{"id":23542,"date":"2011-11-07T21:26:40","date_gmt":"2011-11-08T04:26:40","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/?p=23542"},"modified":"2014-01-08T11:27:15","modified_gmt":"2014-01-08T18:27:15","slug":"movie-review-captain-america-2011","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/2011\/11\/07\/movie-review-captain-america-2011.html","title":{"rendered":"Movie Review: “Captain America” (2011)"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"\"<\/a>Though I seriously jonesed to see it in the theaters, I never quite managed it (it’s been a busy year), and while I’ve had it on Blu-Ray for multiple weeks, it was only last night that I actually managed to wrangle the family into watching Captain America: The First Avenger<\/a><\/em>.<\/p>\n

I. Am. Impressed.<\/p>\n

In terms of canon, Captain America<\/em> plays fast and loose with any number of pieces — Bucky, the Red Skull, Hydra, the Howling Commandos, Howard Stark, the Cosmic Cube, the final fates of Cap and his sidekick, etc. and so on. \u00a0Unlike so many other “comic book movies” (or book adaptations into film), though, the changes that are made form a new organic whole. \u00a0It all holds together, it all makes sense, it simply works \u00a0<\/em>… at least as well as seventy-odd years of comic book continuity does.<\/p>\n

(The only false note, as far as I was concerned watching through it, was Bucky’s fate — which simply seemed forced, in timing, by the plot.)<\/p>\n

The other elements of the film — the actors, the action, the FX, the costumes, the fight scenes, the sentiment and flavor — all gelled beautifully. \u00a0It’s not Oscar material, but it’s Grade AAA Pulp, and that’s just what I want from a Captain America movie.<\/p>\n

Chris Evans does a great job making the role of Steve Rogers (old and new) and Captain America his. \u00a0He’s earnest almost, but not quite, to the point of Boy Scoutishness, but steps away from that line to make the character decently real. \u00a0Hugo Weaving similarly steps back from chewing the scenery too badly as the Red Skull (“Welcome to Nazi Germany, Cap<\/em>tain Rog<\/em>ers!”) to create a character who’s lovingly menacing.<\/p>\n

Hayley Atwell (Peggy Carter) is suitably lethal yet romantic, Tommy Lee Jones (Colonel Phillips) is emphatically Tommy Lee Jones-like, Sebastian Stan (Bucky Barnes) is nicely cocky and gung-ho, Stanley Tucci (Prof. Erskine) is remarkably human … and all the other supporting characters do their job professionally (if, perforce, sketchily).<\/p>\n

And not only do the production folks manage to make the shield work (metal, rubber, and CG alike), but they make the costume(s) work, too. \u00a0A nice challenge, and hats off to their success.<\/p>\n

There’s sort of a competition out there as to “which is the greatest comic book hero movie of all time.” I’m pleased that the field is getting large enough to start making that competition difficult, but, bottom line, Captain America: The First Avenger<\/em> is definitely a contender.<\/p>\n

(Speaking of which, we rewatched Thor<\/em> tonight. \u00a0And it’s certainly in the Top 5 as well.)<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Though I seriously jonesed to see it in the theaters, I never quite managed it (it’s been a busy year), and while I’ve had it on Blu-Ray for multiple weeks, it was only last night that I actually managed to wrangle the family into watching Captain America: The First Avenger. I. Am. Impressed. In terms … Continue reading “Movie Review: “Captain America” (2011)”<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":23545,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_seopress_titles_title":"","_seopress_titles_desc":"","_seopress_robots_index":"","_seopress_robots_follow":"","_seopress_robots_imageindex":"","_seopress_robots_snippet":"","_seopress_robots_primary_cat":"","_seopress_robots_breadcrumbs":"","_seopress_robots_freeze_modified_date":"","_seopress_robots_custom_modified_date":"","_seopress_robots_canonical":"","_seopress_social_fb_title":"","_seopress_social_fb_desc":"","_seopress_social_fb_img":"","_seopress_social_fb_img_attachment_id":0,"_seopress_social_fb_img_width":0,"_seopress_social_fb_img_height":0,"_seopress_social_twitter_title":"","_seopress_social_twitter_desc":"","_seopress_social_twitter_img":"","_seopress_social_twitter_img_attachment_id":0,"_seopress_social_twitter_img_width":0,"_seopress_social_twitter_img_height":0,"_seopress_redirections_value":"","_seopress_redirections_enabled":"","_seopress_redirections_enabled_regex":"","_seopress_redirections_logged_status":"","_seopress_redirections_param":"","_seopress_redirections_type":0,"_seopress_analysis_target_kw":"","_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":false,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2}},"categories":[11,525,41],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-23542","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-media-comics","category-marvel-cinematic-universe","category-media-movies"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/wp\/wp-content\/uploads\/2011\/11\/Captain-America-movie.jpg","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack-related-posts":[{"id":48680,"url":"https:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/2014\/12\/07\/movie-review-captain-america-the-first-avenger-2011-2.html","url_meta":{"origin":23542,"position":0},"title":"Movie Review: "Captain America: The First Avenger" (2011)","author":"***Dave","date":"Sun 7-Dec-14 6:45pm","format":false,"excerpt":"My enthusiasm for this as one of the great comic book films has gone down over the years, but it's still a greatly entertaining comic book flick, despite a sketchy overall narrative, a disparate series of parts, and a rather forced set-up for Captain America in The Avengers. A \u2605\u2605\u2605\u00bd\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "~PlusPosts"","block_context":{"text":"~PlusPosts","link":"https:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/category\/blogging\/plusposts"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":130511,"url":"https:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/2016\/04\/28\/when-captain-america-throws-his-mighty-shield.html","url_meta":{"origin":23542,"position":1},"title":"When Captain America throws his mighty shield!","author":"***Dave","date":"Thu 28-Apr-16 4:35pm","format":false,"excerpt":"Cap is a tough character to write. Make him just an action hero, and he doesn't serve much purpose. Make him a patriotic character, and he seems like a cornball. Make him a mockery of a patriotic character, he becomes eyerolling and dull.The current crop of Marvel movies has stuck\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "~PlusPosts"","block_context":{"text":"~PlusPosts","link":"https:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/category\/blogging\/plusposts"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":12355,"url":"https:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/2008\/05\/22\/and_in_comic_book_movie_n.html","url_meta":{"origin":23542,"position":2},"title":"And in comic book movie news …","author":"***Dave","date":"Thu 22-May-08 5:50am","format":false,"excerpt":"More on Thor and Captain America. Wisely (I think) both films will be \"set\" pieces -- Thor mostly in Asgard, Cap mostly in WWII. And Brian Vaughan is scripting an...","rel":"","context":"In "Comics & Comic Books"","block_context":{"text":"Comics & Comic Books","link":"https:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/category\/media\/media-comics"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":37808,"url":"https:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/2013\/06\/13\/watching-captain-america-again.html","url_meta":{"origin":23542,"position":3},"title":"Watching "Captain America" again","author":"***Dave","date":"Thu 13-Jun-13 11:18pm","format":false,"excerpt":"I was surprised to find how much I liked this film, as my memory of it was not all that favorable (though the review,\u00a0https:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/2011\/11\/07\/movie-review-captain-america-2011.html, was effusive). \u00a0While a bit more episodic than I find comfortable, this is a very solid and enjoyable comic-book film. A \u2605\u2605\u2605\u2605 review of Captain America:\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "~PlusPosts"","block_context":{"text":"~PlusPosts","link":"https:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/category\/blogging\/plusposts"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":128353,"url":"https:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/2015\/10\/19\/yes-im-going-to-let-conservatives-affect-my-comic-buying.html","url_meta":{"origin":23542,"position":4},"title":"Yes, I'm going to let conservatives affect my comic buying","author":"***Dave","date":"Mon 19-Oct-15 3:28pm","format":false,"excerpt":"I hadn't been going to pick up the new Captain America title because I just don't find Sam Wilson as interesting a character as Steve Rogers. But if Fox News and Breitbart and the like are going to pitch a fit over it, I'm definitely going to give it a\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "~PlusPosts"","block_context":{"text":"~PlusPosts","link":"https:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/category\/blogging\/plusposts"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":37805,"url":"https:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/2013\/06\/13\/marvel-cinematic-universe-even.html","url_meta":{"origin":23542,"position":5},"title":"Marvel Cinematic Universe even…","author":"***Dave","date":"Thu 13-Jun-13 10:32pm","format":false,"excerpt":"Marvel Cinematic Universe evening, rewatching \"Captain America\" and \"Thor\". Both appeal to different comic geek aspects of me.","rel":"","context":"In "~Tweets"","block_context":{"text":"~Tweets","link":"https:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/category\/blogging\/tweets"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]}],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/23542","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=23542"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/23542\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":40545,"href":"https:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/23542\/revisions\/40545"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/23545"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=23542"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=23542"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=23542"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}