous board games, reinvented children’s cartoons to horror characters.

In this edition of Ranked, we at The Film Magazine are putting the world’s most influential film franchise under the microscope to compare every feature length Marvel release with one another to determine which MCU films are the best and which are the worst, judging each on artistic merit and cultural impact.

Follow @thefilmagazine on Twitter. 

30. The Incredible Hulk (2008)

To this day, Louis Leterrier’s 2008 MCU contribution The Incredible Hulk is the forgotten member of the family. And, while this isn’t necessarily this distinctly average film’s fault and is actually more to do with Edward Norton refusing to return to his role as the Hulk following strained relationships with both director and studio, as well as how the rights to the Hulk character are locked in a contract that limits Marvel Studios from telling a standalone story with Mark Ruffalo, a lot can still be said for how dated this film is – The Incredible Hulk playing a lot more like Spider-Man 3, Fantastic Four and X-Men: Origins – Wolverine than the later and much more tasteful Marvel Studios offerings to come in this list.

Recommended for you: Every X-Men Movie Ranked

29. Thor: The Dark World (2013)

The worst of a bad bunch of uninspired sequels, Alan Taylor’s Thor: The Dark World not only seemed absent of the comedy and much of the mythology of the original Thor film but it also hit at precisely the wrong time – that being between the much more highly anticipated Iron Man 3 and Captain America: The Winter Soldier, and the year after the original The Avengers.

Thor 2 was generic in a Suicide Squad “angry swirl of evil descending from the sky for no reason” kind of way; a movie so uninspired Chris Hemsworth has openly spoken about how he almost quit the role because of it; a perfectly serviceable sequel (especially at the time), but one of little consequence or imagination that few get excited to rewatch – an MCU entry that time hasn’t been very kind to.

28. Iron Man 2 (2010)

The first Iron Man was such a huge success creatively, artistically, critically and financially for Marvel Studios that a quick-turnaround 2nd movie was demanded to bolster Phase One’s launch – a period in the history of the MCU that was a lot more rocky than many are willing to admit.

Iron Man 2 was a failure in all of the ways Iron Man was a success, apart from financially, offering bland and sometimes barely comprehensible moments of action, dialogue and character. As a result, Iron Man 2 fits right in alongside the likes of The Amazing Spider-Man as a very particular brand of cheesy and uninspired comic book movie that was made more to earn a quick buck than it was to fulfil any creative or artistic need. It has its moments – which movie starring Robert Downey Jr. as Iron Man doesn’t? – but thankfully the MCU has proven itself to be better than this in its other phases since.

27. Ant-Man and The Wasp (2018)

Coming between Avengers: Infinity War and Avengers: Endgame – ie, post-snap – Ant-Man and The Wasp was put in an awful position to succeed, the creative minds behind the film having to choose between embracing the actions of Infinity War or ignoring them altogether. They chose the latter (at least until the film’s final moments), but what fans wanted was something of an indicator as to what was to come in Endgame, or at least a taste of post-Infinity War’s MCU landscape, and the comedy-centred light-heartedness of an Ant-Man movie was an example of Marvel Studios not taking a minute to read the room.

More than that, Ant-Man and The Wasp felt scaled down from the original, its outlandish creative ideas brought into line with the wider MCU look and feel of things, making what seemed like a promising sequel to a moving and hilarious comedy one of the studio’s most formulaic and typically “superhero movie” releases to date – the “formula” not being necessarily bad, but certainly overplayed.

26. Eternals (2021)

Eternals Review

Eternals came with a lot of hope and expectation given the nature of the original material it was being adapted from and how it was the first MCU entry to be directed by an Oscar-winning director (Chloé Zhao). Ultimately, it proved too much of a mix of the trusted Marvel formula and director Zhao’s trademark directorial style, the clashes between action and existentialism forcing a disjointed rhythm in the filmmaking that made Eternals feel way longer than it was (which was one of the longest MCU films in history) and hit home way less effectively than anyone would have hoped.

As a product of the world’s largest production arm, Eternals was hopefully diverse from cast to crew, but ultimately this release had two authorial presences that seemed to clash on screen, this already troubling combination being amplified by its position in the MCU as a part of the studio’s fourth phase and thus responsible for a number of story elements and character introductions barely relevant to its standalone narrative.

25. Thor: Love and Thunder (2022)

Thor: Love and Thunder Review

Despite featuring one of the most empathetic and exceptionally-performed villains in Marvel Cinematic Universe history, Thor: Love and Thunder was a messy fourth instalment in the God of Thunder’s individual franchise, a film that flipped between tones as if at a loss at how to create both meaningful drama and laugh-out-loud comedy.

In comparison to post-2012 Marvel releases, the action was relatively poor too. Gone were the exceptionally choreographed sequences of the mainstream Avengers films or the differing styles of Black Widow, Doctor Strange and Shang-Chi, and in its place were bland and almost inconsequential battles repeated, a few moments of awe failing to rectify for a movie’s worth of oversights.

Thor: Love and Thunder is an enjoyable time at the movies. It will make you laugh and it does have some interesting moments, but these pros are simply too few and far between to make for a strong (or even meaningful) MCU entry.

24. Iron Man 3 (2013)

Adored by some and maligned by others, Iron Man 3 simply came about much too early, screenwriter-director Shane Black’s offerings of genre and trope deconstructions – most notably the choice to twist a genuinely fascinating villain into a trope-ridden stereotypical bad guy as a form of commentary – being things usually reserved for the dying days of a genre, not for one of its peaks.

This film was the follow up to The Avengers where Tony Stark had almost died, so Black’s smarts didn’t hit as they could have much later in the studio’s line-up – people wanted emotion and stakes, as well as suitable conclusions to character arcs, and Black’s work was seen to undermine that, the very strong work in several aspects of this film ultimately shunned to the background of a film dominated by a creator’s singular intention seemingly forced into the canon at the wrong time.

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Following its announcement at the 2022 San Diego Comic-Con, the next Marvel Avengers film has found its director. Destin Daniel Cretton, who previously directed Shang-Chi and the Legend of the Ten Rings, will helm the superhero team-up set for 2025. 

Not much is known about the film, other than the title: Avengers: The Kang Dynasty. According to The Hollywood Reporter, Kang is to be the new Big Bad of the Marvel Cinematic Universe, taking over from Thanos. Jonathan Majors (Da 5 Bloods) will portray the interdimensional conqueror, having already appeared in the ‘Loki’ Disney+ series. He will reportedly be present for 2023’s Ant-Man and The Wasp: Quantumania. 

Before joining the Marvel banner, Cretton directed smaller films including Just Mercy and Short Term 12. His 2021 comic book genre debut introduced skilled martial artist Shang-Chi to the MCU. Shang-Chi starred Simu Liu in the titular role, with supporting appearances from the likes of Awkwafina and Tony Leung. Shang-Chi was a commercial success and received positive reviews, and the director is expected to return to write and direct a sequel.

Cretton follows the same trajectory as MCU royalty the Russo brothers. Anthony and Joe Russo began their time at the studio with the standalone film Captain America: The Winter Soldier and were later upgraded to helm the two highest-grossing films in the franchise: Avengers Infinity War and Avengers Endgame. Since leaving Marvel, the Russos have directed the Tom Holland-led Cherry and 2022 Netflix Original The Gray Man starring Chris Evans and Ryan Gosling.

Avengers: The Kang Dynasty was announced alongside a slew of other projects at SDCC, including the full Phase 5 line-up. Highlights include the third instalment in the Guardians of the Galaxy franchise (5th May 2023), Captain America: New World Order (3rd May 2024) and the return of Charlie Cox’s Daredevil in a new Disney+ series titled ‘Daredevil: Born Again’ (Spring 2024).

Marvel Studios president Kevin Feige also teased phase 6, which will kick off with a Fantastic Four reboot (8th November 2024). Avengers: The Kang Dynasty (2nd May 2025) will be the first part of a one-two punch intended to close off phase 6 and the Multiverse Saga as a whole. Six months later, the sixth Avengers film will hit theatres in the form of Avengers: Secret Wars (7th November 2025). No director has been announced for this project yet. While many are championing for the Russos to return, Feige told Deadline that the brothers were not involved. Feige also confirmed that phase 4 will come to an end with 2022’s Black Panther: Wakanda Forever.

It is thanks in no small part to the seven releases of these three studios that cinema-going numbers reached a ten year high this Autumn, 2021’s late blockbuster season proving to be too strong of a pull for audiences desperate for a little bit of escapist fun.

This has been one of the most fascinating years in the genre’s history, with one of the year’s releases coming per the demands of fans and another leaning heavily into nostalgia for the early days of CG-driven superhero cinema, and yet there hasn’t been a necessarily terrible comic book movie release. In 2021, every comic book film from DC, Marvel and Sony has offered its own draw, creating a rich palette of post-Endgame superhero fun.

In this edition of Ranked, we at The Film Magazine are judging each of 2021’s comic book movies by artistic merit, critical reception, audience perception and overall importance to the comic book sub-genre, to rank each from worst to best in this: 2021 Comic Book Movies Ranked.

Follow @thefilmagazine on Twitter.

7. Eternals

Eternals Review

Eternals, Marvel Studios’ first comic book movie to be directed by an already Oscar-winning filmmaker (Chloé Zhao), sits in the lowest slot in this list not because it was bad but because it was simply too disjointed.

Perhaps the most fascinating mainstream misfire of the year, Eternals had hints of Chloé Zhao’s Nomadland peaking through the Marvel curtain but ultimately felt like the product of two contrasting visions that featured not nearly enough of the slow-burn existentialism of the director’s work or the colour-blasting visual extravaganzas of its studio.

It seems like each of the characters were probably far more interesting in earlier drafts of the script before Marvel had the chance to remind those working on the film that they had to include fight scenes, and the reputation of cast members like Angelina Jolie and Salma Hayek speaks to that. Ultimately, however, Eternals was pulled in too many directions, mixing naturalistic lighting with CG effects to create a bland palette, and needing to include way too many titbits and character introductions to move beyond expository dialogue and trope-ridden narrative beats.

6. Black Widow

Black Widow Review

Despite suffering from the trademarked villain problem of earlier Marvel movies, Black Widow at least offered something fun and relatable for fans of the MCU’s longest-standing female Avenger to sink their teeth into.

Florence Pugh, David Harbour and Rachel Weisz were welcomed additions to the cast, and director Cate Shortland certainly made the most of each of their talents, creating a believable albeit disjointed family dynamic and solidifying each as memorable Marvel side-characters with the potential to one day lead their own franchises.

The frustrating lack of creativity that lumbered the final act with yet another Marvel “falling from the sky” ending, and the film’s out-of-place positioning on the Marvel calendar (coming after Avengers: Endgame), dragged down an otherwise solid MCU entry that will by no means be remembered as one of the studio’s best movies but will work as a strong final hurrah for an underpowered but vital Avenger.

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Shang-Chi and the Legend of the Ten Rings (2021)
Director: Destin Daniel Cretton
Screenwriters: Dave Callaham, Destin Daniel Cretton, Andrew Lanham
Starring: Simu Liu, Awkwafina, Tony Leung, Meng’er Zhang, Fala Chen, Michelle Yeoh, Florian Muneanu, Andy Le, Benedict Wong

Shang-Chi has come a long way since his first appearance in Marvel Comics nearly 50 years ago. Originally created as the martial arts master son of Sax Rohmer’s hugely problematic literary villain Dr Fu Manchu, capitalising on the Kung Fu craze in the US in the mid-1970s, Shang-Chi has been a near-constant supporting player on Marvel’s pages for decades. Now, hot on the heels of Black Widow kicking off Phase Four of the Marvel Cinematic Universe on the big screen, film number 25 of this mega-franchise, Shang-Chi and the Legend of the Ten Rings, belatedly introduces Marvel’s first Asian-American screen superhero in pretty spectacular fashion.

Trained from childhood to be a human weapon, Shang-Chi (Samu Liu) runs from the violent syndicate he was born into. Ten years later he is forced out of hiding in San Francisco in order to face his father Wenwu (Tony Lung), a magically-enhanced gangster-warlord who plans to bring his children back into the fold to continue his centuries-spanning legacy of brutal conquest and to help him find his way to the mythical city of Ta Lo for very personal reasons. Shang-Chi must face his demons, reconnect with his estranged family and consider his position as the heir to an immortal’s vast criminal empire.

Like the late, great Chadwick Boseman as Black Panther, Samu Liu seems born to bring to life a superhero that will connect with a community grossly under-represented on film, Asian-Americans who dream of seeing an iconic comic book hero who looks like them headlining a blockbuster. Liu – previously best-known for Korean-Canadian sitcom ‘Kim’s Convenience’, who has since gone on record as saying the show was not diverse enough in the writer’s room and came to be increasingly reliant upon Asian stereotypes – arrives fully-formed with warmth and charisma to spare, not to mention all the required action chops. Shang-Chi (or the unimaginative American alias “Shaun”) can usually be found joined at the hip with best friend Katy (Awkwafina, hilarious as always) who can be relied on to be loyal to the point of recklessness, endlessly supportive and on hand to suggest drunk Karaoke to unwind after saving the world. Their first stop on their way to Wenwu is an illegal meta-human fighting arena presided over by Shang-Chi’s younger, and equally-gifted-at-martial-arts sister Xialing (an attention-grabbing film debut from Meng’er Zhang). Before long, Wenwu’s Ten Rings organisation are on them.

That’s about all it’s safe to say about the plot without going into major spoilers, and it’s less than half the movie. Suffice to say there are plenty of surprises in store for both long time MCU devotees and martial arts movie fans alike, and that Chinese myths and legends will play a major part in the spectacle to come.

We have to talk about Tony Leung, one of the biggest stars in Hong Kong for the last 30 years, making his Hollywood debut as a Marvel villain. From the film’s opening moment when we see him riding a horse at an enemy army protected by a mystic forcefield, then proceeding to demolish legions single-handedly with his magic rings, you know he’s 100% committed to the film’s relatively ridiculous premise. Given his history of nuanced, award-winning performances working with revolutionary Hong Kong auteur Wong Kar-Wai (In the Mood for Love and Chungking Express being two of their best collaborations) it comes as no great surprise that Leung also gives Wenwu (a take on Iron Man arch-nemesis The Mandarin) authority, depth and real heart. The film’s main themes of the significance of names and family legacy hang almost entirely on Leung and Liu’s characters’ contradictory relationship being compelling, and this dynamic miraculously holds its own in this noisy and dazzling world of epic fantasy battles, mythical creatures and powerful artifacts.

Some of the images in Shang-Chi are destined to take up permanent residency in your brain from the moment you leave the cinema. Wenwu’s first meeting with Shang-Chi’s mother Ying Li (Fala Chen) in a tranquil bamboo clearing – their encounter echoing House of Flying Daggers as it morphs from magic vs chi battle to a beautiful dance as they helplessly fall for one another – is one of many stunning sequences on display. Admittedly some of the more grandiose, fantastical sequences in the film’s final stretch verge on visual information overload, making it difficult to pick out all the wonderful little individual details on a first watch, but you can’t deny that the budget is all up there on the screen.

Let us take a moment to mark the tragic passing this year of Brad Allan, the creative and ridiculously talented stunt coordinator and choreographer who worked on Hellboy II, Scott Pilgrim, both Kingsman films and now Shang-Chi, which has sadly become one of his final films. Allan’s hard work with the actors and stunt team to produce beautifully flowing fight scenes is never obscured in a choppy edit as is so common in modern action filmmaking and, paired with Destin Daniel Cretton’s confident direction and cinematographer Bill Pope’s tightly controlled and dynamic camera work, results in some of the most enjoyable action sequences in any Marvel movie. We’re gifted a very modern, very slick fist (and machete-fist) fight on a bendy bus, a Jackie Chan-inspired acrobatic-slapstick skirmish on skyscraper scaffolding, a violent gangster clash shown in a distorted reflective surface and two epic wuxia battle scenes at the beginning and end of the film.

Shang-Chi and the Legend of the Ten Rings hits a lot of the familiar beats we’ve come to expect of superhero origin stories, but stands out by being rooted in a distinct cultural voice and lovingly referencing a genre of action cinema Marvel hasn’t really ventured into on the big screen until now. Refreshingly, Shang-Chi, as well as being the first Asian lead superhero in the MCU, is also one of the franchise’s first heroes who doesn’t start off as a bit of a dick. Arrogance to humility is the default character arc for Marvel (Iron Man, Thor, Doctor Strange, ‘Loki’), so having Shang-Chi accept who he is and who he is not, and embracing both his considerable abilities and his responsibilities to the wider world instead, has far more in common with recent MCU projects like Black Panther and ‘The Falcon and The Winter Soldier’. Marvel’s first true martial arts film is endlessly thrilling, funny and heartfelt and not only lays the groundwork for an exciting future for the wider franchise but sets a new high benchmark for all its action scenes.

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