Unreal Movie Review: Captain America
4 out of 5 stars
Superhero fatigue is setting in.
Someone who shouldn’t be a hero figures out how to use newfound powers, learns a valuable lesson about himself and rises to defeat an evil force bent on city-wide or world-wide destruction. It’s a formula that deviates in appearance only for most superhero films, and before Captain America even started, as I watched Peter Parker mutate and learn to use his powers yet again, I thought, “how much longer can we do this?”
Captain America is the best hope yet for a reinvigorated superhero, but again, falls into the aforementioned formula all the same. Fortunately it manages to do it well, which is really all you can ask for a movie in the genre these days. We get a fairly well made and entertaining final product, despite its rather standard plot arc.
This film is the last piece of The Avengers, a team that has been four or five films in the making, depending on if you count either the Hulk attempt or think that Iron Man 2 served any purpose. But it’s the closest thing we’ve seen to a prequel in the series, and takes the superhero film to an era it rarely visits, especially in modern films.
Costume change #3 of 4.
It’s the height of World War II and America is looking for a magic bullet to end the war. Secret government science projects are in the works on both the Allied and Axis sides, and efforts to create super soldiers and super weapons are underway.
Johan Schmidt (Hugo Weaving), Hitler’s chief scientist, took a bad dose of super serum and traded his face for a bit of extra strength. His former partner, Abraham Erskine (Stanley Tucci), escaped the Reich and perfected the serum on his own. He wants to inject it into the best candidate America has to offer, and he believes that to be young Steve Rogers (Chris Evans), a 98 pound weakling who has courage and heart in spades to make up for his utter lack of muscle and brawn.
Evans is most endearing before his transformation, and is rendered very convincingly with some expert CGI that put the hunk’s head on a tiny body. You might imagine the effect would be that of an odd computer generated bobblehead, but it’s really quite well done, and makes his transformation to beefcake all the more inspiring.
Adorable.
Erskine says “the weak man knows the value of strength” which would seem profound at first, but a bit like nonsense if you think about it for more than a few seconds. A strong man would already know how to use a strong body, and not have to bumble around like a child in a mech suit. But the weakling Rogers is one of the more relatable superheroes we’ve had recently, in both his bony and muscle-bound forms. There seems to be some need for superheroes to be brooding (Batman), cocky (Thor), cowardly (Green Lantern) or have some other deep character flaw, but here Captain America is a good old fashioned boy scout, and a stand up guy. The film is not about him learning a lesson and becoming a great man, rather it’s about him being a great man and trying to convince everyone else around him that’s the case.
The film works because the transition from everyman to superhero isn’t immediate. Usually powers will be discovered, and after a montage, the hero is fully suited up and kicking ass the rest of the film. Not so with Rogers. He goes from weakling, to science experiment to USO cheerleader to vigilante commando to top US operative, each transition coming with a costume change as he finally works his way toward superherodom.
Captain America also has the added benefit of being a lot more plausible than most heroes we see onscreen today. No alien civilizations or magic rings or hammers, just a rather strong guy with a rather bouncy shield. I was very impressed with the shield combat, as it doesn’t seem like the most useful of weapons, but the fight sequences are very well choreographed and Captain’s shield proves a far more entertaining tool than the aforementioned ring or hammer, and his suit is the best costume redesign in superhero movie history.
The hero side of the film works, but the villain counterbalance isn’t quite there. I didn’t really care for Hugo Weaving as the Red Skull, whose German accent was a bit odd and his tone not quite as menacing as his face. And with his glowing blue energy source that powers his tanks and planes and guns, his Hydra squad seemed like a sister battalion to GI Joe’s Cobras, complete with the blue lasers. For as deep and realistic as the Captain felt, his enemies felt cartoonish and thin.
Love the look, but that’s about it.
I also take issue with the decision to show a flash forward at the beginning of the film. Showing the shield buried in ice completely takes away the tension of the film’s closing moments as even those who don’t know the comic lore can see what’s coming. This ending also presents the problem of what happens when you’re forcing a sequel and rigidly sticking to the source material. (Spoilers for non comic-nerds). Self sacrifice to become an immortal American hero is a pretty solid ending for a film like this. Surviving a plane crash and being somehow frozen in ice for 70 years to be woken up by a black man in an eyepatch and join a squad that includes a mutant and alien and a technophile would be a rather awkward conclusion if we were viewing this film in a vacuum.
But regardless of this, or of superhero fatigue in general, it’s hard not to be exceptionally pumped for the Joss Whedon-helmed Avengers where at last the half a decade of build up will yield a collection of heroes that would almost seem too epic for one film to hold. With Captain America, we have a well painted picture of the heart of that group, and one that should prove to be a guiding force in future adventures of him or his superpowered friends.
4 out of 5 stars
“Dammnnn I created a machine that makes hot men!”
Great flick. Nice write up.
I thought the Red Skull and hydra were well done. they had Nazi roots but branched into it’s own thing by the end. I though that Bucky was well played, stayed true to the core of the character and they seemed to hint to him being set up as Winter Soldier (the brain-washing, the turn to the darker aspect because of the war and the way he “died” left the door open for him to reappear later).
The best superhero movie of the summer – good acting, good special effects, good storyline, and a heaping dollop of patriotism. Whoever thought Evans could have made such a great Captain America too! Good Review! Check out mine when you can!
They didn’t graft his head onto a smaller body. They actually used some form of video Photoshop to shrink his muscles and jawline. They had to reshoot something like 250 scenes with green screen so they could have a realistic background behind where his actual muscles were.
Here’s a Yahoo article explaining it better: http://news.yahoo.com/brawny-captain-america-saved-skinny-steve-194607211.html
Who is the mutant and who is the alien you’re referring?
I assume he’s referring to The Hulk and Thor, respectively.
Just saw this today. My expectations were low so I was quite pleased at the end result. It was just a fun movie, period,which is something we should expect from a movie like this. Not pandering to the audience to be reflective or too intellectual about superheroes and their role in our culture, just an enjoyable experience. Though I have to agree a bit, Hydra and the Red Skull could have been a bit less cartoonish and more menacing, but overall, a cool flick. Bonus points to Tommy Lee Jones, that guy is just awesome.
While I enjoyed the film, particularly the aspects of character development and story you mentioned, I had problems with the depiction of Hydra and their level of technology.
Despite the other “advanced science” elements of the story, the sci-fi equipment and weaponry (blue lasers, giant tanks, etc) really took me out of the movie. I would have preferred a more “realistic” and period-appropriate Hydra, and not one that looked and acted like (as you perfectly described it) a sister to Cobra. Other bits like Skull’s ridiculous car (straight out of League of Extraordinary Gentlemen) were also disappointing.
I thought the action was a bit rote and predictable, though the use of the shield was very well done.
Overall, I judge this to be the weakest of the “Avengers films”, but still a strong movie compared to most of the dreck that comes out these days.
what were the 4 different costumes he puts on? I only counted 3, the first one, the one he wore on the rescue mission, and the last one.
@Paul Tassi, @Tim
The reason it is so similar to Cobra is that Marvel helped create the incarnation of Cobra you are remembering for Hasbro.
They basically just rehashed the old Hydra idea and gave the generic military team a cooler nemesis.
“Prior to G.I. Joe’s relaunch in 1982, Larry Hama was developing an idea for a new comic book called Fury Force…”
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/G.I._Joe:_A_Real_American_Hero
That is actually the fanboy bait here. So they take a realism hit but keep the continuity. I’ll accept that.
I just saw this yesterday and I loved it. Thanks for the great review
i found it really…boring. there were no gigantic set-pieces battles ala transformers… they kept jumping from base to base and shit blew up, but nothing had resonance… the only scene which genuinely decernable from the rest of the movie was the plane scene at the end, which seemed rather anti-climatic. why couldn’t he just jump out of the thing? i couldn’t care about the characters because they were just so cardboard. the battles felt more like star wars (the crappy ones), what with the retro-futuristic weaponry. and the whole sanitized feel of political correctness was distracting… there’s no swastika in the movie, despite the fact that we are clearly dealing with nazis. also captain america’s ‘crack team’ was like a episode of ‘saved by the bell’, with every ethnicity represented equally…. i mean.. the asian guy? really?
Honestly, I’m surprised that you reviewed it so well and that so many people agree with you. As a fan of Marvel, but not an avid reader and not a huge fan of Captain America, I found this to be one of the most boring superhero movies yet.
What were Captain’s powers? He was like an Olympic athlete, but played by a not so great actor.
How many times do we have to have heroes surrounded and brought before the main guy and then let live for no good reason? Is it really that hard to work out a scenario that fits what you want but doesn’t require the bad guys to be of sub-dog intellect?
The romance was supremely forced, his group of companions had no real life, and it took over an hour for the movie to start. Giving this a one out of five is a kindness.
Yeah this movie sucked big time. It felt like watching a war documentary which if I wanted to I would just watch watch one. Too much talking, barely any action. Why would you try to recreate the 40’s which was really dull time, too much propoganda like this movie had. Next time modernize it. Its bad enough captain america can only jump and throw a shield but than you want him to be in an outdated era with old, limited technology. Rusty old movie. I think I would prefer the 90’s captain american though it sucked big time. Captain America at least did more action in that movie.