Which Is Better: Captain America Trilogy Vs Iron Man Trilogy

With Civil War being released to the home media format and the Captain America trilogy now complete, I decided that now is a good time to feud that trilogy against the Iron Man trilogy. What is the best? That's what we're here to talk about. Welcome to a new series on Dallin: Film Fanatic called Which Is Better. In it, I feud two films, franchises, or actors who played the same character against one another and only one can win. In this series you are very crucial. After this is finished, go to the comments and vote for the winner. After a few weeks or so I'll calculate the results and announce the victor. To give you my winner, I will divide this feud into five rounds. Comic continuity will not be included in this battle. I will be strictly be sticking to what we see in the the Captain America films and the three Iron Man films. Anyways, the five rounds are. Cast, Effects, Action, Score, and Better Films. I urge you to think about SPOILERS, because this is very much a spoiler heavy article. If you have not seen Iron Man 1, 2, and 3 and Captain America 1, 2, and 3 than turn back now. I do not want to be the one to ruin these films for you. So "CONTINUE AT SPOILER RISK!" That's right I changed my slogan. Moving own now here's Round 1.

1. Cast

Both these trilogies have a great cast. On the Iron Man side, we got Terrence Howard as James Rhodes in the first one. However, because of some problems between him and the studio, Terrence was replaced by Don Cheadle in two and three. It may have been confusing for me at first, but Don has grown on me throughout the films. Gwyneth Paltrow plays Pepper Potts in all three films as Tony's love interest. Heroes always have a villain and these three or four villains work and don't work. Jeff Bridges plays Obadiah Stane in one and is a solid villain, but is nothing to boast really. In movie two, we got two terrible villains honestly. Mickey Rourke's Whiplash disappears for half the film and Sam Rockwell's Justin Hammer was just the typical business rival that we've seen many times before. Rourke's Whiplash even steals the ending from Iron Man One, by having him build his own Iron Man suit. Many fans believe that Iron Man 3's villain was a low for the franchise. When it was revealed to comic book fans that Ben Kingsley's Mandarin was not the real Mandarin, they got very upset. I personally didn't care about that. Of course some of the credit of the success of these films is the casting of Robert Downey Jr. as Iron Man. On the patriotic side of things we have the casting of Captain America played by Chris Evans. He did better in this superhero role than he did as the Human Torch in the two Fantastic Four films he was in. For friends, Sebastian Stan plays the lethal Winter Soldier aka Bucky Barnes and Anthony Mackie plays Sam Wilson aka Falcon. Scarlett Johansson plays Black Widow in Iron Man 2, Captain America: The Winter Soldier, and Captain America: Civil War. In Civil War, most of the Iron Man cast is in including Tony and Rhodes. It also includes new faces such as Ant-Man, Black Panther , and a new Spider-Man, who are all fantastic. Soon to be a couple Vision and Scarlet Witch return for Civil War. As for villains in the Cap trilogy, Hugo Weaving plays Red Skull in Cap 1, Daniel Brühl as Zemo, who is as good as Loki, and Robert Redford never ceases to amaze as he is the villain in Cap 2. The Iron Man cast may have an edge from being in Civil War, but because of better villains and great characters, the Captain America cast wins.

2. Effects

Captain America One's effects work the least, for me. Most of the film relied on CGI to do the showing. It did do some things practical. But again CGI looks weird at some points. However, for movies two and three, the Russo brothers made it their goal to use as little CGI as possible. That worked great for Winter Soldier, which may have used CGI for a bit of it, but for car chases, explosions, and more, they did it using good old fashioned practical effects. They did the same for Civil War, which worked to great effect. The Iron Man films did the same. In one they did it it as practical as possible. Now they didn't build a suit that could fly, but they did the suit that they could walk around with and were moveable. For two and three they went a bit towards the CGI, but it worked fine. The rescue of the air force one crew was done practical as well. Minus the fact that Iron Man was flying to save them. In fact, I believe it was a stuntman, who was falling that they grabbed onto. They then used CG to replace the scene differently. Both of them did their effects well only using CGI when they had to. The Captain America films did do great, but I believe that the Iron Man films did better mixing real effects with CGI. Winner Iron Man.

3. Musical Score

Both of these trilogies had different composers for their three installments. Iron Man had Ramin Djawadi for one, John Debney for two, and Brian Taylor for three. Same thing for the Captain America films as well. Alan Silvestri composed The First Avenger, and Henry Jackman did The Winter Soldier and Civil War. Iron Man One had the best of that trilogy and The Winter Soldier was the best of Cap's trilogy with the score of Civil War not far behind. The themes for the Iron Man trilogy and Captain America 1 were more of a stylish, adventure theme, whereas Captain America 2 and 3 went for a political, rumble, spy thriller tone. The Iron Man soundtracks do have some AC/DC mixed in with it as well, and I don't recall any songs, other than Trouble Man, in the Captain America scores that were featured in the trilogy. So because of that Iron Man gets another win.

4. Action

Both of these trilogies have incredible action sequences. Some of them forced. Others aren't. In the first Iron Man film we had the escape scene, the rescue of the refuges, the run in with the military F-22 fighters, and Iron Man vs Iron Monger, I guess is what Obadiah named the suit. In Iron Man 2 we had, the Formula One race that turns into a first confrontation with Whiplash, Iron Man vs Rhodes in Tony's Mark 2 armor, Black Widow's takedown of the Hammer agents, Iron Man vs a hacked War Machine and Hammer drones, and of course the retread from movie one where the heroes battle Whiplash in his own suit. Not very creative. Iron Man 3 had the mansion raid, the crew rescue, Tony breaking into the compound, and the ending, which was one big action sequence where a ton of Iron Man suits come and assist Tony as he battles the "Mandarin." There were other action sequences, but none of them lasted long enough to mention. The Captain America trilogy has a lot of great action sequences too. The First Avenger has about there or four action sequences, if I recall correctly. The car chase, the Captain America montage, the bomb-plane fight, and the battle against Red Skull. The Winter Soldier has my favorite action of them all with the escape from "S.H.I.E.L.D," the boat raid with the fight against Batroc, the impressive highway fight, and the final three helicarrier battle. Civil War also has the best action, where you had Cap vs Crossbones, the chase on the road between Bucky, Black Panther, and Captain America. The end has a heartbreaking battle between Cap and Bucky against Iron Man. But the one action sequence that gives Captain America the point is the Airport Battle, where hero went up against hero. That is what gives Captain America the win.

5. Better Films

The winner of this round wins the fight. Since we're talking about two series of three films, I'll be doing mini chapters in this round where I discuss the beginning, middle, and end of the trilogies.

5.1 Beginnings Of The Trilogies

Captain America: The First Avenger isn't my favorite of the MCU films, in fact it's not in the ten best of them. The World War II setting was understandable, as the origin of Steve Rogers, however the Marvel touch of the setting is unsettling as they use too much advanced technology to make it believable for it to be in WWII. It gave us great character origins, who were very likable, but Red Skull, is far from the best MCU villain. In fact, I don't think, outside of Loki and Zemo, that the MCU have many standout villains. There are great villains that the MCU have, but nothing like what the DC films have so far. The film was campy and cheesy, however I can very well watch the film with a smile on my face. Iron Man One is the best of the three films. The person that cast RDJ as Iron Man should be given a medal and more casting opportunities for films. Red Skull was better than Obadiah Stane, at least for me, but he did serve his purpose. The effects in Iron Man was better than The First Avenger and the music was better than The First Avenger so for a beginning Iron Man takes the point. The story was easy to follow with and the characters have their great moments. Iron Man One is the best of the trilogy and easily overtakes The First Avenger to give Iron Man the point.

5.2 Middle Of The Trilogies

Iron Man 2 is definitely my least favorite of all the MCU films, however very watchable and entertaining. The effects are great and the music is fine. However Iron Man 2 has two of the worst MCU films ever. Whiplash goes MIA for the most part and Justin Hammer was just a typical business tycoon that served as a business foil to Tony Stark. The film succeeds in the action department, and the cast is definitely great. If there is one exception it would be Black Widow's introduction in this film. She's better in the other films, but here she was there just to help set up The Avengers. The Winter Soldier is the opposite of Iron Man 2. It had two great villains. It had better action sequences and it also used practical effects that look great. There was much character development for already established characters and new characters that were introduced in the film. The story was layered with mystery and personal conflict in a cohesive and great story that gives Captain America gets the second mini point.

5.3 Ending Of The Trilogies

This is it. Don't get scared now. The winner of this mini point will ultimately win the battle of these two superheroes. Captain America: Civil War seems like an Avengers 2.5 right? It has many characters which makes it seem like an Avengers film. It isn't though. Despite the many characters and the flagrant scale action sequences, Civil War is very much a Captain America film at its core. It centers very much so on him and his relationship with all his comrades and compadres and how the Government wants to change things in his life and how that affects him. The action is like that of an Avengers film and it really assists the film along with the grand spectacle. The film also has a big emotional heft to it as well. The ending is so heartbreaking and so sad that it will make you tear up. It juggles the large cast with ease with characters given the proper amount of screen time to develop. On the other hand, Iron Man 3 is a great film to a lesser extent. The Mandarin was a giant slap in the face to hard core comic book fans. I can see where they were coming from, because they did tease heavily Tony and Ben Kingsley's Mandarin going head-to-head in an ultimate showdown, and again I could see fans saying "Hey. You promised something. You didn't deliver. I'm kinda ticked off now." But I welcome a chance for films to surprise. I didn't pounce on the film when it tripped. The story saw Tony going through PTSD after his experiences in The Avengers. I enjoyed the action sequences very much and I liked the humor In the film. Great story with great characters made for a fun and entertaining film. Like in the casting section, the Iron Man cast has an advantage from being in both films, but Captain America takes the final point.

That's right everyone. Captain America has one the battle with a score of 2.5 to a narrow 2.4 from Iron Man. What do you think? Do you agree? Do you disagree? Your vote is IMPORTANT! In the comments vote for your winner, nothing else included. In about three or four weeks. I calculate the score and announce the winner, be it the same as mine or if you think Iron Man had the better trilogy. I also want you to write about whether this is a good idea and you want me to do more. I have many more of these planned so give me your reaction. Here are the things I got planned.

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