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Review: Captain America
If you have been living under a rock, you might not be aware that the next in the ongoing series of Avengers prequel movies came out this weekend: Captain America follows Steve Rogers origin, and sets him up for next summer's kajillion dollar Whedonesque mega blockbuster. But how is it as a movie in its own right? Hit the link to read my 2 cents. Standard spoiler warnings apply.
Its about time Hollywood came up with something original instead of digging ever deeper into the list of 2nd rate comic book "heroes"?
So the 70 years under ice was why Marvel skipped the political issue and why Captain America wasn't kicking ass in Vietnam?
Another "movie" made from a comic book.
"The average reporter we talk to is 27 years old......They literally know nothing." - Ben Rhodes
It sucked. Boring. Waste of time. Save your money. You won't really remember it in five years.
Shoes for Industry. Shoes for the Dead.
I'd seen some snobby reviews on Metacritic at the outset but most people I talk to seem to really like this. I am glad. I can't wait to see it...going tomorrow. I am a huge Cap fan. I started reading with Ed Brubaker's run that started a few years ago and never looked back. :)
"Those who would sacrifice essential liberties for a little temporary safety deserve neither liberty nor safety." - BenF
Did you hear about the blonde who tried to bomb the Norwegian government?
Though I have to admit that I like all comic book films... mostly. One issue with Cap A. There isn't one scene, or an actual climax moment, that sticks to the mind. No truly stand out lines that I will be quoting.
It was all good, maybe even great. Very, very fun to watch. But it never had that "Indiana Jones under the truck" or "Indiana Jones hates snakes" or "Its just a thin mint" moment or line that we will be thinking about and/or repeating....
what makes captain america so good is that it is straightforward, honest, and unironic
it's a throwback to the pulp of the 1940s, and when i say that, i'm not talking about speech and clothing, i'm talking about worldview and attitude and theme
the world today is cynical and oh-so-knowing. the world back then was uncomplicated: good was good and evil was evil
now, pleae: don't get me wrong: abandoning modern day wordliness is not be a good idea for your ideological health
but in order to make an entertaining MOVIE, it works quite effectively
intellectual property law is philosophically incoherent. it is your moral duty to ignore it or sabotage it
It's a good rock. Nice and cozy. It's a very selective rock. Blocks all kinds of advertisements, Hollywood spam and MTV rubbish.
I love my rock.
My son is just 5 years old, and he's heavy into his superhero phase. I think it's a crime that all of these movies are rated PG-13 while the toys are clearly aimed at capturing a younger audience who may not even get to see anything but the tv commercials. He's got no less than 3 different Captain America shields (one that I made him, one that his grandfather made him, and one we bought from the store). The one his grandfather made him - out of wood! - came with a home made Thor hammer. He doesn't care. He's Captain Thor America. So, somebody tell me - of this and all the other superhero movies this summer, would you take a 5 yr old? Just how scary/bloody is the violence? I expect that any "adult situations" will go right over his head (bordering on outright nudity and/or sex scenes, which I don't think these movies have). But a really scary monster/bad guy may give him nightmares. I know that most of the others will be gone from the theatre now, but as they start coming out on DVD, which would be the safest to let him watch? Help me out. I desperately want him to have the memory of going to these movies when they were a big deal, like I remember going to see Star Wars and Raiders of the Lost Ark and E.T.
www.HearMySoulSpeak.com
How much does Hollywood pay the talking heads to pawn off every piece of drivel they come up with. I can't go anywhere for news, TV News, internet news, etc. without seeing this marketed junk all over the place.
'We are trying to prove ourselves wrong as quickly as possible, because only in that way can we find progress.' RPF
The movie was good until they did a completely unbelievable tie in to the present day, the only thing that could have made it worse was if he immediately went out to fight terrorists.
The only moment where my suspension of disbelief ran into problems was a brief technobabble tossaway about the super soldier serum and his "genetic code". So when I got home and googled around a little to learn a little more of the history of what the state of knowledge was between Mendal and Watson&Crick. Now I find myself reading Schrödinger's 1944 book "What is Life?".
Now, I never read a Captain America comic, but I did see the movie. The movie had giant-ass tanks like the one you see when you play Metal Slug series. It was as if I was watching clips from the game.
Does the original comic have this type of art direction?
Previewing comments are for sissies!
Did you hear about the blonde who tried to bomb the Norwegian government?
he thought he was working against the interest of Islamic domination.
Go Captain America, pound those underhand Frenchies and evil Muzzies.
I don't have a problem with Comic book movies. This movie was fun but I feel it missed the mark. You did have the death of Buddy which is cannon but as a whole I felt it lacked emotional content.
1. I at no time ever felt that Capt was in danger. I mean he never really was defeated. He won every battle.
2. I felt no real pain over the Buddy's death. I saw no soul searching or pain. Now this was WWII so in away that is expected. People died all the time in that war. Just to help put it into perspective. The Iraq according to wikipedia the US had 3,510 killed and 31,956 wounded in Iraq from 2003-2010. During the battle of Okinawa the US had 12,000 killed and 50,000 wounded in 82 days.
The main thing was just that I never felt that the Red Skull had a chance. Captain America just kicked butt and took names. The fear of failure as lacking in this film. But it was fun. It really was a fun summer movie. I would give it a good but not great. It was not as good as Thor, Ironman or the Dark Knights IMHO.
See my blog http://ilovecookes.blogspot.com/ for light hearted technical information.
I guess I must have been living under a rock then. Along with billions of others.
I call my rock "The Earth". Living "under" it is reliant really on which way you regards as "up".
Chris Evans had a digitally altered body (it was still his own, just modified) as he felt he should play the entire role and not have a body double and just superimpose his face on it for the first portion. Its under the IMDB trivia for the movie. They said it was very difficult to do as they shrunk his body they had to fill in all the backgrounds that his body used to cover.
"How the fuck did Tron become the example of the possibilities of 3D?"
it was latched onto by low IQ marketing droids that are desperate for you to replace that 42" TV you bought 2 years ago with a new one that does nothing more other than WOOOOOooooooo Threeeeeee Deeeeeeeeeee!!!!!! Woooooooooooo!
I have seen ONE decent home 3D setup. it was a pair of projectors using polarizer filters and you used the IMAX 3d Glasses.
Do not look at laser with remaining good eye.
This movie, like a lot of the others in the Avengers series suffer from the exact same thing. They can't stand on their own. Sure, the effects were good. The writing wasn't half bad. The acting was pretty decent. But the entire story was servicing the inevitable sequel. As a result, the film itself wasn't very interesting. Everything seemed to be there specifically to set up for the next movie. Sure, there was the "fight/chase scene" that concluded the movie with a little resolution but it wasn't a very satisfying ending. So it doesn't stand on its own but it didn't generate in me an overwhelming anticipation of the sequel either. Every part of it said "there's going to be more in the next movie" without really building the anticipation. It really felt like they were just rushing through everything to make sure they had the bases covered for the movie next year. The underlying story for this movie really didn't really engage me.
That being said, it is a decent movie. It's worth seeing on the big screen in the theater. The story may have been flimsy and cliche but the characters themselves were developed pretty well. Like I said above, the writing and acting were acceptable. The effects were pretty good too. You have to suspend your disbelief on a lot of things but this is a movie based on a comic book so that's a given. And if you do that, the movie is enjoyable.
Mod parent up please, this is far more interesting...
"The movie dripped with a cool 40s art style, with enough odd looking modernizations to make it all work. It wasn't steam punk. It wasn't art deco. It wasn't historically accurate. But it was awesome. Every aspect of the world was wonderfully realized to give us a parallel WWII that I totally bought into."
The style name your looking for is "dieselpunk."
It's like steampunk, but rooted in the years between WWI and the bombing of Hiroshima.
So continental Europe is under a rock?
Well then it's a rock with 100Mbps FTTH.
I wonder, what is up with so many fairy tales being told about super heroes on TV these days?
It's probably because in most of our lives there aren't real heroes around and there isn't a happy ending.
You can't handle the truth.
At least theres a vague basis of a story there and the sound effects would rock. :o)
I took my six year old and didn't think twice about it. In fact, I hadn't even thought about the rating until you mentioned it. I've always thought the MPAA rating system was aimed at parents who would rather try to carpet the world than raise their kids to wear slippers, if you know what I mean.
Space game using normal deck of cards: http://BattleCards.org
Comment removed based on user account deletion
There really aren't many made-from-scratch movies. The most recently made movie that I've seen that wasn't based on pre-existing literature is Inception, by Christopher Nolan.
AFAIK he wrote the original story, and had been thinking about making that movie since he was a child.
So, in summary, find something worthy to be pretentious and nit-picky about. Because the vast majority of films are based on literature. Short stories, comics, novels, or biographies, etc.
I actually saw it last night. While not normally a fan of comic book movies, it was fun. Wasn't looking for anything serious. My only real complaint (taking into account I wasn't looking for an Oscar-winner or anything) was that for a 2 hour movie, they spent too much time building up the plot - although this does make sense if you consider it as a prequel to the Avengers movie(s).
I felt like the some of the epic battle scenes were more montages or practically fast-forwarded through and although I'm sure they are expensive to produce, are what I would have expected to see more of from a movie like this.
Also, he's got a lot more money than you. And a more attractive spouse.
So suck it loser.
I disagree. The only setup for the sequel was him waking up in modern times and meeting Agent Fury. That's right out of Cap canon. The rest of the story is self-contained. The fact that he lost everything and everyone he knew over his 70-year hibernation is part of the tragedy of his character. If anything is missing it's giving him a few minutes at the end to reflect on his losses and the challenge of preserving his values amid contemporary chaos.
The preservation of his boy scout ideals in an uncertain world makes him a very compelling character, IMO. And the pitting of his humble leadership style against the massive egos of Tony Stark and Thor will be quite fun to watch.
Nostalgia isn't what it used to be.
If you have been living under a rock, you might not be aware that the next in the ongoing series of Avengers prequel movies came out this weekend
Living under a rock? How about this instead:
If you're a mature adult who ignores pop culture for the mindless, endlessly recycled drivel that it is, you might not be aware that the next in the ongoing series of Avengers prequel movies came out this weekend
"Liechtenstein is the world's largest producer of sausage casings, potassium storage units, and false teeth."
Never heard of that ship. Dunno how they'd make a movie out of it. Is it something like "Pirates of the Caribbean" or "Das Boot"?
There is a 3D release. I'm not sure if this is just a fault of the technology in use at the theatre I was at, or the fault of the movie, but gigantic scenes had very little depth. Everything past certain distance was just a very flat wall. It felt very much like a 3D conversion where they only spent time on the foreground, but since I know nothing about how the movie was made, that's just my theory.
However, in terms of 3D there were very few scenes that shouted "We're doing this for the 3D", so despite generally hating 3D, I didn't actually find it that bad in this movie. Lackluster, but not bad. There were other things that bugged me more. Two full scenes were clearly either shot at a different frame rate, or a different F-stop or SOMETHING because there were definitely times that the movie shifted from film look to video look. That probably only bugs a certain set of people who are sensitive to such issues, but if you are, well... the scenes are pretty protracted, and one of them is an action scene. Most of the "wrong" looking stuff looks the kind of thing that would have been filmed by the second unit director.
Besides that, the glaringly inaccurate map of North America that included a territory in Canada that most definitely didn't exist in the 40s kind of bugged me, because besides that it did look very period. And there were a few plot holes... being unfamiliar with the original comic, I'm not sure how many of those were a result of being faithful to source material...
But yeah, it's not a "great movie". It's an average one, that you shouldn't bother seeing in 3D at the increased ticket price unless you're a huge fan of the genre in which case... it still doesn't seem overly stunning in 3D, and a 2D version would probably still be just as good.
It's amazing what you can do with a thousand artists and animators. Look at the credits on the thing. There are about 850 people associated with the CGI work.
The plot is mediocre, but with all that production value, you don't notice until afterward. The battle scenes are ridiculous. An infantry frontal assault into machine guns will not work. ("This proposition was thoroughly tested in WWI.") Small groups have taken fortresses (see Eben Emael) but not just by charging in there.
The painters can fix anything.
I read a lot of Captain America when I was younger, and there was very little romantising or cheese in the initial story (regardless of his costume/shield etc.). It evidently had political connotations, even a youngster can detect this. I dread that the emphasis on his poor physical condition is going to be at full tilt (at least what I can see from the trailer). Almost all these films are being turned into geek power fantasies, when really they could be improved by creating a more rounded script and characterisation. But I guess the audience wants that sort emphasis. *shrugs*
Mark at http://www.idgconnect.com/blog
"You have to suspend your disbelief on a lot of things"
Absolutely unacceptable. I want every bit of my fiction to contain absolutely realistic depictions of everything, requiring no suspension of disbelief whatsoever. I feel that they should have cut away from the story for 40 minutes or so to describe the scientific nuances of the super soldier serum, and when they failed to do so my eyes immediately glazed over and I lost interest in the film.
- Science Fiction Fan
There's a fairly safe return on investment from Warner's stable of DC heroes and Disney's stable of Marvel heroes.
Am I the only one who noticed that for about 30 minutes towards the end of the movie, they started inserting their favorite scenes / motifs from Star Wars with only the thinnest of veneers?
First the s/speeder/motorcycle/g chase scene making me wonder when they left Germany for Endor.
Then the "stormtroopers" and laser gun fight straight out of the first 10 minutes of A New Hope complete with hydraulic closing doors.
Then the escape the deathstar in the millenium falcon sequence.
And finally, the showdown on the "view deck" out of RotJ that had me wondering if they were gonna finish it off with light sabers.
A few years ago, there was a miniseries called Tin Man on the skiffy channel. We discussed it on a techie mailing list I'm on, and decided that the right description was dieselpunk, halfway between steampunk and cyberpunk....
mark
We need more 40's based memes here on the internet.
-Woof woof woof!
Several things were left for sequels.
No, this movie was all about setup and leaving stuff behind for the next movies.
I am sure there is an audience for this, but I am not sure how many people outside the US cares about captain america. I for once, just don't, even thought I do have an image saved where he says something nice about telling the rest of the world to move. Although now that I think about it maybe it is time for the rest of the world to tell america "No, you move."
News for nerds
In think they should have left all the future stuff till the "after credits". We should have seen his men come home, the lady mourn his loss, but move on... And left the main movie right there. Utterly depressing, but THAT is how the story goes for the REAL heroes of the world.
I thought they would have saved finding Captain America until the Avengers movie anyway. he's the missing piece on the team between MEN, freaks, Gods, and people that think their gods.
Lets start with the Art Direction: it was absolutely awesome. The movie dripped with a cool 40s art style, with enough odd looking modernizations to make it all work. It wasn't steam punk. It wasn't art deco. It wasn't historically accurate. But it was awesome. Every aspect of the world was wonderfully realized to give us a parallel WWII that I totally bought into.
See Dieselpunk
If you google around for "Skinny Steve", it turns out that they just edited his body to look smaller - he did his own movement for the "skinny" scenes because the directors couldn't find a double who moved similarly enough. Sample source: http://today.msnbc.msn.com/id/43825044/ns/today-entertainment/t/brawny-captain-america-saved-skinny-steve/
picpix image polls. create - share - vote. fun!
I thought you were being a little unfair with the comment about being able to discern differences between shoots (although with anything but a low budget indie, this shouldn't happen) but then, when you talked about subtleties in the map that likely no one (including the film's continuity editor) noticed I realized.
You're just crazy. And more than a little OCD. Welcome to Slashdot....
Faster! Faster! Faster would be better!
I've read this was his body- reduced by CGI. There were standin's for some scenes but when you see his face, it's generally him.
They had to green screen some of it so they could fill in the background.
Apparently this is sort of like Benjamin Button (and to some extent Gollum).
===
I absolutely loved this movie- laughed, even cried at the end knowing he wouldn't be back to meet her.
Cap has always been the moral "Superman" of the Marvel universe. Always lawful good- never amoral- never compromising. Partially the writers gave him a break and never put him in "no win" situations- but they put him in close to no win situations and he was good.
The flag pole scene was also classic cap. He has the cleverness required of a weaker man combined with the power.
The movie was over CGI'd and slow during the montage of beating the 6 bases but I guess they had to show it somehow. I also felt some motorcycle jumps and so on were cut instead of showing the entire thing.
**** movie. 95% would be my personal rottent tomatoes rating.
She was like chocolate when she drank... semi-sweet at first and then increasingly bitter.
BWAHAHAHA wrong on both counts, chump
No argument on your points. The Norse elements and Howard Stark definitely sow the seeds for the Avengers. That doesn't mean they aren't integrated well into the story to make it interesting enough as a stand-alone. Not knowing who Howard is takes nothing away from this film.
In fact, I was impressed by how different in feel this "Avenger prequel" was from Thor and Iron Man. The wonderfully realized alternate-reality WW II sets really setup the golden era U.S. world that defines Cap and his values.
Nostalgia isn't what it used to be.
Did anyone notice the short cameo of the original (1940s) human torch at the science fair? Nice touch, and nice in-joke since Chris played the second version of the Torch in the FF movies.
This film was by geeks, for geeks. My daughter (almost 17) got every reference, including the torch and the flying car (which we strongly suspect is a premonition of the helicarrier in Avengers). It helps that she's been studying WWII recently and knew about the draft and newsreels and such. I started to whisper explanations to wife (who is an established non-geek) starting with the background to the trailer for "John Carter of Mars" but found that daughter was already filling her in.
At one point daughter said "It's your fault I'm a geek. I'll never get a date. I hate you." I said "Are you kidding? Geeks will love you." She responds "And that's better?? I hate you!"
Oliver's law of assumed responsibility: If you're seen fixing it, you will be blamed for breaking it.
All I'm suggesting is that there are so many unresolved threads stemming from this movie. I personally find that threads like that distract from the movie.
I will say that this prequel is better than many others simply because they're not working with (or against) an established movie. While, in my (not so) humble opinion, they spent too much time laying the ground work for the following movie, they did have a freedom to make it its own movie rather than being forced to plug neatly into something that was already done. It's not as bad as taking a hugely popular movie and writing a prequel 20 years later, filled with horrible dialog and bad acting ;)
Gotta re-do the Spiderman movie so Marvel can pry it out of Sony's hands.
the preceding comment is my own and in no way reflects the opinion of the Joint Chiefs of Staff
Agree. There is no closure to his WW II life. Just a quick little montage of headlines commemorating him as a lost war hero who will be remembered, but not the tragedy. No time for a sense of loss for him or those close to him. That's a key defining aspect of his character in the Avengers. Shame it wasn't fleshed out more. "I had a date" is an understatement.
Nostalgia isn't what it used to be.
... and while I think I was reasonably entertained for two hours, I left the theater feeling pretty hollow. I just didn't feel like this was a terribly satisfying movie.
The style, the direction, even the acting were all phenomenal. Much better than you usually expect from Hollywood pulp... but from the guy who directed "The Rocketeer" which is one of THE best period hero movies I've ever seen, you would truly expect nothing less. And that was part of my problem; all the ingredients were there... hell, even the writing was pretty damned good through most of it. For some reason though, it never really gelled together in the same way that the aforementioned Rocketeer did. There was no sense of wonder, no sense that incredible things were happening. Captain America didn't seem to be so much shaping events as just present when they took place. The ancillary characters like "Dum Dum" Dugan just seemed thrown in to appease the geek crowd who wanted to see it... he really had no role beyond existing through the entire movie.
It really played as a by-the-numbers superhero origin movie, but without any real soul. The original Chris Reeves Superman managed to create an origin story with heart and soul... why the hell have few done that since? I digress though. I agree with Taco that I also viewed Captain America as a second-tier hero... one whom I was unfamiliar with his backstory, and really only became familiar with him through references in other comics I read as a kid. Part of this was maybe growing up in Europe... just the titular character name would've probably made me roll my eyes even as a kid... I honestly don't remember. However, despite much reading of Fantastic Four, Batman, Spiderman et all, I almost never remember even SEEING a Captain America comic. Still, I had no desire to go see it at all until I heard positive rumblings, and then found out Joe Johnston was at the helm. Then I was suddenly interested... so since I had a few hours to kill I figured I'd go see it.
I should also say that I found the ending rather disappointing as well. It was like they built up and built up and then the ending was more of a whimper than a bang. And there is a problem with the ending in that it's impossible to understand what just happened unless you are familiar with the backstory. I only really "got" the ending after the fact when I read a few Wikipedia articles before heading to bed. Yeah... I suspected that's what happened, but I have a long history of reading comic books and understanding most of their conceits. But to the average viewer who maybe is only a casual comic book fan? I don't think they'd get it... or they'd be thinking... well... the wrong things to be honest. It just didn't make sense within or without the narrative as displayed on screen... even in subtext. That's just sloppy fanboyish writing. Oh, and the mid-section "Hydra Hunt" was skimmed over in a very sloppy fashion... I understand they wanted to finish this one movie so they could move over to Avengers, but I really would've liked to have seen a solo Captain America movie with a sequel to cover all of the hunting down of Hydra... THEN finish it up with a grand finale. Hell, there could've been enough there to fill a couple of movies, but here it feels constrained by the rush to get to next summer.
Now, I may sound negative but I still came away entertained. It was a good movie, but in my opinion not great. There were some great little references to movies that have almost nothing to do with the Avengers universe... I even spotted what I think was an oblique reference to Raiders of the Lost Ark (although the timing is off since Raiders was set some 5 or 6 years earlier). Those kinds of things made me smile a little, and I really did enjoy Hugo Weaving in his role as Schmidt. After a decade I think I'm finally able to watch him without ending every sentence of his with "Mr. Anderson". Chris Evans was actually great, but I knew he could act because I thought he was great in Sunshine as well. The rest of the case were pretty bland th
I am pretty sure that contemporaries did not see it that way. A lot of people sympathized with the Nazis and the Communists. One of the things that we forget about the "Red Scare" of the 50s is that there actually _were_ a lot of reds in the US. What is so horrific about the scare is not that society went after ghosts that were not there, but that they a were impinging on basic rights of every American to go after people who were just idealists.
Think about this: in the course of a few short years, Stalin went from being bad, to good, to evil. Germany went from being a meek defeated nation, to a powerful enemy, to a meek protege that needed hundreds of thousands of American troops to defend. Ditto for Japan.
People at that time did not know what the hell to think. Captain America is the expression of this confusing world. It gave clarity to a confusing world. If the country had been so simple, it would not have needed Captain America to explain it to their kids.
At least he's not anonymous.
Film makers need to find the happy medium between "3D gags" and "3D conversion". The first of the modern 3D movies that saw was Journey to the Center of the Earth; it was full of sight gags (such as Brandon Frasier spitting on the audience). Then I saw Priest, which seemed to lose the 3D effect halfway through the movie (I think this was something akin to how you stop noticing the framing around a widescreen movie on a television). Captain America was better, but a little too close to Priest: there were parts that didn't have any depth but then the next scene would seem to pop out.
Is that really the best you can do? I see that you're UID means that you're either relatively new here or that you're going to cry that you use to have an account but lost it or something... Slashdot is not what it was years ago. There was a time that an article like this would have been shouted down for being worthless. but keep kissing up to Taco. I'm sure he appreciates it.
I'm not sure if you're serious or not, but Hollywood is constantly coming out with new ideas. There are a lot more movies coming out than just the ones you see advertised. And a lot of indepentend films have big name actors and directors too. Some examples are movies l Iike the Fountian or The Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind. Obviously, they don't spend a lot of money promoting experimental films, because that's not where the money is, but if you aren't lazy you can go out and find the new stuff. If you're just sitting there with you mouth open, you shouldn't be surprised that they spoon feed you gabage, go out and do a little work for a change.
I made the mistake of trying to continue my movie high by going to see Transformers 3. Ugh! I dozed off several times, but didn't feel like I really missed anything. Besides the eye candy of Carly, the voice acting of Nimoy was the only decent part of the movie. Buzz Aldrin himself was just freaking cool, but not nearly enough to save this film. Such a shame for the franchise.
http://aqfl.net/node/9238 for my brief review and a poll. I enjoyed it overall. :)
Ant(Dude) @ Quality Foraged Links (AQFL.net) & The Ant Farm (antfarm.ma.cx / antfarm.home.dhs.org).
commandant burrito! stick to posting about random pictures of visiting things people got you into because you run yesterdays news of nerds next week!
If only the amount of fun and laughter to be expected from a movie was propertional to the amount of money they put into it...
Sadly it's not (perhaps even the opposite), and so let's do away with the whole concept of mega-corporation made movies.
If Pandora's box is destined to be opened, *I* want to be the one to open it.
Knowing the chemical composition of fly dung would be more interesting than another comic book film review. CmdrDildo sucks an ass.
Too many with the same plot and F/X.
GREAT SUPERHERO FLICK! See it folks... by ALL means, do! I loved it, personally...
I especially loved "Dr. Erskine" & his take on "Human Potential" (which I agree with 110% mind you) & telling Rogers to "stay who you are: Not just a soldier, but a GOOD MAN!" & how he showed the Col. (Tommy Lee Jones, perfect "crusty hard-core colonel field grade senior officer type) that he got what he was looking for in Steve Rogers & "qualities beyond the physical"...
"what makes captain america so good is that it is straightforward, honest, and unironic it's a throwback to the pulp of the 1940s, and when i say that, i'm not talking about speech and clothing, i'm talking about worldview and attitude and theme the world today is cynical and oh-so-knowing. the world back then was uncomplicated: good was good and evil was evil now, pleae: don't get me wrong: abandoning modern day wordliness is not be a good idea for your ideological health but in order to make an entertaining MOVIE, it works quite effectively" -
Agreed... it took us back to a "better, simpler" time... when good was good, evil was evil (ala Don Henley's tune "the Garden of Allah").
The Super-Soldier formula amplified whatever you had in your nature predominantly, & "The GOOD Doctor" knew it (the hard way, after his screwup with RedSkull, first...).
I also loved the "budding romance" between Capt. America/Steve Rogers & Agent Peggy Carter (man, I don't know about YOU guys, but Hayley Atwell is HOT, "to-the-max", especially in the 40'ish style getup & makeup she had - she "fit the bill" perfectly in fact! Especially when she "showed her tell" when the blond grabs Rogers to kiss him in "thanks from all the women in the USA", lol!).
* I especially loved the part in the car before he was about to be taken to be transformed & he said:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=W4DlMggBPvc&feature=relmfu
"You start running, they'll never let you stop..."
Truer words were NEVER SPOKEN!
That's the truth... you're better off, FAR better off, standing your ground, especially with bullies... give them a hurting too, even IF you take a worse one? 99/100 times they won't do it again, ever... or, @ least think twice!
I also liked how Steve Rogers (pre-captain) told Peggy Carter he was "waiting for that right girl"... I can dig THAT, completely! That's the RIGHT THING to do, by all means...
Anyhow/anyways:
I took my niece to it (as I do all Marvel flicks) because they help influence kids to be "good people", instead of "shoot the police" scumbag ghetto products... too much of that's in the "moozik" of today, if you ask me (& I grew up in a LOT of that, & I can tell anyone, especially suburbanites, it is the road to ruination in the end, not something to be glamorized).
Anyhow - she loved it (even better than "X-Men 1st Class", which I also felt was really good also)... which made me quite happy (especially since her Dad's a Captain in the U.S. Military overseas now (if not a Major by now - I know he was "in process" for that with paperwork & tests just before he began his now 3rd or 4th deployment (which I was told they could not do to he in combat, but they did again putting my little brother's life on the line yet again...)).
Fact is, I have called my brother "Captain America" too, & she knew that much already - I think it was incentive for her to see it in fact!
Some "side stuff" on Captain America from my past (avid Marvel fiend here from the age of 5 when my Dad taught me to read largely before school did on using comic books):
Capt. America was one of my favs. as a boy, & my first intro. to he was in "Marvel Double Feature" issue # 4 titled "He Who Holds the Cosmic Cube"!
(RedSkull was the villian ->
There was no body double for the role of Skinny Steve. That was all Chris Evans. They tried to use a body double (ala Benjamin Button) but no one could imitate Chris's movements and mannerisms very well (so I've read), but I have also read that Chris didn't want to share the role. A bit of an ego, huh? Overall it was fairly amazing CGI.
Indeed :) Though as someone who worked as a video editor for years dealing with people who would shoot with different frame rates (not for anything important, just for stupid camp promo videos so that campers would emotionally connect with camp about the time we were trying to do registration again), I developed a knack for noticing such things. And I blame the map thing on the years spent studying for map quizzes as a history major.
If you enjoy fun, go see this movie. If you're a stuck up art fag, stay home and watch Citizen Kane again.
Utilizing the synergization of benchmark e-solutions to pre-workaround action items!