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.

Comments

Yawn.

[Viol8]

Its about time Hollywood came up with something original instead of digging ever deeper into the list of 2nd rate comic book "heroes"?

Re:Yawn.

[Anonymous Coward]

Well, they have green-lighted "Space Invaders" if that's more to your liking.

Re:Yawn.

[vlm]

I'm still not sure how much I'd enjoy 90 minutes of "Increase speed, drop down and reverse direction!".

That would be an improvement on NASCAR.

Re:Yawn.

[vlm]

Why would they spend time and money on developing new ideas that may or may not be a bust, when they have old ideas that are more or less ensured to be a blockbuster?

Narrowcasting is the death of the industry.

The only people participating in their tiny little market are those who are easily amused. I can't be bothered to watch this tripe for free.

Lets say something new and edgy, the "star wars" of the late 70s, came along.

Then instead of getting a blockbuster percentage of 50% of the 8 million easily amused population to show up at a theater, you might get perhaps 10% of the 300 million total population to show up.

Run the numbers, see which profit you'd prefer.

We're in a vicious narrowcasting fight right now in the media in general. The same thing is killing TV. Practically no one watches, and all the producers are interested in is increasing their share of a shrinking, tiny little pie. Same problem with the music industry, FPS video games, etc.

Re:Yawn.

[ginbot462]

That's probably the opinion of a lot of us that grew up in 80/90s comic era. For better or worse, everything had to be darker and edgier then. But in defense what could you do, the Captain America/Superman/White Knight archetype does not respond well to more robust characterization since they themselves are so "singularly" purposed (that did make Superman vs Batman decent but a little overplayed). The other problem is that in real life, those type of moral high-horse people are usually really hypocrites and it's a rare treat to meet the ones that bump this convention. Oh, Captain America hasn't had a war worth fighting for since WWII anyways (on the US side). He should have stayed frozen until America is the gov't of the people and not that of the Corporations

Re:Yawn.

[Artraze]

Isn't it about time that Slashdot critics came up with something original rather than rehashing this "originality" crap again? Originally is as much of a gimmick as anything else... Sometimes it enhances a story and sometimes it takes it away. For example, I'd consider most of M Night Shyamalan's movies to be fairly original, and yet, somehow they often end up lame.

Oh, you say, they weren't "original". Well, you can say District-9 (oft considered fairly original IIRC) is just aliens in apartheid and Firfly is just a standard western in space. Reduced to archetypes, no stories are "original". The only original thing about a story is it's telling (e.g. using aliens in the apartheid). For thousands of years, humanity has enjoyed hearing old stories retold with a new twist because that was the heart of the story, not whatever framing of characters and plot was present. For some reason people these days want something original, but quickly dismiss all the original elements. If you want an original movie, then look forward to The Amazing Spiderman. Sure it has similar characters and settings to another, but it has a whole new _story_. ...supposing you want something original and not something to complain about, of course.

P.S. In this regard, Captain America does fail, as it feels much more like a "here's a recap of C.A.'s origin so you have a movie-based context for him when you see Avengers" than a story. Probably thanks in no small part to the action montage, causing the cadence to be like "this guy did some action stuff (we focus on these couple missions) and beat the Nazis or whatever" and sandwiching it between 'present day' scenes for a "we found this guy in the ice, but, just so you know, he was cool before that".

P.P.S. I dunno why you put heroes in quotes there... Captain America may be somewhat obscure and second rate, but I'd have to say that by most definitions he's probably (in part because of those reasons) more heroic than most.

Re:Yawn.

[JMZero]

I think the exact opposite complaint has more merit - most good movies are based on published books, history, plays, previous movies, or something. Sure there are exceptions (and clearly some very big ones), but I'd say that in general Hollywood does better when it isn't "coming up with something original".

And if it's comic books you have a problem with, I'll partially agree with you... but also largely disagree. Sure there's been some bad ones, but if we restrict ourselves to action movies, I'd say the comic book films probably average out to "above average action movies". I'd certainly take "X-Men: First Class" over "Congo" (based on a book, with real chapters!) or "The Fast and the Furious" (which was "Hollywood doing something original"). And even outside of "action", I'd rather rub gravel into my forehead than watch, say, "Random Hearts" (based on a critically acclaimed novel by Warren Adler, I see) - one of the worst films I've ever tried to watch.

Sure I'd be happy to replace "Green Lantern" with another "The Seventh Seal" - but that's effectively saying "why doesn't Hollywood stop making bad movies and just make good ones". That is just not a helpful thing to say. Hollywood makes all kinds of movies, usually bad but sometimes good in all genres and niches. In general, I'd say there's more quality movies per year pretty much every year - and movies in most genres are getting continuously better (look at, say, kid's animated films and compare the "best list" between the 1980s and the 2000s).

And, yes, comic book movies too have stretched into "good movie" territory. "Dark Knight" was pretty watchable, and I thought "The Watchmen" (while panned in many quarters) was visually interesting and had a lot of redeeming qualities. And suppose they did quit comic book movies, what would they do for mass market summer movies? You miss "original" stuff like "Armageddon"? Sure, I'd love another "Raiders of the Lost Ark" too - but, again, it's not helpful to say you want good movies. Most people in Hollywood want to make good movies too - but whether they do so is a function of talent, effort and luck, not genre.

Re:Yawn.

[Shark]

Sounds like the plot for Fast&Furious movies.

Re:Yawn.

[morari]

I don't know, the live-action series worked just as well if not better than the cartoon.

Re:Yawn.

[MobileTatsu-NJG]

They've already green-lit a sequel.

Re:Yawn.

[cocoajunkie]

Second rate is way too generous, for this overrated soulless Hollywood drivel. This is even worse than the Hulk movie. All the "right ingredients" are there, in a predetermined and marketing driven demographical exact formula. However, at the end of the day this film is just like a flashy bimbo: lots of promises, very shallow depth, all the right things at the right place, but no ideas, humor and no imagination worth speaking of save the usual tiresome plentitude of visual effects. And the basic message is what? That the biggest you are (or become) the best winner you get? That enemies are mono-dimensional villains, and just need to be exterminated. I don't know who needs or is buying this propaganda today, the message is outdated and worth a yawn. 73% on Rotten Tomatoes is even too much.

Re:Yawn.

[CapuchinSeven]

Cap hunted communist's actually, I'm glad that comics have grown a little past that, knee jerk to the latest enemy type of thinking. Although, we still have " Crazy Old Frank" Miller. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Holy_Terror_(graphic_novel)

Re:Yawn.

[tripleevenfall]

After the success of both the awful Transformers sequels, nothing should surprise us.

Re:Yawn.

[ultranova]

And the basic message is what?

"Steroids are awesome."

Re:Yawn.

[Slider451]

Stanley Tucci's scientist character conveyed the message: the serum only amplifies what's in your heart. Since Steve Rogers is pure of heart with an indomitable will he is one of the few who can ingest it and come out for the better. It's classic Stan Lee cliche (aka "With great power comes great responsibility"), yet I think it's done very well here.

Re:Yawn.

[Toonol]

Stan Lee had nothing to do with this character.

Well, except for bringing him back to life in the sixties, and casting him as a soldier out of time, Without Stan Lee, Cap would be a mostly forgotten historical footnote, like (say) the original Human Torch.

Re:Yawn.

[JMZero]

As for being original, many of the best Hollywood movies have been original, not derived from books or other places (like video games....).

Yes, there's many original screenplays that have done well - but I stand by what I said before: most great movies are adaptations. Look through any list of great films, I think you'll find I'm right (I tried this, and the list I picked was around 75% adaptations).

It really isn't that easy to translate a book to a movie; the formats are far too different,

Nor is it easy to write something original. In any case, there's plenty of book-to-movie transitions that have come out great - including, again, the bulk of the best movies of all time. The nice part about books is there's so many to choose from, and you can see which stories work and resonate with people before you start.

Hollywood doesn't care about making good movies; they only care about a return on their investment.

That's true to an extent, but perhaps more than any media movie success is tied to reviews - meaning even the business people are targetting quality. Of course there are exceptions (and there are other dollar drivers that are potent in different genres, like toys in kids movies) but almost everyone in film is setting out to make something they think people will like. Even creators in what was once the most cynical genre - again, kids movies - have discovered that doing quality is more lucrative than aiming low and hoping for toy sales. It's hard to look at "UP" or "Wall-E" and say they weren't risks - they defied most of the "kids movie" rules, focused on quality, and were successful.

there's a lot less great movies than there used to be

What decade had more strong movies than the 2000s? I strongly doubt you could make a case that any decade had a significantly better selection. This is an easy mistake to make - and I hear it all the time in the context of movies, video games, books, etc... but when you consider things fairly it's almost never true.

And, if anything, filmmakers take way more risks than they used to. You can find way more experimental film now because it's actually possible to shoot a quality, truly-low-budget film.

Conversely, if you want to find "low risk" crap, look at the neverending piles of crap from the 50s, 60s and 70s. Sequels like crazy, ripoffs, movies whose design started by making a poster and a title (or a star coupling and a vague genre idea). When movies were that expensive, studios had to bank more heavily than they do now on poster appeal, known stars, and non-threatening plot. Slow information travel meant they could get away with much worse films. And nostalgia makes old movies seem better than they were (as you'd expect - the pioneering techniques of the best directors, actors, and technicians have all been passed around and are now standard fare, so filmmakers have a huge wealth of ideas to pull from).

Just as an exercise, start looking through lists of the best films in each decade (or even year). You're going to see some depressingly short lists as you go further back. Of course there's exceptional times and years, but overall it's a strong upward trend in the number of good movies.

Simply?

[Ralph Spoilsport]

It sucked. Boring. Waste of time. Save your money. You won't really remember it in five years.

Re:Simply?

[PrescriptionWarning]

I concur, the movie wasn't great at all. You know its pretty bad when they use a montage for the first real action set that the Captain is in. And not a good montage in the least.

Re:Simply?

[elrous0]

You just described pretty much every superhero movie.

Re:Simply?

[Bardez]

That was my major complaint. After the first sequence, there was a 2-minute montage of action. It didn't get across how good of a soldier/leader Cap was supposed to be. It was glossed over, similar to how unbelievable Thor's humility turnaround was. It kinda ruined it for me, but I have to remind myself how much else worked pretty well (such as what was mentioned in the review).

saw it this weekend

[circletimessquare]

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

I like living under my rock

[captainpanic]

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.

DO NOT CARE AT ALL

[cosm]

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.

And the punchline

[Chrisq]

Did you hear about the blonde who tried to bomb the Norwegian government?

he thought he was working against the interest of Islamic domination.

Re:Kid Friendly?

[PrimalChrome]

I took my 6 year old and 10 year old to see it....and don't recall any scenes as being cringeworthy with regards to how appropriate they would be for a 6 year old. He had a great time and did get a bit bored in some of the scenes that were heavy on the dialogue. The PG-13 rating is (I believe) based solely on the rock-em-sock-em bash-em-with-a-shield violence. The Red Skull might give him nightmares....and the violence might not be appropriate if you are very sensitive to that sort of exposure.

Re:The connection to now is horrible

[localman57]

It surprised me that he didn't ask the most obvious question: "How did the war turn out?"

Dieselpunk

[tomewilson]

"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.

Re:The connection to now is horrible

[DrgnDancer]

That was straight from the comics. I was wondering if they were going to "modernize" his origin and have him be "born" in a Middle Eastern conflict like Iron Man or use the story from the comics. Kinda cool that they went with the comic version. Sure it's a bit unbelievable. So is serum that instantly makes a 99 pound weakling into an Olympian gymnast/martial artist, or a shield that bounces off walls to return to its owner.

Re:Kid Friendly?

[leamanc]

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.

Sorry, it ain't gonna happen. I have a kid that is roughly the same age as yours (turned 6 last month). For kids today, the massive amount of TV/movies/associated tie-ins being slung their way has pretty much guaranteed that no one movie will be a "special experience" seeing it in the theater. They know good and well that if they didn't see it in the theater, it will be on DVD in three months, and forgotten about three months later...unless there is a sequel to hold their interest.

I have told my kid plenty of times about the magic of seeing Star Wars in 1977, or how we all gasped when Darth Vader claimed to be Luke's father in 1980, or how magical ET was. It just doesn't sink in to this generation. I think most of them prefer to watch movies at home. Until more theaters convert to digital projection, I can't really blame them. The setup for watching movies at home is pretty cool, and you don't have to sit and be quiet for two hours.

Re:Agreed

[basotl]

The quotes that stick out to me were more for displaying the depth of Steve Rogers character.
Jumps on a grenade and then realizes it doesn't go off:
Captain America/Steve Rogers: Is this a test?

Steve Rogers: "Why me?"
Dr. Abraham Erskine: "...because a weak man knows the value of strength, the value of power..."

Red Skull: What makes you so special?
Steve Rogers / Captain America: Nothing. I'm just a kid from Brooklyn.

Re:Defender would have been better

[Talderas]

I think Michael Bay is directing it....

So at the very least we know shit is going to explode.

Anyone notice the original human torch?

[roc97007]

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!"