Right, some thoughts on Captain America: The First Avenger
I actually had a very poor opinion of this film going into this rewatch. My recollection of it was that of a relatively boring, by the numbers origin movie. I'd only seen it once, and really had very little desire to do so again, but it turns out I actually found it mostly enjoyable this time around.
There are some inconsistent writing elements to the plot, such as the Hydra agent simply watching the super soldier serum being used, when Red Skull had clearly ordered the mission to prevent this happening in the first place. Or Red Skull hiding his true face for the first half of the movie - for the purpose of building up the reveal to the viewer - but then proclaiming he has embraced who/what he is, unashamed of the fact that he has left humanity behind. It also doesn't make a whole lot of sense that he would see a brief camera shot of Captain America tossing a few of his soldiers around, and decide the best thing to do at this point is self destruct his entire base. After all, Skull believes himself to be at least Cap's equal, if not outright superior, and he's got an entire base worth of super weapons capable of literally disintegrating anything in his way. There isn't a single good reason for him to not go have a final showdown with Cap right now, beyond the fact that we're only halfway through this movie. These kinds of things are relatively insignificant to most viewers, but if you're a sucker for detail, they really betray when there's a clash between the overall cohesion of a story, and the film makers' desire to construct compelling, continually escalating moments on a scene by scene basis.
That said, I have very few complaints about the first two thirds of the movie. The writing is mostly competent, the cast is very likable, the pacing is solid, and the action, while somewhat minimalistic by super hero standards, is used efficiently. Sadly - and ironically, given Cap's icy fate - the movie doesn't stick the landing. The last act feels entirely rushed, moving from Skull telling Zola he better get his ass in gear and finish his weapon one frame, to Zola being captured in the following scene, to the weapon having apparently been completed anyway a couple minutes later. What? When did that happen? Then we get an infiltration into an alp base, which is supposed to be 500 feet below surface level, via Cap's team swinging in through a window like half way up the mountain....ok....was anyone paying attention to the script at this point? The real tragedy here though, is that Hugo Weaving is entirely wasted. After building the Red Skull up for the first half of the movie, the rest of the film does pretty much nothing with him. Certainly nothing interesting. Every once in a while they cut to him looking evil, spitting out a few standard "ya, look at me, I'm the evil guy" lines.....but that's about it. Such a shame. There was a lot more potential there, carrying through the deranged, but calculated, deliberate, and ultimately intelligent villain that was presented early on, to both the end of this movie, and possibly beyond, for future appearances. Somebody really dropped the ball there down the stretch.
All in all though, I definitely appreciate this movie more now than I did when I first saw it. I actually think I know why as well, and it relates back to the earlier conversation in this thread. Back when this film came out I really wouldn't say there was anything all too special about it in the space it occupied. Just a decent action/superhero movie, sandwiched between other not too dissimilar flicks. Watching it now though, after so many entries of Marvel trying to force laughs out of me in 2 minute intervals.....man, First Avenger suddenly feels like a breath of fresh air. Some meaningful things are actually allowed to happen here, without instantly being diminished by a one liner of some sort. Granted, some of it - like Bucky's death - is undone in the future, but that's not something I can hold this movie accountable for.
I'll give this a 7.
A few other musings:
Howard Stark is shown to be rather incompetent in this movie. His hover car doesn't work, on the super soldier project he's a glorified assistant, and when examining the tesseract's energy he almost blows himself up. Tony must have got his genius from his mother's side of the family.
There is absolutely no way Bucky survives that fall with nothing more than a missing arm. That dude is dead. Way dead.
How did Red Skull learn about the tesseract? How did he find it? How did he and Zola build technology that would be able to harness the energy of the tesseract without even having access to it for study first? Did that imbecile Odin leave a handy tesseract instruction manual laying around somewhere?
Last edited by Angelus - on 26 January 2018
