August 2, 2011

He Didn’t Yell “Charging Star!” or “Stars and Stripes!” Once!

Captain America might be the first Avenger, but he also starred in a damn good film. Essner described it well. He said they could have gone for a home run, but instead went for a solid double, and succeeded. It had action, it had comic relief, and it treated the subject matter with respect. It was a really fun movie.

One of my favorite things about the film is how much Captain America is not a super-hero. I mean, he is, and maybe they spent a little too long showing him as the scrawny non-super dude in the beginning, but in general, he’s not the one man who can solve everything. From the very beginning, he’s helped by the people he’s rescuing, and he forms a team, which is influential all the way, who really make sure he’s in the right place at the right time, and can succeed in super-heroics. He’s supported. He’s not a one-man army, he’s a super-hero supported by an elite team, and that’s why he succeeds. I can get down with that.

The movie does attempt to stray into the frankly boring “The hero must face himself WHO WILL WIN?” sort of camp, which I am really growing to hate. However, Mr. Red Skull Head is differentiated by his tech enough that that honestly didn’t bother me too much. Sure, he’s super-serumed as well, but it’s really his mastery of crazy technology that is the threat.

Really, though, the only flaw with the film is the ending. Yes, of course they’re going to set up the Avengers movie, but that ending just seemed so… well, it seemed like a teaser I should have seen at the end of the credits, not the actual end of the movie. The last line, meant to be a kind of ironic comedic moment, really came off and sounding less than genuine, something the movie hadn’t been having problems with before that point. I made a little frowny face.

But that was really the only thing I found wrong with the movie. Jonathan felt that Mr. Captain was not a character he felt invested in at all, and that that hurt the movie for him, but I just didn’t get that at all from the film. It was not trying to be the be-all, end-all of movies. It knew what it was: a fun summer action movie. That’s what it did. I really enjoyed it. It’s certainly worth seeing.

When I read Red Skull and I think Radiskull. Also, Radiskull was big in ’99. Also, I am really, really old. :(

Comment by Belabor — August 2, 2011 @ 2:09 am

[…] you’re going to see one dumb, fun action movie, I’d still pick Captain America, but I enjoyed Cowboys and Aliens a lot. They had some good people in there, which helped. Cast […]

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