Captain America was done exceptionally
well for a superhero movie that mainly talks about a hero. To me, this was done
with a quality that only shows up in traditional superheroes. To clarify, many
superhero movies, nowadays, questions their positions as a superhero; such as
Spider-Man, from Spider-Man 2, Batman,
from The Dark Knight, and the Watchmen
from Watchmen. In this movie, they've
decided to go with the old roots of what made superheroes truly remarkable.
Kids need role models because they need, not a superhero, but a real hero.
The
most important factor that went into play was Steve Rogers and his role as
Captain America. We are given a scrawny looking Steve Rogers, who's
surprisingly played by Chris Evans, who gets bullied and picked on for his
physical limitations. He wants to enlist into the army, only to get rejected.
What really defines Steve Rogers is his bravery amongst anything. When the
colonel (played by Tommy Lee Jones) throws a fake grenade at the troops, Steve
goes at it and sacrifices his life for his troops.
When
we see the new and enhanced Steve Rogers, his personality and bravery is still
retained. The only difference is his only physical body. When he saves the day
for the first time, people start using him to sell war bonds. Although he's
technically helping a cause, in a cheery and delightful patriotic montage of a
campy Captain America, Steve wants to do more than just that. He becomes a
celebrity, however, he wants to leave that behind in order to be a hero. Like
any Greek myth hero, the hero must go into hell and back, facing death face to
face. In this movie, Captain America decides to infiltrate behind enemy lines
in order to rescue hundreds of POW. Again, a running theme of the movie is
Captain America's self-sacrificing bravery in the face of death. In the end of
the movie, there is a kid with a garbage pail painted as Captain America's
shield. to me, these are the true reasons on why we look up o certain heroes
like Captain America.
A
hero, however, is nothing without his supporting characters. Despite Tommy Lee
Jones' role as Colonel Philips, he's actually quite witty and funny at times.
Peggy Carter, the love interest, was done exceptionally well as she partly
serves as Captain America's motivation. I didn't like Stanley Tucci's role as
the scientist, Dr. Erskine, who concocted the serum. He felt overacted and his
accent sticks out like a sore thumb. I also didn't like the fact that we aren't
given much information about the squad members who helps Captain America.
However, the star supporting actor would have to be Johann Schmidt, AKA, Red
Skull, played by Hugo Weaving. He is a Nazi officer who went rogue and formed
his own legion called HYDRA. His menacing red face is shown in shadows at
first, and later shown to Captain America. He affectively plays as a great
villain, being that most superhero movies are defined by their villains.
The
only real problem I had with the movie, ironically, were the visual aspects.
The set design in this Neo World War II universe was done really well, and yet,
it still retained some of that feeling of being in the 40's. The look of the
film looked really nice, despite having some obvious green screen moments and
jarring 3D scenes that are not meant for 2D screens. There were certain shots
that felt too visually dark and unrealistic, and it took away the superhero
feel when we are shown green screen shots.
When
I went in the theater, I came in with a pessimistic feel, due to Captain
America's ideology. One, he takes a serum that looked like an enhanced version
of Steroids. When I saw the movie, I thought that really deserved that power,
because he was a great human being in every way, except for his physical body.
I didn't like the fact that he used a gun in the trailer. Again, we never see
him with a gun that often and instead uses his shield, showing that he plays
defensively instead of shooting people in cold blood. The gritty looking army
uniform he wore wasn't all that appealing in the trailer; however, he does wear
his spandex and chainmail uniform in the movie, and it does look stupid. After
a while, I started to really like the gritty looking uniform. It felt needed
for telling the origins of Captain America by making him look like the
prototype of superheroes.
The
reason why I didn't like Thor so
much, was because of the over extensive use of SHIELD. The movie robs Thor and
becomes a movie that leads to The
Avengers. In Captain America, we never see much of SHIELD, except in the
beginning, and in the end. They felt like a cliffhanger, giving a better
anticipated feel for The Avengers.
We've gone so far into a new vision of superheroes
that we've totally forgotten about their roots. This movie reminded us of the
good old days when superheroes were simply the all around hero. It's a great
traditional superhero movie. I just wished that it was shot in a traditional
way.
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