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ishtar79I finally saw Captain America. Non-spoilery verdict: I loved it.
-I wasn't too sure about the casting, because Chris Evans doesn't look anything like my mental image of the character, but both his performance and the movie's characterization really sold me. To say nothing of the special effects used to create “90 pound weakling” Steve early in the film (that was creepily good).
-The changes in this adaptation were brilliant both in making a version palatable to modern sensibilities and avoiding going into sheer camp territory. Having “Captain America” start out as a deliberate PR ploy (complete with ads, dancing girls, comics and punching Hitler on the face on stage) was a stroke of genius, and a nice nod to comic book geeks (after all, the original comic strip was essentially pro-America war propaganda in the 40s).
I avoided the comic book character for the longest time because, well, he's called called Captain America. Of course, once I read his books, he really wasn't the jingoist nightmare I was expecting (well, not in later years anyway), but the movie acknowledging the nationalism and sheer hokeyness of the concept and imagery by making explicitly part of the propaganda machine while keeping Steve's sincerity and noble character went a long way in granting the movie a wider appeal.
-Mind you, it's not like the concept hasn't already been deconstructed, and brilliantly, by Marvel comics, but personally I'm not holding my breath for an onscreen adaptation of Truth: Red, White and Black, amazing as it might have been.
-Steve's stage costume: still less ridiculous than the uniforms in some of the previous Cap onscreen adaptations.
-The film had such a great balance of action and Epic Comic Origin Moments and actually making us care about Steve as person. I appreciated that they didn't even attempt to edge him up for the movie, and kept his quintessential niceness. Nice, and brave, and kind of awkward might not as cool as the moral ambiguity of other current heroes, but it's still what Steve was about. For all the great action scenes later in the movie, the ones that stick out are Steve's acts of bravery when he's still built like a shrimp. And I loved other character details, like his sense of humour (“I punched Hitler in the face 200 times”), his supreme dorkiness when dealing with members of the opposite sex and his intelligence (my two favourite moments is him outsmarting the flag test and figuring out something was off at the end. Canon Cap is not scientifically smart the way Mr Fantastic or even Iron Man are, but he doesn't lack in common sense and problem-solving smarts). And I squeed at them managing to sneak in that little tidbit about his artistic side!
-One thing that didn't really work for me in the film as a whole was Bucky. The actor did a fine job with what he was given, and there were some cute moments between Steve and James, but the sheer weight of Bucky's death (which is, like, Steve's primary source of Manpain in the comics) didn't really come across. I don't know whether it had to do with aging Bucky up or the way his death was shot, but it was rather underwhelming.
-I haven't read much about canon!Peggy Carter, but she was awesome in the film. The connection she and Steve had in a short timespan felt realistic, and I liked that their last conversation was seemingly light and teasing rather than epic love declarations-it felt true to the characters.
-The composition of Steve's team (various nationalities and ethnicities) was plainly an attempt to modernise the story, and while that wasn't exactly realistic, I still liked it. I loved the montage was implied the passage of some time of them (and Cap) going on several missions, which is a nice contrast to, say, X-Men: First Class where Charles and Erik seemingly met, fell into bed and divorced in like a week.
-And speaking of that team: Dugan! Sniper!Bucky (Winter Soldier shoutout?). Yay for random comic trivia tidbits!
-Changing the main villain to Red Skull-lead Hydra as opposed to just...Red Skull and Nazis was a smart move, both to make it more straightforward comic book-y and to avoid the potential disaster of them staying too close to Cap's origins.
-The actor playing the Red Skull really impressed me. It would have been easy for a dude who looks like Voldermort's sunburnt cousin to come off as unintentionally hilarious, but the actor managed to make him compelling and menacing instead.
-I loved the Asgard connection-a more subtle way to tie the movies together than Nick Fury's cameos.
-Tommy Lee Jones' character had the best one-liners, period.
-Ok, so Howard Stark was essentially the answer to the question “How to have Tony Stark in the movie without actually having him?”. From his first appearance at the exhibition with the music, tech and girls, they might as well have overlaid RDJ's likeness on him. My understanding is that some people ship him with Steve, but I refuse to-what a mood killer it would be if Tony ever found out.
-Everything from the moment Steve woke up in that fake recovery room until the end was EPIC. Iconic Times Square shot was iconic and Nick Fury always makes me grin and count down the days until The Avengers, which is kind of the point. ;)
-I wasn't too sure about the casting, because Chris Evans doesn't look anything like my mental image of the character, but both his performance and the movie's characterization really sold me. To say nothing of the special effects used to create “90 pound weakling” Steve early in the film (that was creepily good).
-The changes in this adaptation were brilliant both in making a version palatable to modern sensibilities and avoiding going into sheer camp territory. Having “Captain America” start out as a deliberate PR ploy (complete with ads, dancing girls, comics and punching Hitler on the face on stage) was a stroke of genius, and a nice nod to comic book geeks (after all, the original comic strip was essentially pro-America war propaganda in the 40s).
I avoided the comic book character for the longest time because, well, he's called called Captain America. Of course, once I read his books, he really wasn't the jingoist nightmare I was expecting (well, not in later years anyway), but the movie acknowledging the nationalism and sheer hokeyness of the concept and imagery by making explicitly part of the propaganda machine while keeping Steve's sincerity and noble character went a long way in granting the movie a wider appeal.
-Mind you, it's not like the concept hasn't already been deconstructed, and brilliantly, by Marvel comics, but personally I'm not holding my breath for an onscreen adaptation of Truth: Red, White and Black, amazing as it might have been.
-Steve's stage costume: still less ridiculous than the uniforms in some of the previous Cap onscreen adaptations.
-The film had such a great balance of action and Epic Comic Origin Moments and actually making us care about Steve as person. I appreciated that they didn't even attempt to edge him up for the movie, and kept his quintessential niceness. Nice, and brave, and kind of awkward might not as cool as the moral ambiguity of other current heroes, but it's still what Steve was about. For all the great action scenes later in the movie, the ones that stick out are Steve's acts of bravery when he's still built like a shrimp. And I loved other character details, like his sense of humour (“I punched Hitler in the face 200 times”), his supreme dorkiness when dealing with members of the opposite sex and his intelligence (my two favourite moments is him outsmarting the flag test and figuring out something was off at the end. Canon Cap is not scientifically smart the way Mr Fantastic or even Iron Man are, but he doesn't lack in common sense and problem-solving smarts). And I squeed at them managing to sneak in that little tidbit about his artistic side!
-One thing that didn't really work for me in the film as a whole was Bucky. The actor did a fine job with what he was given, and there were some cute moments between Steve and James, but the sheer weight of Bucky's death (which is, like, Steve's primary source of Manpain in the comics) didn't really come across. I don't know whether it had to do with aging Bucky up or the way his death was shot, but it was rather underwhelming.
-I haven't read much about canon!Peggy Carter, but she was awesome in the film. The connection she and Steve had in a short timespan felt realistic, and I liked that their last conversation was seemingly light and teasing rather than epic love declarations-it felt true to the characters.
-The composition of Steve's team (various nationalities and ethnicities) was plainly an attempt to modernise the story, and while that wasn't exactly realistic, I still liked it. I loved the montage was implied the passage of some time of them (and Cap) going on several missions, which is a nice contrast to, say, X-Men: First Class where Charles and Erik seemingly met, fell into bed and divorced in like a week.
-And speaking of that team: Dugan! Sniper!Bucky (Winter Soldier shoutout?). Yay for random comic trivia tidbits!
-Changing the main villain to Red Skull-lead Hydra as opposed to just...Red Skull and Nazis was a smart move, both to make it more straightforward comic book-y and to avoid the potential disaster of them staying too close to Cap's origins.
-The actor playing the Red Skull really impressed me. It would have been easy for a dude who looks like Voldermort's sunburnt cousin to come off as unintentionally hilarious, but the actor managed to make him compelling and menacing instead.
-I loved the Asgard connection-a more subtle way to tie the movies together than Nick Fury's cameos.
-Tommy Lee Jones' character had the best one-liners, period.
-Ok, so Howard Stark was essentially the answer to the question “How to have Tony Stark in the movie without actually having him?”. From his first appearance at the exhibition with the music, tech and girls, they might as well have overlaid RDJ's likeness on him. My understanding is that some people ship him with Steve, but I refuse to-what a mood killer it would be if Tony ever found out.
-Everything from the moment Steve woke up in that fake recovery room until the end was EPIC. Iconic Times Square shot was iconic and Nick Fury always makes me grin and count down the days until The Avengers, which is kind of the point. ;)
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Date: 2011-09-16 03:34 am (UTC)The composition of Steve's team (various nationalities and ethnicities) was plainly an attempt to modernise the story, and while that wasn't exactly realistic, I still liked it.
I wouldn't actually call it an attempt to modernise the story since the Howling Commandos have been around in the comics canon since the 60s. Not that it wasn't awesome to see them all onscreen. ♥
no subject
Date: 2011-09-16 06:26 am (UTC)I'm not very familiar with Captain America canon. I knew about the Howling Commandos, but not the multicultural part.
no subject
Date: 2011-09-16 06:31 am (UTC)If I'm not mistaken, the only one of the Howling Commandos who wasn't one of them from pretty much the very beginning was Jim Morita ("I'm from Fresno."), but he was still introduced into the comic canon back in the 60s... just a couple of years after the others. It was like '67 instead of '63 or something along those lines.
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Date: 2011-09-16 06:51 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2011-09-16 07:00 am (UTC)Gabe Jones, from the Howling Commandos, was Marvel's first supporting African American character. Black Panther was introduced three years later as the first African superhero, with The Falcon appearing three years after that as the first African American superhero.
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Date: 2011-09-16 07:21 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2011-09-15 10:47 am (UTC)Ha, that was kind of my thought as well! But the actor really did a great job, there wasn't a moment I couldn't take him seriously as a scary villain.
Everything else we've already discussed, so I don't have anything to add or comment on. Great review!
no subject
Date: 2011-09-16 06:46 am (UTC)Feel like watching some Mad Men tonight?
no subject
Date: 2011-09-16 08:07 am (UTC)Possibly! We'll talk.
no subject
Date: 2011-09-15 03:20 pm (UTC)But other than that, yes, I though it was very good.
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Date: 2011-09-16 06:48 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2011-09-16 04:04 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2011-09-15 03:42 pm (UTC)I understand that before filming for Captain America started they had Joss Whedon do a quick rewrite: to make the movie flow into Avengers more logically and to add more jokes. Chris Evans felt that Joss did a lot for the character, giving him a much better handle on who he was.
I'm REALLY looking forward to The Avengers!
no subject
Date: 2011-09-16 06:49 am (UTC)And yes, I can't wait for the Avengers either.
no subject
Date: 2011-09-19 07:09 pm (UTC)Actually the composition of Steve's team wasn't anachronistic, really: the US Army wasn't segregated. (It's part of what sparked the civil rights movement in later decades.) The nationalities was a little more unusual but I went with it - I was really pleased to see some Brits, especially, instead of America pretending it did everything alone :)
SO AGREED on the Asgard connection. SO COOL.
I like Cap/Howard only so it can make Cap/Tony more angstful.
no subject
Date: 2011-09-20 06:25 am (UTC)Actually the composition of Steve's team wasn't anachronistic, really: the US Army wasn't segregated. (It's part of what sparked the civil rights movement in later decades.) The nationalities was a little more unusual but I went with it - I was really pleased to see some Brits, especially, instead of America pretending it did everything alone :)
Interesting about the makeup of the US Army circa WWII...but yeah, it was definitely nice to see some variety in nationalities.
I like Cap/Howard only so it can make Cap/Tony more angstful.
I didn't think Steve/Tony could get even more angstful... :P