Captain America

Posted by: Melinda on Jul 26, 2011 Print PDF

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Okay, I totally loved this movie.  The Cap and X-Men: First Class are my two favorite superhero movies of the summer.

What do they have in common?  They both took their time in the beginning.  They really let me get to know Steve, and Charles and Eric.  The action built slowly and even the action sequences were explicable and easy to follow instead of just hectic action for the sake of action.

Both the films celebrated humanity and compassion, and the tragedy is that Eric starts to rejoin the human race, finds friendship, and ultimately is unable to hold onto that humanity.

That was the failure in Green Lantern.  All I knew was that Hal Jorden was a test pilot, daddy had died in a tragic accident and Hal was trying (in a heavy-handed way) to live up to daddy while still being a screw up, and he was in competition with a cute girl.  While that may look like a long list it was really just a collection of cliches.

Thor while it looked great was about gods.  I have a hard time identifying with gods.  It was a Cain and Able story, but it was lost in all the confusion about what, exactly, was the threat?  Frost giants?  Big ass robots that shoot fire out of their head?  Loki?  And ultimately why should I care?

If you look at the first Iron Man movie, which was terrific, that film takes its time too.  You get to know Tony Stark.  You see all his foibles and then you start to see him grow and change.

Aside from the story telling arc of Captain America, I loved the look.  It felt like the 1940's.  The people looked like people from the forties, acted like people from that era.  The Captain America song was straight out of a musical review from that time period and the people next to me in the theater were tapping their toes during the final credits when that tune started to play.

And we had Hugo Weaving as a bad guy.  Who could ask for more?  Oh, and Steve in the beginning of the film reminded me of my little hero from the Edge books so I was charmed by that too.

I will happily see this movie again once I get back to NM.

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Agreed!
written by Phil Merkel, July 26, 2011
Loved the movie too, maybe because this is another weak summer for films, or at least the films I've been able to see. CA had all the great ingredients of Iron Man or Spiderman and follows those rules so it's a variation on a familiar theme but a great variation. And I loved the nods to Kirby and Simon and the fact that they wrote Hitler out of the movie early keeping the conflict in the fantasy world. Nice stuff. Always great to read your stuff too Melinda!
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written by William H Stoddard, July 28, 2011
You and I seem to have very similar tastes in superhero films; I've praised both of those over at Livejournal. An additional thing they had in common was that they both had a sense of historical period: The Holocaust and the Cold War in one case, World War II generally in the other. Captain America had those advanced German aircraft that were taken directly from actual experimental designs of the period, for example.

The other thing I liked especially about Captain America is that the writers understood that a superheroic character really works as an embodied moral abstraction. Batman, for example, is Vengeance personified. Captain America personified American values—but not in a sense of tribalism or arrogant nationalist superiority; he represents things like the spirit of independence that won't let a little guy knuckle under to a big guy. And the filmmakers got this. They also got a beautiful portrayal of what the character's priorities are when he comes back from his unauthorized first real mission and tells the colonel, first, "Some of these men need medical attention," and second, "Reporting for disciplinary action." We get a character whose personal motives are congruent with his moral significance . . . which has been way too rare in superhero films, to my taste.
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written by JaniceG, August 02, 2011
I'm afraid I didn't like it nearly as much. I had real problems with the female character - I winced every time that whole subplot came on screen. (The integrated army in the 1940s caused me pause as well.) I'm afraid I've always had some trouble with the Captain America character. Not only was it ridiculous for him to storm a compound with a dinky tin show-biz shield on his back as an easy target, but I've never understood why the enemy henchmen wouldn't just surround him and keep shooting at his head! When you have to keep repeating to yourself during a film "It's a comic book, it's a comic book," it kind of detracts from the experience. (Personally, I liked the X-Men movie this year much better.)

I think you liked it this much because the pre-Cap Steve Rogers reminded you of Ian :->
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I like Intense
written by Melindas, August 02, 2011
I admit I liked the Captain better before he got all buff. He also reminded me of the hero in my Edge book. I was fine with the woman because this was a secret, special unit tasked with finding a subject for the experiment. The black guy was in the comics and I liked that they kept the Howling Commandos, and that they let them howl. I just assumed the African-American was support or part of a black unit and had been captured separately as slave labor. I loved X-Men too, but these two films are neck in neck for me as best summer fun movie. I haven't seen Deathly Hallows yet. That might edge out the other two.

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