CAPTAIN AMERICA: The First Avenger - Post Release Thread - Page 2

LOVED this movie, but yeah it has its faults but reminded me a lot of Spielberg's old movies. Did anyone feel like the actions scenes were a little on the montage side?

 

Oh, and the 3D sucked in the theater I saw it in. Just too damn dark.

I enjoyed the film, but the ending didn't work at all.  Avengers setup has really hampered these flicks.  It felt like it wanted to end with the kid in the street with the trash can shield, cutting to the 'triumphant' credits.

So..what are the odds that Peggy ends up being the mother of Tony Stark?....

That would suck.

 

Speaking again of Ms. Carter, is it film-snobby of me to note that her final scene on the radio with Steve is a direct lift from A Matter of Life and Death? Yes, yes it is. But they pulled it off.

Edited by Hammerhead - 7/23/11 at 1:37pm

Oh no they  FONDUED after all!

Could the woman in Steve's "hospital room" at the end be Sharon Carter?

Sorry if my wording was off. I meant the temptation is there, in that Cap is confronted with possible alternatives and chooses the straight and narrow path. I would argue that there's a bit before Steve arrives on the front lines where he's all smiles and glamour and it appears that he's convinced himself he's doing what he absolutely should for the war effort, but not much time is spent there.

 

Not much time should be spent there, because Steve is a good guy and does what's right. What I appreciated about that sentiment is it meant on a few occassions (the flagpole scene, sneaking off to save the 107) disobeying orders from superior officers. Again, he believes in a dream and the conflict is maintaining that belief against almost insurmountable odds.
 

Movie just clicked, but I understand why it wouldn't for everyone.

 

Look at Ruper Murdock or any other big billionair-they all have much younger wives and childen.
 

They did America Fuck Yeah to the trailer already.

 

Just wanted to add how much I loved the movie.  The movie should have been longer with a scene or two with The Howling Commandos but I'm sure they will get a bigger presence in the sequel.

 

And loved all the Whedon lines.  Bodes well for the Avengers.  Downey + Whedon = gold. 

 

 

Yeah I will say that last sequence with Cap waking up in the hospital/SHIELD facility was very awkward...though when Steve Rogers is standing in present day Times Square I got goose bumps.

I actually thought for a brief moment that the woman at the end was Scarjo in a black widow cameo, although I guess that would have tipped their hand a bit early.  My audience literally groaned when Sam Jackson showed up, however.  Enjoyed this enough, despite having very little to no familiarity with the character, or the marvel world beyond the movies, for that matter.

 

Other random thoughts:

 

Hayley Atwell + 1940s style totally does it for me.

 

Really dug the James Bondish "Captain America will return..." tag.

 

I think this makes for a much better GI:Joe movie than the actual GI:Joe movie.  The rather silly laser weapons just reminded me of that cartoon for some reason.

 

And finally, were the Hydra base tunnels just redresses of the Abrams Enterprise sets?  If not that, I dunno, but they looked rather familiar.

 

First summer movie that I've gone to and said, "I want to see that again." 

 

I agree with whoever thought the flagpole thing taught the wrong lesson about who he is. While Cap is a clever guy, it is not his defining characteristic. They should have had him convince the squad to work together to get the flag (and then given up the ride back). Hokey? Yes. But that's kind of the point.

I liked the flagpole thing. It shows how he uses his head to make up for his physical shortcomings.

I don't think a scene where Steve rallies the guys to somehow capture the flag would have worked at all. At that point he was failing all of the physical challenges and none of the guys seemed to like him. Why would they rally around him all of a sudden?

I didn't say I could write it.

I had a fun time and the performances are all solid, but First Class is still the superhero movie of the summer to me.  This just feels like it's missing something.  There isn't a standout action sequence or a real scene-stealing actor to be had.  Everything and everyone is pleasant and cookie-cutter and there's nothing blatantly awful, aside from that SHITTY CGI during that first chase sequence between Juiced Steve and that spy who blew shit up.  Why the hell was there a CG Chris Evans running down the street?  What was the point of that?  They couldn't just show him running fast?  It had to be a CG him?  They couldn't find a stunt guy to jump onto the roof of a cab?  It had to be CGI?!  It looked worse than the Spider-Man CGI, for fuck's sake.  That was just fucking awful, but everything else is fine.  Just fine and nothing more.  It felt like everyone involved was scared of fumbling the Marvel football, so they decided on a nice safe penalty kick rather than going for a touchdown.  The art direction is stunning in this film, though.  That shot of Cap in the small plane chasing Schmidt's massive plane looked gorgeous, and the stuff in the bar with all the guys in uniform looked great, too.   I'm still unclear about where they got that cosmic cube from.  I know it's from Asgard, but how did it get to Earth?  Was that stated?

 

I watched this at the theater on base at Fort Bragg with military personnel in the crowd, and it was a madhouse in there.  I've gone to this theater several times, and I have never seen that many people in uniform at that theater.  People mostly just roll in there wearing civilian clothing, but a vast majority of people there had their uniforms on, and brought their children.  That crowd LOVED this movie.  Whooping and hollering throughout.  Probably the moment I'll remember most was during the credits, when everyone was waiting on The Avengers trailer.  The guy next to me was in the 82nd Airborne, and his young son patted my arm to talk to me.  I asked him if he liked the movie and what his favorite part was.  The kid said "I liked when Captain America jumped out of the airplane, 'cuz that's what my daddy does!"  You should have seen the look of pride on that man's face.

 

Hopefully with all the exposition out of the way, we'll get a better flick next time.  Not saying that this one is bad.  It's really not.  It's solid.  I had fun and the performances are all fun (kudos to Evans and Atwell for giving their onscreen relationship just enough of a spark so that when that goodbye comes, it works), but it just feels like something's missing, in my opinion.

 

The notion that this movie, the last solo project before we get The Avengers next summer, was a low-risk penalty kick seems extremely fair to me.  I wouldn't be surprised if someone in the production did make a decision not to risk screwing up the momentum from Iron Man.

 

Speaking of Iron Man, if I recall correctly, the story told through the magazine cover sequence in the beginning was that Howard had passed on while Tony was young, and that Obadiah Stane had run the family business like a steward to the throne until Tony came of age.  Howard siring his son at an advanced age works just fine.

I really enjoyed this. I thought it captured just the right pulpy tone and really nailed the period stuff quite well. Surprisingly, I think what I liked least about the movie was actually Captain America himself. That's not to say that I think Evans does a bad job, but I really liked the supporting performances more. Atwell was a great surprise. I've never seen her before, and she really did a fantastic job. Tommy Lee Jones is, of course, great, injecting gravitas into every scene he's in. I found myself wishing that Stanley Tucci's character hadn't had to die off early, because he too was excellent. And then there's Hugo Weaving, just seeping evil from every pore. The makeup on Red Skull was top-notch, and that, combined with Weaving's performance, made him a much bigger presence despite relatively little screen time. Evans was good, but his performance doesn't stand out like Downey or Hemsworth did in their films. He just didn't light up the screen like those guys did.

 

I agree with the sentiment about the ending. It felt badly tacked on and poorly handled. All I really needed is a quick flash back to them looking around the ship, and suddenly the flashlight pans up to see Captain America, frozen in a block of ice. Cut to black, cue credits. If you're going to come back to the present, that's all I want.

I really can't get on board with the people saying that Steve's heart and guts don't have an effect on his performance as Cap. I thought that was pretty much the whole point of the sequence where he rescues Bucky and the Howling Commandos.

 

Now, there's a case to be made that the movie is basically over at that point and the rest is on autopilot, but I personally think there's still lots of good stuff in the second half, it's just a little sloppily put together. The relationship with Peggy is really well done and actually makes the final line and sequence work for me--and I'm the guy who was against turning this into an extended Avengers prequel.

 

Conversely, I'm a little puzzled by all the love for the Red Skull--nothing against Weaving's performance, but the character was pretty generically evil when there was so much more interesting potential there. His motives and goals were as baffling as the point of the Cosmic Cube as anything besides a MacGuffin. Didn't ruin the movie for me, the movie's about Cap, but he was basically just a punching bag.

 

I think that's what people like about him, though.  Did we really need yet ANOTHER superhero movie where we find out the things in his past that now motivate him?  Did we really need to see that he wasn't a bad guy at one point, and that things might have been different?

 

He's bad.  Cap is good.  We get to spend plenty of time with shades of grey in other Marvel hero films.  This was (and rightfully so) black and white.

 

Agreed. Oddly, I found it rather refreshing. 

 

Since capturing the flag got the recruit a ride instead of finishing the run, I totally thought the guys were all going to fight for the flag, fail, and look ahead to see Steve still running with a pretty decent lead.

 

I'm not talking so much about his troubled past, or whatever, as I am about...some vague idea of what the hell he was doing. He was going to blow up a lot of cities. That's it. WHY was he going to do that? What does it profit him? If it was the opening salvo in some world domination plot, it would have been nice to know exactly where he was going with it. As it stands, he's just Mr. Evil Who Does Evil Things, and while I can appreciate that there was no attempt to make him sympathetic, there could have been an attempt to make him less generic. Even the most monstrous, cartoon villains have to have a specific goal in mind.

 

They probably could have solved this by making it clearer what the Cosmic Cube does.

On another note, in the Avengers teaser, during the flash-fire montage of all the team members, it really looked like there was another woman in there who wasn't ScarJo. The Wasp?

They did this at the end of Thor as well and I think it's a wonderful touch in both instances.

 

 

Probably SHIELD Exec Maria Hill.
 

 

Not knowing Red Skull's ultimate goals was a weakness, but (for me) it didn't blunt the enjoyment during the flick. I agree it's a script hole, but I also was able to buy that RS was simply a hateful fuck who really wanted to decimate millions. As has been pointed out in other posts, 1) subtlety ain't this flick's strong point and 2) RS and CA are two ends of the spectrum. We don't know Steve's reasons for being so good (meaning we don't have an in-depth
 or definitive answer that decades of being bullied haven't turned him bitter and cynical), but we accept him as a guy who simply wants to do good and help is country. RS represents the opposite.

 

Re: the cosmic cube: I thought it was made clear that it supplied essentially endless, superior energy for RS's weapons, troops, and machines. It obviously did more, but for the purposes of the film, I thought it was clear enough.

Needed this flick. TF2 pretty much hollowed me out and left me bitter on summer spectacles. Watching an actual movie (with a plot and rootable characters and everything!) was great, and that first half really sold me on Chris Evans, who I had doubts on. Just a fun and rollicking time at the movies, even if the second half's narrative couldn't quite match up with the first. How could it have been better? I don't think smacking Captain America into a more authentic WWII tableau would have worked, as a broad comic archetype would jar against that background. I think the montage should have been expanded on, as just wetting our beak on grand sci-fi comic book action just leaves the audience with wanting more. Whatever the hell that last fight with Skull was, it didn't match up to that. But the movie still won me over, and the ending worked (no matter how much Marvel is determined for that not to happen, fucking larger universe is what is strangling the comic books right now, why they would want to spread that contagion to the movies I'll never understand).

How's about a 21 gun salute for those great animated end titles?  I thought juxtaposing Hayley Atwell with Rosie The Riveter was awesome.

Loved the hell outta this. Best of the Superhero movies this summer in my mind.

I don't think there was more than a line or two really touching on this, but I got the impression that his plan was to wipe out the capitals of all the major powers to make it easier for his forces to sweep through and take them over with their superior weaponry. How this was supposed to work with weapons that seem at best slightly more effective than regular guns, no idea. The Cosmic Cube could certainly have used some fleshing (though I'm guessing we'll get more of that in the Avengers).

 

 

Can't disagree with this one bit.  That brief shot of Cap bashfully hiding his photo of Peggy from the news reel camera (and Peggy's reaction to it) brought the house down in my theater.  Their relationship works because of what we don't see, and because of what we've been trained to expect to see in movies like this.  The hero always gets the girl, right?  Wrong.

Absodamnlutely. The end credits illustrations were the icing on the irony-free, idealized view cake. Wonderfully done, and a perfect way to send the movie off.

 

Quote:

I'd call a weapon that atomizes its target with one landed shot more than just "slightly more effective" than the standard issue firearms of the day.

 

 

I just wanted to add/reiterate that I thought your review was very well done, and you did give specific, justified reasons for your reaction/conclusion. I'll continue to read your reviews with pleasure and appreciate what you bring to the site and your own insights into a film's elements. My disagreement with your (and others') conclusions isn't a "Renn just doesn't get it" thing. You did get it; it didn't mesh for you. And that's a very fair reaction.
 

 

Yes, for me, the REAL climax of the movie is that POW rescue scene.  Everything else played like the preview of Coming Attractions for some future Cap sequel.  It just kind of rushed by, and I didn't get any sort of feeling about it, except when the film touched upon the Peggy and Steve budding romance and final over-the-radio goodbye.

 

As fine an actor as Weaving is, once his 'real' Red Skull face is revealed he becomes Generic Villain #1.   Weaving obviously tried hard to make an impact, but I don't think the material was there on the page to support him.   As a Marvel villain, Kevin Bacon is still, in my opinion, the best so far, even including Raimi's non-shared-universe Spidey movies.

I like Kevin Bacon but I thought he was a pretty generic "JOIN ME!" "I MADE YOU!", etc movie villain in FIRST CLASS.

They could have done more with Red Skull, but at least he kept the angry German accent for the entire movie.

 

You
Are

FAIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIILINGGGK!!

What also lost me later in the movie was the laughable cartoonish-ness of Hydra.   They were literally Cobra from the GI Joe animated series, right down to the blue laser guns, the two armed salute and the silly full faced masks.  

 

Hydra required a larger suspension of disbelief than Captain America himself.

You know, sometimes there's just nothing like a good, clean cut American hero. I liked it. I'm a Captain America fan, and because I wasn't especially excited about seeing this film (the Marvel Film model has not impressed me) I was able to relax into it and accept it's breezy charm. Do I wish it was a better written, more creatively challenging picture? Absolutely, but I choose to think of it along the lines of simple, fun propaganda pictures like Bogart's All Through The Night and a thousand others. From that perspective, I can dig it. Loved the cast, Chris Evans continues to prove that he's the goods, Tommy Lee Jones is full of win, Hugo Weaving practically sleepwalks through deranged villainy better than almost anyone, and Hayley Atwell probably just put her name on the lips of a million new male (and female) admirers and quite a few casting directors. I'm good with this.

 

 

 

 

 

Fair enough, but at the end of the day you still have to shoot a guy with it. If you're going to be conquering, say, the planet with what appears to be about two hundred guys, I would think you might need something a bit further ahead of the curve. Might have worked a bit better if the Hydra guys were more competent/bulletproof as well.
 

Red Skull wanted to lead Hydra in dominating the world. The Cosmic Cube gave him the ability to do so. Except Captain America and the Allies systematically destroyed the bases and army he needed to do so. So, much like Hitler himself, he decided to try and just take out anyone he could before his inevitable demise.

 

Just to attempt to plug a plot hole...

 

In the Super Flying Wing dubbed The Valkyrie: I'm pretty sure that Cap hits the Cosmic Cube or the device it's kept in, which releases an energy surge, which messes up the aircraft's controls. Thus Cap can pilot the flying Bomb alright but not the Valkyrie.

 

The further away I get from this film the more I like it, and that's rare. Just remembering little bits makes me smile:

 

Cap is chasing the Hydra agent but stops to rescue the small boy the agent threw into the Hudson. Said Boy yells " I can swim! Go get 'em!"

 

Caps relationship with Howard Stark, especially when Stark explains what Fondue is.

 

Red Skull going Apeshit when he asks Rogers who he thinks he is and Rogers replies "I'm just a kid from Brooklyn". If there's anything that would offend and humiliate Mr Master Race it's that! (It'd have been better if Rogers had said " a JEW from Brooklyn" but RS doesn't show any signs of Anti-Semitism: he hates all Humanity equally!

Well the bombs Skull planned to drop would have had the same effect that the 2 A-Bombs had on Japan....If NYC and DC vanished and the Red Skull threatened to keep on taking out major cities, the Allies would have surrendered.

 

And it's not that the Hydra guys are that bad..it's that Cap and the Howling Commandos are that good!
 

 

The Red Skull was going to destroy all of the major cities of countries which would have had the power to oppose him, including Berlin. This would theoretically cripple them. It's essentially Hitler's plan. It's not the most airtight plan, but as far as super villain plans go, it's pretty understandable. I mean, what the hell was the Green Goblin or Dock Ock trying to accomplish in the Spider-Man films?

I guess, it's just, as I say, a little generic. Didn't kill the movie by any means, but given the amount of screentime he got, I don't see why he couldn't have been given a few interesting wrinkles. I mean...compare him to, say, Magneto's schemes in the first three X-Men movies. Even taking away the sympathetic factor, Magneto's crazy over-the-top plans are actually unique and have a clear logic to them within the world of the film (the fact that the mutant-maker in the first movie will unintentionally kill everyone just makes it more interesting and tragic). Red Skull's is just "KILL EVERYONE => ? => PROFIT"

 

Speaking of the Jewish thing, I was kind of hoping they'd reveal Erskine as Jewish--that would have been heart-tugging, plus of course you could have had the resonance of Cap being created by a Jew in the movie, just like he was in real life. Not that it wasn't heavily implied, though Hitler's apparent willingness to work with him at first made it slightly less likely.

 

Oh, and I really liked the touch that Cap's shield was invulnerable to the superweapons.

From what I recall, Dafoe's Green Goblin wanted Spider-Man....to be his friend or partner?  And when Spidey rejected him, we got to see Goblin's scorned bitchy side.

 

Yeah, as much as I enjoyed that first Raimi Spidey, that always was a weak point/way to jab fun at the flick.

Skull's motivations were never really that complicated in the comics.

1. DESTROY AMERICA

2. DESTROY STEVE ROGERS

3. RULE ZE WORLD!!!!!!!!

 

What we were supposed to be getting out of it was the Goblin projecting Osbourne's issues with his son onto Spider-Man as Osbourne initially did with Peter. Of course, the film is so terribly written and Dafoe's performance is so hampered by that stupid costume that the subtext is basically drowned out. That's one of the most irritating things about that film. It sort of ambles around the general vicinity of depth and narrative competence, but it repeatedly stops short and tosses that shit aside at every turn.

 

On subject: I agree that the Red Skull feels penciled in. His motivations are clear and simple, and that's all well and good, but the narrative is so straight forward it doesn't ever feel like he earns his villain stripes through any single action in the film, more like we're meant to accept that he's already got them and that's that. Like Prankster said, he's a bit generic, he doesn't go anything to distinguish himself.

 

Yep.  He kept spouting off "a world without flags" throughout the film, particularly to Rogers at the end.  I'm assuming he means a world without flags...............except for HYRDA's, though.  Honestly, I have ZERO problem with Red Skull as a character in the film or with Hugo Weaving's acting.  He's the best villain we've been given so far in the Marvel Movieverse.  That's no knock on Hiddleston, Roth, or Bridges.........all of which were great, but I love how Red Skull turned out.

 

I'm very much looking forward to his return.  Cap might think he is dead, but I imagine his ass ended up in one of the other nine realms.............considering the very familiar sight of where he was blasted off to.

 

Agreed on all fronts.........................especially the little kid part!  I absolutely loved this movie and it's definitely the best Marvel Studios effort since 2008 (although I do enjoy Thor and IM2).  I'm glad it has done well this weekend and I look forward to Marvel's (hopefully) invevitable Captain America 2 announcement.

 

I really liked it. Its not the film of the summer or best comic book film of the summer for me (that was First Class) but its right behind.

 

Strange I felt Rocketeer needed an extra action set piece and so does this film. Outside of wanting more Red Skull and Atwell I just can't complain.

 

Its a great superhero movie. That Avengers teaser though it was cool but didn't get me as excited as I thought it would.

 

It should have showed a bit more with the hero we just saw as well.

 

Congrats to Marvel, Joe Johnston and Chris Evans though great job.

 

His introductory scene is pretty darn villainous.

For those who had issues with the final confrontation between Cap and Red Skull, perhaps you would have preferred this...?

 

Yeah, I do think maybe one more fully fleshed-out action scene and a little bit more visceral/longer final showdown with the Skull would've helped.  Also, while I got the sense of a multi-year relationship from Cap and his supporting players (The Howling Commandos, Peggy, Colonel Phillips, and Howard Stark) I didn't get the same sense with the Red Skull.  By the final confrontation it just should've felt more personal between the two of them instead of seeming like literally the second time they'd met face-to-face..  It would've given Weaving a chance to show off a little more of that hatred and rage that the Red Skull always has simmering under the surface.  As a long-time Cap fan, that was something I felt was missing from Weaving's portrayal.  He played up the megalomaniacal side of the Skull just fine...but they pretty much cut out the rest of his characterization.  Then again, he didn't really develop into the Anarchist/Semi-Nihilist version of himself until sometime in the present day, so...I suppose there's room to grow.

 

Even so, a little of that characterization would have helped justify his "final plan."  The comic-Skull is in many ways a more outwardly rational version of Nolan's Joker:  The man that "just wants to see the world burn."

And the good ones of the above, had some internal conflict. Indy ultimately chooses Marion over the Ark. Die Hard has McClane fighting so hard for his wife and realizing that he should have been a better husband as well. The Searchers. 

 

I enjoyed Captain America, but I'd agree that the second half is weightless. The movie rushes right over all the heavier moments. Even Erskine's death seems to have no lingering effect on anyone beyond the initial scene, although Tucci was good. Bucky's "death" might have had more weight if we had gotten to know Bucky more in the first place. There's one scene of mourning, and then it's back to quipping away. Perhaps that's Joe Johnston or Chris Evans limitations, but every time they have a chance to cut a little deeper and more serious they pull their punches.

 

I felt that way about the romance a bit too. When's the last time we've seen so utterly chaste a romance?

 

The movie is charming and fun with tremendous production design, but the second half seems like checking off things to set up The Avengers rather than being an entirely satisfying conclusion to the story set up. It definitely needed more Red Skull and his philosophy and an epic showdown between the two.

 

I really loved this movie, but dammit, Phibes now has me wishing there would have been more Hostess Twinkies involved in the finale.

 

 

And honestly, how fucking funny would it be if they somehow dropped like a 3 second nod to some Hostess Fruit Pies in one of these Marvel flicks?  The geekiest of the geeks would be the only ones that laughed at that. 

 

"When Captain America isn't saving the world, he loves to have some Hostess Fruit Pies!" 

"My favorite is apple!  Just like America, mom, & apple pie!  Now sit still Batroc, whilst I enjoy my fruit pie." 

"If only I could enjoy that flaky goodness myself!"