GUARDIANS OF THE GALAXY (2014)

In 1988, a young Earthling, Peter Quill, is kidnapped by aliens.  Twenty-six years later, Peter, is grown up and dancing across a weird-looking alien planet while listening to his ancient Walkman.  He's grown up to be a bizarre mixture of Marty McFly, Indiana Jones, Han Solo and whatever the hell Kevin Bacon's name was in FOOTLOOSE.  After getting his boogie on, he finds what he's looking for: a metal orb that looks like a larger version of Rosemary's necklace in ROSEMARY'S BABY.  Stuff happens and it ends up that an evil dude (who looks likes what would happen if the bad guy from THE KEEP joined a black metal glam band) wants the orb in order to use it as a weapon to kill everybody.  Later on, Peter crosses paths with some other folks and they end up becoming friends.  Awww.

I've only seen a handful of these Marvel Cinematic Universe (MCU) films, so I can't really tell you if it's good or not from a comic book fan perspective, but from an entertainment perspective...I liked it.  Quick pace, impressive special effects, good acting, intriguing characters, zero tension.  I would totally watch it again.

The Infinity Saga

Phase One
Part 1 - Iron Man (2008)
Part 2 - The Incredible Hulk (2008)
Part 3 - Iron Man 2 (2010)
Part 4 - Thor (2011)
Part 5 - Captain America: The First Avenger (2011)
Part 6 - Marvel's The Avengers (2012)

Phase Two
Part 7 - Iron Man 3 (2013)
Part 8 - Thor: The Dark World (2013)
Part 9 - Captain America: The Winter Soldier (2014)
Part 11 - Avengers: Age of Ultron (2015)
Part 12 - Ant-Man (2015)

Phase Three
Part 13 - Captain America: Civil War (2016)
Part 14 - Doctor Strange (2016)
Part 15 - Guardians of the Galaxy Vol. 2 (2017)
Part 16 - Spider-Man: Homecoming (2017)
Part 17 - Thor: Ragnarok (2017)
Part 18 - Black Panther (2018)
Part 19 - Avengers: Infinity War (2018)
Part 20 - Ant-Man and the Wasp (2018)
Part 21 - Captain Marvel (2019)
Part 22 - Avengers: Endgame (2019)
Part 23 - Spider-Man: Far From Home (2019)

Phase Four
Part 24 - Black Widow (2021)
Part 25 - Shang-Chi and the Legend of the Ten Rings (2021)
Part 26 - Eternals (2021)
Part 27 - Spider-Man: No Way Home (2021)
Part 28 - Doctor Strange in the Multiverse of Madness (2022)
Part 29 - Thor: Love and Thunder (2022)
Part 30 - Black Panther: Wakanda Forever (2022)

Phase Five
Part 31 - Ant-Man and the Wasp: Quantumania (2023)
Part 32 - Guardians of the Galaxy Vol. 3 (2023)
Part 33 - The Marvels (2023)

THOR (2011)

As far as superhero movies go, I enjoyed this one. Thor is a badass dude who lives on another planet, called Asgard. His father, Odin, is the king and about to retire and make Thor king, when the Asgardian's mortal enemies, the Frost Giants, send a group of dudes to try and bust into the Asgardian's armory. They're defeated and Thor gets all pissed off and wants to attack the Frost Giants. Odin tells him to chill out, but Thor says fuck this shit and attacks the Frost Giants. Because of his arrogance, Odin strips Thor of his power and banishes him to Earth.

Once on Earth, Thor is confused and fucked up because he doesn't have any power, but things aren't all bad because his fall to Earth was witnessed by astrophysicist Natalie Portman.  But he doesn't have time for romance, because it turns out Thor's butthole brother, Loki, was behind all the shenanigans that got Thor kicked out!  So now he has to figure out a way to get back to Asgard and plant his foot up his brother's ass.

THOR was a fun film and even though I didn't know anything about the character of Thor beforehand, I thought the movie did a good job of quickly, but not too quickly, introducing him and his world. I'm not a huge superhero fan, so this review might be a little simplified...I have no idea if Thor's cape was the wrong shade of red or the incorrect thread count, but as far as entertainment goes, I liked it.

My only real complaint, besides Natalie Portman not being the owner of a nudist colony, instead of an astrophysicist, is the fight in the middle of the movie (the fire face robot thing) was way better than the final showdown at the end of the movie. Also, Tadanobu Asano should have had a bigger role. He's way too talented of an actor to just have hanging around in the background.

The Infinity Saga

Phase One
Part 1 - Iron Man (2008)
Part 2 - The Incredible Hulk (2008)
Part 3 - Iron Man 2 (2010)
Part 5 - Captain America: The First Avenger (2011)
Part 6 - Marvel's The Avengers (2012)

Phase Two
Part 7 - Iron Man 3 (2013)
Part 8 - Thor: The Dark World (2013)
Part 9 - Captain America: The Winter Soldier (2014)
Part 10 - Guardians of the Galaxy (2014)
Part 11 - Avengers: Age of Ultron (2015)
Part 12 - Ant-Man (2015)

Phase Three
Part 13 - Captain America: Civil War (2016)
Part 14 - Doctor Strange (2016)
Part 15 - Guardians of the Galaxy Vol. 2 (2017)
Part 16 - Spider-Man: Homecoming (2017)
Part 17 - Thor: Ragnarok (2017)
Part 18 - Black Panther (2018)
Part 19 - Avengers: Infinity War (2018)
Part 20 - Ant-Man and the Wasp (2018)
Part 21 - Captain Marvel (2019)
Part 22 - Avengers: Endgame (2019)
Part 23 - Spider-Man: Far From Home (2019)

Phase Four
Part 24 - Black Widow (2021)
Part 25 - Shang-Chi and the Legend of the Ten Rings (2021)
Part 26 - Eternals (2021)
Part 27 - Spider-Man: No Way Home (2021)
Part 28 - Doctor Strange in the Multiverse of Madness (2022)
Part 29 - Thor: Love and Thunder (2022)
Part 30 - Black Panther: Wakanda Forever (2022)

Phase Five
Part 31 - Ant-Man and the Wasp: Quantumania (2023)
Part 32 - Guardians of the Galaxy Vol. 3 (2023)
Part 33 - The Marvels (2023)