 Disney Plus has tried their hand now for a couple years at the MCU on the small screen. Today I thought it'd be fun to do a quick video ranking the three and see what you thought in the comments. We got Loki, we got WandaVision, we got Captain Falcon and the Winter Soldier. God, that title sucks. Let's begin. I went to an IMDb to get a quick refresher on these shows and here's a fun little fact I just noticed. Both WandaVision and Captain Falcon and the Winter Soldier are considered mini series. While Loki is just called a series, which makes me think, shit, are we not getting any more of these other two shows? Is Loki the only one that's gonna continue on? I could totally see that from WandaVision's standpoint, but Captain Falcon and the Winter Soldier seems like there's more story to tell. Now whether or not it's told here or it spills over into that Hawkeye show coming out, I don't know, it's anybody's guess. Maybe, well, maybe it's not a guess. Maybe Disney has released that information and I'm just kind of spouting nonsense because I didn't take even a second to Google it. So, this was useful information, wasn't it? I went back and forth between the two and three spot for this but I think I'm pretty happy where this ended up. I have enjoyed all three of these MCU shows so far, watched all of them with my nine-year-old son. He's pretty invested in them as well. I think this one had a lot of cool concepts and ideas to explore, but ultimately this one didn't stick the landing for me in a couple regards. First, let's talk about the pros here. Sebastian Stan and Anthony Mackie, fantastic. And in fact, Anthony Mackie as Falcon in the past was just kind of like, I didn't care at all. I always just thought, why are you wearing the dumb Falcon thing? You know, you have Iron Man suits at your disposal. Those are much more practical. They have auto-aim. They don't require like flapping wing things. They have thrusters on the feet. And it's a much better experience. Why do this dance, you know? What is the Falcon even representing? Cause I don't remember them even really coming up with a tangible reason why he's called the Falcon. Maybe they did. Maybe they did a Winter Soldier. I just forgot. Since we now have hours dedicated to just these two characters though, I found myself really enjoying both of them way more. You know, Bucky was always cool as the Winter Soldier. Again, though, there wasn't a whole lot to his character. Now we really get to see the torturous nature of his past and how it's come back to haunt him, how he's trying to make amends. And that ultimately leads to one of the biggest disappointments for me in the series is his relationship with that elderly man. We find out early on in the story that his son was in the wrong place at the wrong time, was accidentally killed by the Winter Soldier, and that old man has been holding on to it, just hoping for some closure cause he doesn't really know what happened to the kid. This story builds up over the course of this run and I'm just waiting for Sebastian Stan's character to pull him aside, have this big heart to heart moment, get some really raw emotion in the MCU. Like a lot of things in the MCU, it drops the ball and it does it off camera. I've had this happen time and time again with the franchise, which I do enjoy a lot. But how do you build something up so well and then just not stick the landing on it? I just, I don't get it. That one bothered me a lot. And it really doesn't have anything to do with the major plot at all, but it was this little plot that they kept going back to that I just thought, man, this is gonna be great. I really did enjoy though, how they handled some of the more adult conversation to be had, such as food shortages after the snap and people coming back into existence. So therefore, are the supplies are weighed down or people can't get a home loan because they've had no credit for years. And they really humanize Anthony Mackie's character. You know, he's not just this generic superhero. He has a life. He's got a sister to look after, done very well. And the way that these two kind of bounce off each other, him and Bucky, the dynamic is great. You know, we saw it in Civil War and they really took that and ran with it, whether it's their little small one-on-one jabs at each other or where it's a more serious moment where they're actually pouring their souls out to one another. There's a ton of action in this one and it's far better than anything you're gonna find in Loki or WandaVision. John Walker is another character I found really interesting at first, but then as time went on, he became more and more generic to the point where he's just kind of corrupted as we've seen time and time again in these shows. I liked it when he really was genuinely a good guy that maybe had a bit of an anger shell shock issue, some PTSD, but then the whole serum thing comes into play and it just kind of lessens the whole experience for me. I think the super soldier serum was fine, but the fact that Anthony Mackie's character doesn't get it at all, he's supposed to be Captain America, right? But he's just a normal dude. He's more normal than Black Widow even. He's just a dude. Like, I understand he went through military training as experienced there, but he's going up against super soldiers. They needed to find a good way to give him that serum. And I think it would have been actually really interesting if both he and Walker were dealing with the serum in different ways, then we truly see why he is worthy of being Captain America. He's able to fight through the effects of this serum, the bad side effects, and become the Captain America we know and love. Regardless, he still definitely earns the shield, the way they went about it. Again, it had so much potential though, and I think it did fizzle out by the end. The same can be said for Carly too. Just all these characters, they had some layer to them and a different viewpoint from what we're used to seeing. They're overcoming racial obstacles. They're overcoming, you know, poverty and how they're dealing with this stuff is sympathetic, but ultimately they become one note and they're just taken out instantly. Speaking of the racial stuff, I know some people roll their eyes and say woke, and I just don't even like using that term. I think it's just silly and dumb. And you will always find ways to interject it into something, but there is social commentary to be had. And I think if it's done right, if it's done well, then we don't need to bother with these stupid labels, right? And I do think it was done well here, especially with the elderly black man who was injected long ago. He was tortured for years, and then he was just pushed aside. By the end of the film, we see him walk through a tribute to him and people like him who went through these tests and trials and fought for America. It was a truly beautiful moment in this franchise and it is one of the reasons why I kind of go back and forth as to where I wanna put this in my ranking, but ultimately a lot of the things didn't pay off. So it sits here with the knowledge that I did enjoy it and I absolutely would like to see more from these two. Number two on my list is WandaVision. This one is the definition of a fun time to me. It does a lot of things well. First and foremost, as a TV lover and a movie lover, I absolutely adored seeing all these different versions of shows from I Love Lucy to freaking Malcolm in the middle, get their own unique episodes. And it's something they could easily do down the road. You've got modern family in there. Plus you have the references to the other Marvel films. They tip the hat a lot to Age of Ultron in this, which I know some people just don't like. I enjoy Age of Ultron, I think it's fun. I think it's a good Avengers film. So to see that kind of get a little bit more, you know, chance to shine, a little more time in the spotlight, I was all for. Elizabeth Olson and Paul Bettany get to do a ton of stuff in this series. They're playing magicians on some episodes. They're playing their actual character, playing a character. They're hiding their abilities from the neighbors who are already under a trance, under a spell, thanks to Wanda. So she's playing the townspeople, she's playing vision. It's a whole thing. And it gets uncovered in this sort of mysterious, sometimes thriller-ish show. We have Darcy back from the first two Thor movies. We have Jimmy Woo from, I think he's only an Ant-Man too, Ant-Man and the Wasp. I don't know if he's in the first one. Jimmy Woo's freaking hilarious, that character. I really enjoyed how he brought back the card trick right away too. It was a nice nod to that film. And it reminds me of how insane it is that we've built up this world so much already. Then there's Catherine Hanna's Agnes, who's pretty much amazing in everything she does. Again, fantastic here as this evil witch who's trying to figure out what the hell Wanda's doing, how to take her abilities from her, leads to a big climax at the end, a big fight, which, yeah, I mean, that's what you're going to get with all these movies. It would have been nice if they could have found a more interesting way than just shooting magic at each other since this show is so creative. Another place where it really dropped the ball for me was Quicksilver. They brought in the Quicksilver from the X-Men franchise. And I'm thinking, whoa, shit, we're doing this? We're bringing in the X-Men? We going to get some Hugh Jackman in this? But no, it was just some bizarre tip of the hat Easter egg or something that the writer wanted to do. I don't understand it. Yeah, that was really disappointing and bizarre. It was just a weird thing to throw in the show. Everything from the clothing, the set designs, the effects. You got the mom from the 70s show showing up. You got Monica Rambeau in this. I thought everything was pretty much great, except for that Quicksilver thing. And the ending was disturbing. It was dark. We get Wanda really powering up. And yeah, I thought every episode was really fun and unique, creative, how there was kind of an episode to episode arc. And then of course there's the giant storyline, which is that Wanda has encapsulated in a tiger town and a trance, and she's trying to live out some cleaver life there. Some leave it to beaver shit. WandaVision was great. It's one that I could watch again and find new things to enjoy. Loki's my number one. Now I should point out that none of these come even close to Mandalorian for me on Disney Plus. I think this is still a good show. It's a good time. But it never reaches, wow, that was amazing. There was no episode of any of these shows where my jaw was dropped. I'm like, holy crap. This is like breaking bad level stuff. Now none of them are like that, but Loki to me has the most potential. It opened up Pandora's box. You know, we get the multiverse introduced now. Universe is on top of universe is stacked. Different versions of characters coming out. And this is a very slow burn. Something I quite enjoy when the mood strikes me. There are naysayers, of course, that don't like the show, that only made it three episodes deep. And to them I say, that's fair. The show definitely changes gear a little bit after Sylvie's introduced, female Loki. This show starts very much kind of like this weird mystery sci-fi thriller-ish thing. There's the evil Loki running a muck, tearing up these different timelines. And Mobius has decided to take the real Loki, or the Loki we know, I guess, they're all real, under his wing to try to uncover this mystery. Once that mystery is uncovered, it turns into more of a love story between Loki and Loki. Kind of a weird quasi-incestrial relationship, or I don't even know what you would call it. He's falling in love with a different version of himself, but to his credit, she is quite charming. I was quite taken with her as well. The big negative for me here is the action. This needs some work. I found Loki to be very underpowered, and I was often confused as to when and where he could use his magical abilities. And even when he wasn't in the TVA, there was still moments where I thought, why isn't he using some of his cool tricks? Why isn't he using his moves? Loki doesn't get to have as much fun as he used to. Since he is a good guy, which by the way happens very quickly in this, this is the Loki from New York, right? He's the one that wanted to just take over the world. He goes from zero to 100 really quick. He goes from being a very evil bad person to being a very good person in like a day. You know, he watches the highlight reel of his life and how it's gonna play out. And he's like, I get it now. I'm kind of a piece of crap, but I learned to be better. So I might as well just kind of speed up the process and be better now. It's a little bit of a cop out, but on the other hand, we know he's gonna end up here. So it's not a major issue for me. I mean, we could have just, I guess had a few seasons where he's just a piece of shit again, but I don't think that would have been very satisfying either. I like that Loki's grown over the course of the films. I like that he's a better person now. So to have him revert and be a dick again and try to just take over the world or whatever, that wouldn't work either. So they had a little bit of a line to walk there and they did stumble through it, but ultimately it's okay. The relationship between him and Owen Wilson was fantastic. I wanna see more of them. I'd like to see them take their jet skis and ride off into the sunset at some point. His relationship with Sylvie was very powerful. It was some emotional stuff there as well. We learned that Loki really has never had someone that he could trust and that he could actually love. And of course it just happens to be himself, which is a very narcissistic, but I think par for the course reason for Loki. This by far was the biggest in scale. It didn't feel like a TV show a lot of the times. I mean, some of the visuals were fantastic. Plus you have Alligator Loki in the mix, which I just ate up anytime Alligator Loki was on display. I would, I'd like a spin off. I'd like a Loki Gator spin off if that's at all possible. There's twists and turns. We're introduced to a big bad who I've been told in the comments is in fact, a very important character in the comics. I don't know anything about the comics. He seemed pretty awesome. I'm excited to see the different variants of him and how that's gonna play out. It seems like it really has scale to it that's gonna build out into further Marvel movies. Whereas the other shows, obviously they do some things that will, you know, spill into the, into the films. This one I thought was like, holy shit. We got multiverses here. We got Loki messing up the timelines, which is gonna change all sorts of stuff for Doctor Strange and for probably Ant-Man and some others. I'm excited. Plus that score. The other ones had good songs. This score in Loki, that's good shit. Not Mandalorian level, but it's close. All right, that's my list. I'd like to hear yours. And I think the biggest teller for this whole experience so far is that these are all decent shows, some a little better than the others, depending on who you are. But I don't think there's truly a great one yet because if there was a great one, I think 90% of our lists would be the same. But I have a feeling that we're gonna be pretty different overall. Some people are gonna put WandaVision at one. Some people will put Captain Falcon at one. And that's perfectly understandable. I don't think any of them are bad. I just don't think any of them have hit Mandalorian levels yet, or Avatar the Last Airbender levels yet. All right, let me have your list in the comments. Like the video if I had some fun and I'll talk to you soon. Thanks for watching the video. If you're new here, please think about subscribing to the channel. I put out new content every single week. Sometimes they're movie feud related. Sometimes they're movie reviews. And occasionally I do a ranking like this. Thanks for watching the video. If you enjoyed it, make sure to subscribe. I put out content every single week. Sometimes they're rants about movies. Sometimes they're rankings like they are on this one. In fact, I recently ranked all 24 of the MCU films. It's a big boy. It's like 40 minutes long. So check that out if you have any interest and hopefully I'll see you around.