"Captain America: The First Avenger" (2011)
This is it. The final piece of the Avengers puzzle was put in place on July 22, 2011. Here comes Captain America. Cap may be the most important Avenger. In the regular Marvel U, it always comes down to Tony and Steve and their differing ideologies. It's fitting for "Iron Man" and "Captain America: The First Avenger" to be the bookend films before the Avengers assemble.
Marvel cast Chris Evans to play Steve Rogers/Captain America. He seemed like an odd choice to play the Star Spangled Avenger, mainly because he'd already had his shot at bringing a super hero to the big screen. Evans portrayed the Human Torch, Johnny Storm in the middling "Fantastic Four" and again in the much worse "Fantastic Four: Rise of the Silver Surfer." Tommy Lee Jones, Dominic Cooper, Sebastian Stan, Hayley Attwell, Toby Jones, Stanley Tucci and Hugo Weaving round out the top notch cast. The film is directed by Joe Johnston who also directed "Honey, I Shrunk the Kids," "Jumanji," and "The Rocketeer."
"Captain America: The First Avenger" is full of Marvel movie firsts. It is their first period piece. It is their first film that actually utilizes a framing device. It is also one of the first movies that could be seen as a legitimate continuation of what came before. It does something that a lot of Marvel movies aren't the best at, even today, which is bridging what has came before and teasing what is coming next, but still telling a satisfying stand alone movie.
The movie begins with SHIELD agents finding a weird plane embedded in the Arctic and inside finding a man encased in ice holding a highly recognizable red, white and blue shield. The movie then flashes back and tells the story of Steve Rogers. A puny kid who just wants to serve his country and do what he has spent the majority of his life doing, standing up to bullies. After being rejected multiple times because of his weakness and various health issues, Steve is chosen by Dr. Abraham Erskine to be the first subject in the Super Soldier program. The experiment is a success but the serum is lost when a HYDRA agent sabotages the experiment, kills Erskine and accidentally destroys the only viable sample. The rest of the movie is Cap evolving from a symbol to a true hero before ultimately sacrificing himself to save America.
The first great thing about Captain America is Chris Evans. Thank goodness he got a second chance to play a super hero because he kills it. Just like Robert Downey, Jr. and Iron Man, Chris Evans and Captain America are a perfect fit. Evans perfectly plays Cap's boyishness and earnestness in a way that never comes off as cloying or pandering. You respect what he is doing and you above all else, believe in what Cap stands for and his mission. It could have really easily veered into overly patriotic sappiness, but it never does.
Hayley Atwell is the movie's other big win. She is by far the strongest female character introduced in a Marvel movie, up to this point. She is Agent Peggy Carter and works for the Scientific Strategic Reserve or the SSR, a precursor to SHIELD. She is smart and strong and dangerous. She doesn't ever look to Cap for rescue or approval. She is doing it for herself. The love story between herself and Steve is a relationship of equals, Super Soldier serum or no, and the best thing is that she begins falling for him before he becomes Captain America.
The rest of the main cast is pretty great. Tommy Lee Jones plays to his strengths as the gruff, stodgy Colonel Chester Phillips. Dominic Cooper debuts as Howard Stark, father to Tony. Cooper is great as the sleazy, brilliant patriarch of the Stark family. He's like Tony on steroids, but he still has a lot of heart. Sebastian Stan makes his debut as Steve's doomed childhood friend, Bucky, and the scenes they share showcase an easy camaraderie. It's easy to believe these guys have been friends their whole lives.
The villains are again the weaker point in the film, which is too bad, because Hugo Weaving's Johann Schmidt aka The Red Skull, is one of comic's biggest, baddest villains. I can understand wanting to tone him down from the sadistic anti-Semite from the comics, but by watering him down, he comes off as relatively toothless and not really a match for Cap. Toby Jones' Nazi scientist, Arnim Zola, comes off a little better and there is a lot of set up done for the larger role he'll play in the MCU.
The movie pulls a lot from "Thor." There are mentions of Yggdrasil, the World Tree, and the nine realms. The Tesseract, which HYDRA and the SSR are fighting for, is the Asgardian artifact mentioned in the post credits scene of "Thor." The film also introduces HYDRA for the first time, which will become a huge antagonist for SHIELD in future Marvel projects. All this blends very seamlessly and never feels shoe horned in.
The film ends with Cap waking up in the present and running into Times Square, where he meets Nick Fury for the first time. You almost expect a "To Be Continued..." banner to flash across the screen. The post credits scene for the movie is basically like a 60 second tease for the following summer's "Marvel's The Avengers," which seems lame now, but back then I remember being on the edge of my theater seat.
The Marvel One-Shot included in the blu-ray is "A Funny Thing Happened on the Way to Thor's Hammer." It's a fun little side story about Coulson stopping a convenience store robbery as he travels to see Mjolnir. It's a throwaway for sure, but it's cool to see Coulson get to be a bad ass and knock some punks around.
So, what do you guys think? I'd put "Captain America: The First Avenger" in my top five Marvel movies for sure. Is it anyone's favorite? Let me know in the comments.
Marvel cast Chris Evans to play Steve Rogers/Captain America. He seemed like an odd choice to play the Star Spangled Avenger, mainly because he'd already had his shot at bringing a super hero to the big screen. Evans portrayed the Human Torch, Johnny Storm in the middling "Fantastic Four" and again in the much worse "Fantastic Four: Rise of the Silver Surfer." Tommy Lee Jones, Dominic Cooper, Sebastian Stan, Hayley Attwell, Toby Jones, Stanley Tucci and Hugo Weaving round out the top notch cast. The film is directed by Joe Johnston who also directed "Honey, I Shrunk the Kids," "Jumanji," and "The Rocketeer."
"Captain America: The First Avenger" is full of Marvel movie firsts. It is their first period piece. It is their first film that actually utilizes a framing device. It is also one of the first movies that could be seen as a legitimate continuation of what came before. It does something that a lot of Marvel movies aren't the best at, even today, which is bridging what has came before and teasing what is coming next, but still telling a satisfying stand alone movie.
The movie begins with SHIELD agents finding a weird plane embedded in the Arctic and inside finding a man encased in ice holding a highly recognizable red, white and blue shield. The movie then flashes back and tells the story of Steve Rogers. A puny kid who just wants to serve his country and do what he has spent the majority of his life doing, standing up to bullies. After being rejected multiple times because of his weakness and various health issues, Steve is chosen by Dr. Abraham Erskine to be the first subject in the Super Soldier program. The experiment is a success but the serum is lost when a HYDRA agent sabotages the experiment, kills Erskine and accidentally destroys the only viable sample. The rest of the movie is Cap evolving from a symbol to a true hero before ultimately sacrificing himself to save America.
The first great thing about Captain America is Chris Evans. Thank goodness he got a second chance to play a super hero because he kills it. Just like Robert Downey, Jr. and Iron Man, Chris Evans and Captain America are a perfect fit. Evans perfectly plays Cap's boyishness and earnestness in a way that never comes off as cloying or pandering. You respect what he is doing and you above all else, believe in what Cap stands for and his mission. It could have really easily veered into overly patriotic sappiness, but it never does.
Hayley Atwell is the movie's other big win. She is by far the strongest female character introduced in a Marvel movie, up to this point. She is Agent Peggy Carter and works for the Scientific Strategic Reserve or the SSR, a precursor to SHIELD. She is smart and strong and dangerous. She doesn't ever look to Cap for rescue or approval. She is doing it for herself. The love story between herself and Steve is a relationship of equals, Super Soldier serum or no, and the best thing is that she begins falling for him before he becomes Captain America.
The rest of the main cast is pretty great. Tommy Lee Jones plays to his strengths as the gruff, stodgy Colonel Chester Phillips. Dominic Cooper debuts as Howard Stark, father to Tony. Cooper is great as the sleazy, brilliant patriarch of the Stark family. He's like Tony on steroids, but he still has a lot of heart. Sebastian Stan makes his debut as Steve's doomed childhood friend, Bucky, and the scenes they share showcase an easy camaraderie. It's easy to believe these guys have been friends their whole lives.
The villains are again the weaker point in the film, which is too bad, because Hugo Weaving's Johann Schmidt aka The Red Skull, is one of comic's biggest, baddest villains. I can understand wanting to tone him down from the sadistic anti-Semite from the comics, but by watering him down, he comes off as relatively toothless and not really a match for Cap. Toby Jones' Nazi scientist, Arnim Zola, comes off a little better and there is a lot of set up done for the larger role he'll play in the MCU.
The movie pulls a lot from "Thor." There are mentions of Yggdrasil, the World Tree, and the nine realms. The Tesseract, which HYDRA and the SSR are fighting for, is the Asgardian artifact mentioned in the post credits scene of "Thor." The film also introduces HYDRA for the first time, which will become a huge antagonist for SHIELD in future Marvel projects. All this blends very seamlessly and never feels shoe horned in.
The film ends with Cap waking up in the present and running into Times Square, where he meets Nick Fury for the first time. You almost expect a "To Be Continued..." banner to flash across the screen. The post credits scene for the movie is basically like a 60 second tease for the following summer's "Marvel's The Avengers," which seems lame now, but back then I remember being on the edge of my theater seat.
The Marvel One-Shot included in the blu-ray is "A Funny Thing Happened on the Way to Thor's Hammer." It's a fun little side story about Coulson stopping a convenience store robbery as he travels to see Mjolnir. It's a throwaway for sure, but it's cool to see Coulson get to be a bad ass and knock some punks around.
So, what do you guys think? I'd put "Captain America: The First Avenger" in my top five Marvel movies for sure. Is it anyone's favorite? Let me know in the comments.
No comments:
Post a Comment