Re: Captain America: The First Avenger-Review, Discuss, Grade, Sequel,
I saw the movie yesterday, I really enjoyed it.
Chris Evans was fantastic. The CGI showing skinny Steve and buff Steve was amazing, I have to say seamless, I couldn't tell which was real or fake, or if both were fake, it was just completely believable.
I really enjoyed Steve's story and the build-up to entering the program. I thought the writers showed a lot of guts admitting that Steve Rogers had self-esteem problems and was pushing to get into the military not just for altruistic reasons but prove himself and to stop being bullied.
I was also impressed by the way they put the new Captain on display, used him to sell bonds, had him in a "whimpy" costume. I was impressed with the scene of the "real" soldiers making fun of him and calling for the girls to come out. This was realistic, it made even the new, buff Steve Rogers look weak. It took a lot of character building and encouragement from Peggy to finally get Steve to the point where he believed in himself, it wasn't just the Super Solder Serum.
All kinds of bits of this story were excellent, like him jumping on the grenade in training. To some extent they were a lot of cliches, but they were put together in believable way to show us Steve Rogers and show us him developing into a hero, not just telling us.
Compared to other films, I really believed in this story more than any other film adaptation I've seen. This character developement was extremely well done.
The period setting in WWII was excellent, and much of the film reminded me of Sky Captain, a film I enjoyed immensely. I would be happy to see a few Captain America films set in this era, unfortunately it seems they limited the possibilities.
The chemistry between Steve and Peggy was brilliant, I believed in their love before they did. The ending was truly sad, and if they'd cut the modern day scenes from the beginning and end, this would have been a well written tragedy. As it is, I left the movie heart-broken for Peggy, who is likely passed away by 2011 and lived her life saddened by Steve's death, and I felt how badly Steve must feel thinking of that.
Similar chemistry between Steve and Bucky, a great pairing that was so important to the story. Compare to "Batman and Robin", sure a much poorer film overall, but just to say that they completely missed out on the point that a partnership like that, the men have to be close, they have to believe in each other.
The Howling Commandos were awesome and I have hopes that someone in their right mind will do some period WWII action films with them.
Reflecting on some earlier comments here, I felt the Skull was decently fleshed out, he had ample screen time. I mean, a megalomaniac is a megalomaniac, the character is going to be written a certain way, so yes he is a bit cartoony, but compared to, say, Voldemort in the Harry Potter series I felt the Skull was portrayed well.
I don't miss Cap fighting Nazi's, the way the story was written makes full logical sense. It wouldn't make any sense to just send Cap to the front lines, and story-wise it takes away from the fact that the Nazi's were mostly ordinary soldiers who were fought and defeated by ordinary soldiers. That isn't what this story was about and I'm glad.
I felt the advanced Hydra guns were more like grenade launchers, high power, low rate of fire and minimal accuracy, very good against armor or tightly packed groups, not so good against fast moving individuals. I would think that the Skull had the "best" weapon for himself, an expensive finely tooled weapon that was lighter and better all around, but too difficult to mass produce.
I saw the movie in 3d, not out of preference but because we wanted a particular showtime and didn't want to wait 2 more hours for the 2d. I felt the 3d effects were better done than other recent films I've seen, I'll compare it to Thor which seems most fair. In Thor, I felt the use of 3d was uneven, and it worked in the Asgard scenes but was useless in a lot of the Earth scenes. In Captain America it seemed like they filmed it a lot more conciously of the 3d camera, even scenes like in the pub it came across more naturally. Some shots in particular were amazing, there was one shot of the shield bouncing back off a tank where I actually ducked out of reflex, it was VERY realistic. On the whole I could live without 3d but this movie was a good example of decent application of it.
ETA: I went without knowing any spoilers or knowing about any Easter Eggs. I'm pretty sure that was the Human Torch on display at the Exhibition. I didn't really notice anything else. Well, I guess Howard Stark counts, but that's a bit obvious. Curious to know what I missed.
Oh, and one more detail. As a Canadian, I like America just fine, but I'm indifferent to American patriotism, so I wasn't sure how this would come across in the movie. I thought they handled it great, it was true to life for the 40's, but a bit tongue in cheek and it's clear that Steve Rogers had ambivalent feelings about the whole thing. It seemed like for him, wearing the Stars and Stripes was kind of taking it back from the propagandateers. Over all I thought it was very well handled.
