Captain America: The First Avenger
I am now way, way, way behind on keeping this thing up-to-date. I actually saw Captain America in August on the same day I saw Rise of Planet of the Apes (and Cowboys and Aliens). I've thought before that actually waiting a bit to write a review... or whatever this actually is... can be helpful. It's easier to figure out what made the movie memorable (if it was indeed memorable) if... you know... you have to remember it. This, however, may be overkill. It's been over a month. But, I can't catch up, if I don't look back. So here we go...
So yeah... Captain America... first impression? Errr, rather, what ever impression this is after having lived with seeing the movie for over a month? On the whole, it was a fun movie. That's the thing I remember most about it. Fun. It wasn't quite in the same vein as Thor, but it certainly wasn't tedious in the least (like... Batman Begins and- to a degree- Iron Man). But yeah, generally fun. Lots of tongue-in-cheekness. Not as action-driven as I'd have liked it to be, but it certainly had more action than brooding (a common trap of the origin story). So that all worked well. I'm not sure whether the tone of the movie was set because of Chris Evans or Chris Evans was cast to be Cap because of the intended tone of the movie. Either way, in retrospect, for this movie, I can't imagine anyone filling those boots better. I can't say I've seen...or even heard of Evans being in anything particularly serious. It's all light and fun for him. (But not all good... ahem... Fantastic 4 AND Fantastic Four 2... guess we won't be seeing any Avengers/Fantastic 4 cross-overs... at least with the original casts). Which ever was the case, I think it was a smart move. Evans comes off as a typically all-American type dude in ways that other names that were bandied about- John Krasinski... Nic Cage?... couldn't. And that all-American-ness is a key point to the movie. It is-after all- a 2 hour dissertation on what the quintessential idea of the American spirit is all about... or something along those lines. The Hollywood version of defining what it is to be American? I don't know, but there was definitely that sort of undertone to the flick.
That said, it must have been a tricky balance. They had to try to capture the jingoism of the World War II era without associating it with the more negative and close-minded ideals that often accompany extreme patriotism today. The risk, after all, was turning Captain America into some kind of retro-Tea Party symbol. They did succeed in avoiding that very avoidable pitfall, I think. But they still put a little too much emphasis on the morality angle and the "You Can Do It If You Really Try" cliche. What's right is rarely so black and white... but in terms of modern conflicts, I guess it doesn't get much more black and white than WWII. On the second point, they are being hypocrites- just as the comic book series was. Steve Rogers had as much spirit as anyone can sanely have. The problem is, he was a sickly waste of human flesh. Target practice for the Nazis, had he been allowed to enlist. The harder he would have tried the easier he would have been to kill. That's just life. So the fine folks writing the early Captain America series seemed to suggest that this essential American Fighting Spirit would see him through... so long as he agreed to become a science project first. "You can do it if you never give up, give it your all, and get pumped full of steroids or super-soldier serum." The hunted then becomes the hunter. It's hard to buy into all the lines they feed you here (and it was a bit overbearing at times) when we all know Cap would have been a glorified mascot at best in the war effort without the experiment. Before that minor turning point, Rogers would have best served the folks on the front lines if he had allowed himself to be skinned and worn as a parka.
All this is- of course- meaningless word-filling. The constant beating of that American Fighting Spirit and doing what's right message into my skull was at worst a minor irritation and one that I kind of fully expected going to see the movie (which also begs the question of why the didn't open the damn thing on the July 4th weekend. My guess is that they were afraid of being buried by Transformers 3. And with good cause. Robots and hot chicks are obviously more appealing to the mass of 13-16 year-old boys whom every summer movie producer targets than buff dudes running around in spandex... but I do think the natural tie in would have served the movie well.). The fact of the matter is that the movie was largely a fun action flick with a pretty good, light tone. Evans was- if not perfect- a damn good fit for the role. And Hugo Weaving (another go-to bad guy in the same mold as Mark Strong), Tommy Lee Jones (a scene thief here), and Stanly Tucci round out a pretty fantastic cast. I wasn't a huge fan of taking Cap's young sidekick, Bucky (Sebastian Stan) and aging him a bundle of years (and making him cooler than Cap for much of the movie) for the movie, but I suppose the whole kid sidekick deal kind of peaked with Burt Ward's performance as Robin in the 1960s Batman TV series. (At least in the traditional sense... kid sidekicks don't get much more badass than Hit Girl from the Kick Ass comics/movie.) At least they didn't end up with the whiny mess that was The Kid (Justin McGuire) from Six String Samurai.
Damn, I'm in a digressing-type mood here. The point here is that-again- Captain America: The First Avenger was... after the first... I dunno half hour... where Evan's over-sized head was digitally placed on the body of some science-class skeleton resulting in an ultimate "man that ain't right" moment...a solidly fun action flick. Nothing that's going to give you a headache thinking about it. Nothing that's ever going to be mistaken for art. But a good movie to just sit there and enjoy... for the most part. Especially if you're a red-blooded American (who believes there's nothing wrong with augmenting the American Fighting Spirit with a little chemical joy).
Grade: B+
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