Posted on Wednesday, 20th July 2011 by Aidan Bayly
Before I go off on my review like a fat-man on a stack of pancakes, I’d like to say who knew back in the day (Late 70s) when I wore my very first Halloween costume (Red Skull) that at the age of 36 I’d wind up viewing it on the silver screen and in film form? Back then I was a hairy, hideous, fat, little Ewok child who ran around with a tight-ass costume like a retard saying “Trick-or-Treat” and completely clueless that I was giving Red Skull the worst representation ever. He would have melted me for sure!
(Sigh) Ok, now that I’m over my diarrhea of the mind and fingers, let’s being!
A comic book movie is a comic movie no matter how you cut it, and whether it winds up crappy or not depends on the minds behind it. Marvel’s had their string of hits, as they they’ve had their strings of semi-failures. I say semi because even crappy films like “Dare Devil,” “Ghost Rider” and “The Fantastic Four” generated so much scratch, it’s beyond me how this country is having issues paying their debt!
Prepping for their ‘Avenger’ movie, we’ve already seen the intertwining of “Iron Man,” “The Hulk,” “Thor” and now that the saga has completed its “missing piece to its puzzle of awesomeness,” the first glimpse at the first Avenger is quite an amazing experience. Whether a fan or not, I think “Captain America” will suffer from acquired-taste-syndrome, but after having watched it, I, personally, feel there’s a lot in this cool flick to provide new-comers with a broadened idea of who and what he is and also keep nerds, geeks, fan-boys or whatever you want to call those enigmatic individuals happy!
With that said, “Captain America: The First Avenger” must connect a WWII era-based hero to contemporary times. The movie has to tie into all the other Marvel comic book flicks that link to “The Avengers,” because as the title reads—DUH!—he’s “The First Avenger.” It has to deliver the origin—Captain America born out of an awesome “super soldier” experiment. Aside from that, the film must back-track its way to the meeting between the Cap (Chris Evans) and the Avenger leader, Nick Fury (Samuel L. Jackson)… And give us a solid version of future Iron Man Tony Stark’s genius inventor and/or weapons builder, Howard Stark.
Director Joe Johnston has delivered a swift, clever and well-balanced adventure flick with testicles reminiscing fears pertaining within The Nazis—who portray the hardest/most hated villains known to man-kind! But it’s more than that because Johnston’s first magic trick—and what a great job he did—was morphing a tough, yet, unworthy, damn-near-skeletal, Chris Evans (“Fantastic Four”—Yes, Marvel double dipped) into a muscle-bound swollen meatsicle who would simply needs to take his shirt off and gay men and women would stop on their tracks and drool! But with WWII unleashing its fury, Rogers is determined to serve his country, rather than collect admirers. A driven man from scrawny to solid, with passion and desire to fight for the greater good is what he lives for and will see it through at any cost. (Of course he would, he’s from Brooklyn!)
Well, anyway, America needs super soldiers because those freaking Nazis already have one. Who? a badass named Johann Schmidt A/K/A Red Skull (Hugo Weaving). Schmidt’s HYDRA organization is developing super weapons and soldiers. And adding insult to injury, this motherf**ker has his evil fingers running up and down Norse God Odin’s legendary source of force! Damn! World destruction literally on the finger tips of a maniac!
However, It’s good the only American super soldier is pumped-up and on course to chase him! On the flip side: Rogers is treated with ridicule by commanding officer, portrayed by an outstanding, edgy, humorous and always wrinkled, Tommy Lee Jones. Rogers is sent on some propaganda “publicity-like tours,” provided with an effeminate costume and a red, white and blue shield. However, a wee bit of interference by a Brit Agent (Hayley Atwell), a little gadget-play by Iron Man’s daddy, Howard Stark (Dominic Cooper) and a USO tour to the front lines means this Captain will soon show just how big and hard he can be—especially when piecing together all the harshness which traces the outlook of evil!
In my opinion, “Captain America” seems like the lamest of the Marvel superheroes to try and bring to the big screen. However, one way to get us past that is to structure the story in the Captain’s re-discovery by a new brood. The other is by casting well. I mean seriously, no one but raisin-face Jones can lay out lines so awesome to a soldier like “…personally escort Adolf Hitler to the Gates of Hell.” Tucci is fan-FN-tastic as Abraham Erskine, and as a balance, Toby Jones is brought in as sidekick scientist to Weaving’s perfectly-pitched Schmidt. When it comes to Evans…as much as I was iffy on him, and knowing Marvel already had utilized him, it turned out well. I was able to do away with all the other horrendous work in “Fantastic Four,” and able to soak him in as Steve Rogers/Captain America.
Truth is putting aside casting, writing, pacing and even the arc which we see between Rogers and Captain was quite intriguing, but if there were to be flaws I had to point out, it’d be that this film is way too long. There’s no need for this to be two hours. In an hour and forty minutes I strongly believe this could have been presented just as well, and doing away with all that 3D nonsense! I’m sick of it already. There’s no way all this 3D crap can be good for your eyes and while flipping back and forth last night, there was much of the film I was able to watch without the stupid glasses. If anything, I think I’d also throw in his mask. It looked cool at times, but at other times it resembled one those lanky, effeminate-looking Power Rangers—the blue one…Of course, minus the shaded lens.
With that said, “Captain America: The First Avenger” delivers in many ways, and does a really good job at prepping us for what’s to come. I’m really stoked about “The Avengers” movie and can’t wait to start hearing Tony Stark (Robert Downey, Jr.) make fun of his daddy’s creation. You know it’s going to happen!
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GRADE: B / GENRE: Action/Adventure and Adaptation / RATED: PG-13 / RUN TIME: 2hrs.
STARRING: Chris Evans, Hayley Atwell, Sebastian Stan, Tommy Lee Jones, Hugo Weaving
DIRECTED: Joe Johnston
Tags: First, First Cool
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