Now that Captain
America has been introduced, brought to our time, and met the Avengers, it’s
about time for him to save our own world in a modern fashion. Oh, and there’s a
villain named the Winter Soldier.
Chris Evans returns as
the illustrious captain as he tries to figure out where he fits into our world.
All of his friends are dead, he’s really unable to relate to anyone, and he has
growing doubts about the rights and wrongs of his dealings with S.H.I.E.L.D.
All of a sudden, someone gets killed, S.H.I.E.L.D. goes through some changes,
and a metal-armed mercenary begins to hunt Steve Rogers and his friends down.
That is the extent of the story that I can say without spoilers (I already
sullied myself with my Noah review this week. ¡No mas!).
The cast for this movie
reminds me a lot of The Avengers in that there are a ton of great characters
and their respective actors and actresses that have a definitive synergy.
Although The Avengers had a lot more laughs and great dialogue (which I attribute
to the terrific director Joss Whedon, of Firefly and Buffy the Vampire Slayer
fame), Captain America 2 does its best to imitate that style. While some laughs
fall flat and some dialogue is just meh (like the stinker also in the trailer: “You’re
heavier than you look.” “I had a big breakfast.” Ouch. Awful.), the characters
were still able to keep me interested. Although every single “plot twist” can
be predicted from an hour away, the script is decent.
My favorite actor in
this movie was actually Anthony Mackie, who also did a terrific job in The Hurt
Locker. His role as a kind of sidekick to Captain America gets established
early on in the movie with a humorous jogging scene, and he brings a sort of normality
to the chaos that happens during most of the movie. He personifies the average
person dealing with all of these super heroes (as opposed to obscenely-limber
Black Widow and obscenely-muscular Captain America), and his reactions often
mirror what I would picture myself saying in certain situations. One of my favorite
parts of the movie: a bad guy (why label them any differently?) tells him,
during a mano-y-mano fisticuffs, that he is way out of his league, he has no
idea what kind of power he is up against, blah blah. To which Sam Wilson
(character) replies, “Man, shut the hell up,” then throws a punch. We’ve all
wanted the hero to say that to monologuing villains. So dumb.
Finally, the action in
this movie was exactly what we’ve come to expect from Marvel movies: big booms,
awesome personal combat, and ridiculously inaccurate villains. I have to say,
the final half of the movie relies a LOT on these visual effects, electing to
kind of shove the story to the side in Michael Bay fashion. The first half was
far more enjoyable, and actually included a couple of chase scenes that were
surprising in a super hero movie. They would not have been amiss in a spy
thriller, but they were more interesting to me in this film than the grand
finale of destruction.
Some reviews and
critics have been praising the movie for its international themes and overall
symbolic step forward compared to past super hero movies. I don’t see what
others do, however. There is a lot of “the government is taking control for
peace but they will actually run a military state” going on here, but this has
been done before and more well done. “A” for effort, though, on trying to be
the first realistically themed super hero movie since The Dark Knight (I’ll
just pretend Dark Knight Rises and Man of Steel don’t exist…). Overall, I
enjoyed myself, I was entertained, and I will not remember a single detail of
this movie in three years’ time, same as the first Captain America. This was a
better film than the first, but it was much less original, even though its
message was better. I am reminded why I don’t go see these movies anymore,
since I could have not gone and I would be none the worse.
Verdict: If you’re a
Marvel fanboy, you COULD see this movie, but if you miss seeing this film, you
won’t miss too much besides explosions and Scarlett Johansson’s butt shots.
P.S. – This week has
been supersaturated with movie reviews! Gosh.
Very serious, but still fun and exciting when it wants to focus on that aspect, rather than the crammed-up plot itself. Good review Robert.
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