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Dance revolution

2011-07-25

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Captain America
Gary
I just saw Captain America: The First Avenger movie. It was an enjoyable movie if you don't mind giving them a lot of artistic freedom on the characters. Below are two reviews, one that's general without spoilers, and one that goes into the details, with spoilers.

Spoiler free review of "Captain America: The First Avenger"

Captain America is a fun movie that, for the most part, kept the essence of the Captain America, and to a lesser degree, the Howling Commandos, characters. Do not go to this movie if you're looking for a direct port from the comics. The characters may keep most of their qualities, but they're all created different than the comics. The Captain America in this movie is a bit of a mix of the Ultimate Captain America and the classic Captain America, with more of a lean towards the classic. There are a lot of inside jokes for those who know the comics, and another set of inside jokes for those who know the other Marvel movies. There is a bit after credits, so stay if you like that kind of thing. Some non-spoiler things that kind of annoyed me. The lasers, were kind of a waste. Cap should never be seen killing anything, it goes against his character. A gun, really? Does he need it? There are a lot of rewrites to the comic story to make it weaved into the movies, which is kind of unnecessary. Everybody doesn't have to be linked to everybody else to make an Avengers movie, but it was well done, just kind of not needed. There is a musical number in the movie, but it's well done. I thought they did a good job with Cap's morals (minus the killing), and with his fighting style. the helmet needed some work, but I was never fond of the helmet in the comics. some of the scenes in the movie were directly out of the comic (antiquity shop), and I thought those were great. The 3D was OK, but didn't add much, and they did what annoys me with 3D movies, they blurred out background stuff (something 2D does to make things look 3D and to move your eye where it should be). End feeling, they stayed true to most if not all of the characters even though they played with their origins. If you enjoy Cap, or want to see the Avengers movie next summer, I recommend you watch this film.

Full review of "Captain America: The First Avenger", with spoilers

So, you've read the more generic review above and probably want to know my more specific feelings on the movie. If that's not the case, then you should probably stop reading now. These observations/complaints might get a bit nit picky. I'll start with the big ones. The biggest one to me, because I feel it goes against the grain of the character is giving Cap a gun, and having him kill three people on screen. In the beginning of the film, they show his character and very specifically point out that he didn't want to kill anyone, then at the end of the film, he kills a guy with a knife and throws two more out of a plane, for no real reason. There were plenty of ways for him to get out of that without killing anyone. As for the gun part, the only time in the comic history that he used a gun was the use of an Uzi, when he had no other choice, in the 80s, and the character had a big moral dilemma over it. He almost gave up being Cap over it. Captain America was supposed to be a symbol, an ideal, and killing was not an ideal one should live up to. There were 1940s serials that played in the movies, where Cap did use a gun. In the comics, this was played off as war propaganda.

The next major issue I had was with Hydra and the lasers. The Red Skull was always a major Nazi, not some Hydra deal. So they down played his Nazism and made him all Hydra all the time, probably to get in line with the cartoon series. There were other rewrites with his character, the human face being the mask instead of the skull being the mask (this happened much later, in the 80s in the comic, and it happened because he inhaled poisonous gas that he had developed that did that to people's faces, like the joker's joker gas), etc, but those didn't change the character much. All in all, his character was pretty good.

Next up, there were a bunch of changes to smaller characters, that were really necessary. Bucky was very different, but they were trying to pull in what his character recently became, with the sniping. It wasn't bad, but it would've made more sense to just leave Bucky out of the movie, and make that some other random guy Steve knew. His death, though different than the comics, had a lot of similarities, so that worked for me. Peggy Carter wasn't a state side agen, but it would've been way more to explain to have her as a French resistance fighter. Basically, they removed much of his WW2 campaign, making it like six battles instead of a campaign, and they removed all of his state side work fighting Nazi infiltration, but this was probably necessary for the movie.

There was lots of other little stuff here and there, like the song and dance, or changing the cosmic cube to be a Nordic artifact, but they didn't mess with the feel much. Things like the cosmic cube being a Nordic artifact, and Howard Stark being part of the movie were added to bring all the movies together, when there was really no need for it, but like I said earlier, these were done well and would be seamless for those who don't know the history in the comic. The end scene with the Skull and the cube was very well done, and felt like it came out of the 1996 comic, until they tied it into the road to Asgard.

All in all, I mostly enjoyed the movie. For people who've been waiting for a good Cap movie, this hands down beats the others, that said, liberties were taken with the story. I'll probably get the blu-ray when it comes out. It was a good super hero movie. It was a good super hero movie.

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