Quantcast
Channel: ...or How I Learnt to Stop Worrying and Love to Blog » Harry Potter
Viewing all articles
Browse latest Browse all 2

Captain America: The First Avenger

0
0

I may as well state it straight out of the gate – I’ve been keeping an eye on Chris Evans’ films of late. I even count myself in the rarefied (read: small) group of people who found recent films like Push and The Losers not just watchable, but re-watchable (several times over in the latter case, and largely for Evans’ comic-relief character). What’s clear to me from Captain America is that he’s been slightly ill-served by his square-jawed, American jockish, wisecracker typecasting following films like the Fantastic 4. There’s decent acting work coming through in Captain America, where he’s called on to be rather worthy and dedicated not so much to the ‘American’ cause, but guided by an inbuilt sense of right and wrong, rather than cocky and arrogant. As a result he shows a range and ability to build a character I think many people may not have expected.

Captain America is a solid origin story where even the more ludicrous superhero set-up elements are introduced in a sensible manner – even down to the frankly ridiculous suit, shield, and daft “USA! USA!”
moniker. In fact, they’re set up so carefully not to seem ridiculous, it’s clear someone has put a lot of time and effort into making sure the audience doesn’t find a character who could well be viewed as a
walking, talking emblem of rampant Americana made flesh seem too daft. Even the 3D is quite good, if a little flat a few planes in, and most frequently used to give perspective on dialogue shots (there are a lot of blurry backs-of-people’s heads looming out of the screen). In style, it’s also vaguely reminiscent of Sky Captain and the World of Tomorrow given its 1940s cgi backdrops. Occasionally, even real backdrops look like they’ve been dropped in through post production, looking ever so slightly-fuzzy round the edges. While handled about as well as they could be, the shots of Evans’ head on a skinny body pre-injections of super serum are also vaguely reminiscent of Mr Mackay in South Park.

Major supporting characters are patchy. Tommy Lee Jones hoovers up all of the best lines by joyfully invoking his grumpy snarky shtick; Stanley Tucci shines once again, embuing an all-too-small role with
humour, emotion and heart. I remain unconvinced by Hayley Atwell as the Captain’s leading lady – tough and more than able to handle herself in a scrap she may be, but her character is undermined by the direction of the plot and she’s not given much space to prove herself. The casting of Hugo Weaving as the film’s key villain, the Red Skull, is mildly baffling. Granted, he has the ability to be menacing through voice alone. However, a silly and patchy “zee Germanz” accent lets him down, as do some frankly ropey special effects. His Nazi big-shot is dropped in straight out of an Indiana Jones film in terms of motivations, and the semi-magical/ legendary macguffin he gets his mitts on at the start of the film probably makes more sense if you’ve seen Thor (I haven’t). It’s tonally odd when the rest of the film is set in dewey-eyed WW2 nostalgia-vision. It also looks rather a lot like something you could pick up from Ikea on a wet weekend.

The film’s failings stem largely from the fact that Captain America is the last puzzle piece to drop before next year’s The Avengers – its crossover scenes like the Thor link and inevitable Nick Fury appearance, supporting characters lucky if they get five lines maximum, right down to the fact that most of the audience will know that the central character is never in any real peril, in as much as a superhero ever is. As a result the film’s final third is also much weaker than its start. It’s also strange that for a superhero film, you also never get a good sense of exactly what Captain America’s powers actually are or see him testing their limits, aside from some uncanny skills flinging a shield around. Still, it’s well worth the ticket price for a summer blockbuster. For me it’s much more enjoyable than this summer’s lacklustre crop of Transformers: Dark of the Moon, Pirates of the Caribbean: On Stranger Tides and The Green Lantern, more balanced than Super 8, but not quite as satisfying as the Harry Potter finale.


Viewing all articles
Browse latest Browse all 2

Latest Images

Trending Articles





Latest Images