Captain America Is Complete Shit. Seriously.

Posted by: Hawaiian Organ Donor Posted on Posted in: , , ,

The movie America loves.

And I hate.

Oh hell.  How do I count the ways?

To mimic a fat, useless cunt that butchers English and gets excited over the ding of a toaster oven, let’s plow through some personal backstory that is as relevant to the actual review as a pimple on an ass is to the quality of the turd that lies inches away in the bowl below it.

Captain America was not a comic I collected.  I didn’t even remotely follow it.   But thanks to some fuckin’ fanboys I have learned that the Captain was the mac daddy of all Marvel characters.  This dude was the godfather.  The hombre with the wallet that reads “Bad Ass Motherfucker.”  So when I heard the announcement of the movie, I was neutral.  But then Joe Johnston came onboard and being a huge fan of Jumanji, The Rocke-who, October Sky and Jurassic Park 3, I thought he was the right guy to helm the project. And then I heard that Chris Evans had signed on to the iconic role and a part of me stood up and saluted.  This shit was becoming…  interesting.

So here I am, sitting in the theater yesterday with a room full of other overweight, unemployed, middle-aged white guys and a part of me was excited for what I hoped would be the first truly great movie of the summer, a summer full of mostly disappointment.

And then there was that opening frame.  We get headlights in a blizzard, it quickly cuts away to nothing but blizzard and then we go back to a shitty shot of the headlights in a blizzard.  It was an uninspired nothing of an opening.  Like a film school student’s lazy attempt at a first attempt of a first year project.  There was no epic opening establishing shot, nothing to help set the tone of Captain FUCKING America.  Just snow.  Yup, the same shit I got on my TV as a kid when I went past channel 14.

So, let’s dispense with the pretense shall we?  We know what the movie’s about, as much of the best stuff was revealed in the trailer.  Let’s get down to what worked (almost nothing) and what didn’t.  And from here on in it’s nothing but spoilers.

The way Steve Rogers is chosen as a candidate is sort of lame.  It’s not some ultra cool moment where he saves a kid in danger or stops a bank robber, but a shitty contrived conversation he has with his best friend Bucky at an Expo.

And Jesus fucking Christ.  Then there’s the selection process.  Yes, they do this neat thing with Rogers getting a flag that no one has been able to get in 17 years, but the decision comes with a “live” field grenade test and voila, he’s our guy before we know it.  There’s no build up, there’s no real test of morals, character and fortitude.  The least likely candidate gets the gig simply because he jumps on a grenade.  Fuck.  Off.

Right after Steve Rogers becomes Cap, there’s a Hydra infiltrator that kills Stanley Tucci (Tucci plays one of the films best characters) and escapes the lab gunning down everyone in his path.  Newly endowed with superhuman powers, Rogers charges off in pursuit.  What we get here is the best action set piece in the entire film.  It’s gritty, it’s heart pounding, it’s absolutely exhilarating.  Cap runs faster than Carl Lewis on steroids and he leaps over cars like they’re defensive linemen on a football field.  It’s just a marvelous sequence.  But the thing that sucks is, THIS IS THE BEST FUCKING SEQUENCE IN THE FILM AND ROGERS ISN’T EVEN WEARING THE CAP COSUME.  Dude is in Dickies and a T-shirt and he rocks that J-Crew outfit harder than he does Old Glory.

At this point, I still have mixed feelings, but shit is looking up.  And then we get the war bond bullshit.

Now, the war bond sequence is actually totally fucking awesome and pure Joe Johnston.  But.  It’s fairly long.  Which wouldn’t be a problem, if all the action set pieces were as long as the song and dance number.  This sequence proves how nobody associated with this fucking movie had an idea of proper pacing.  Let’s give the musical shit ample screen time, but let’s really fuck the audience when it comes to showing Captain America in action.

While Cap is in Italy on a tour with the showgirls, he learns that Bucky and his unit have been taken prisoner.  Tommy Lee Jones won’t do shit, so it’s up to Cap to liberate the boys and become something more than a guy who punches Hitler in a T&A revue.

He invades a massive military installation and skulks around undetected with a fucking stars and stripes shield on his back and manages to find the prisoners like the YOU ARE HERE map was right inside the front door.

And HOORAH, Cap saves everyone.  And it was so fucking dull I couldn’t give a shit.

Marvel really does need to get its shit together when creating this whole universe they’re attempting for the Avengers.  Or, how about just trying to keep things straight period, you stupid miserable fucks?  X-Men Origins: Wolverine was on TV tonight and I caught the end of it and I had forgotten the bit about Xavier WALKING off the helicopter as an old man.  Ummm, wasn’t Xavier crippled as a young man in this summer’s X-Men: First Class?  FUCK.  YOU.

And Marvel just steps all over their universe here.  So we get laser guns in 1942.  Lasers guns created by Red Skull and his Hydra unit.  Now I understand this is an alternate reality, but not only are the lasers guns jarring for the time period, they are a technology that doesn’t carry forward in the Avengers universe.  You can only assume the U.S. military would take this idea and develop it.  But do they?  No.  So do we see laser guns in Iron Man or Thor and will we see them in the Avengers?  No.  Why?  Because Marvel doesn’t give a shit about continuity or their fans.  So anyone who loves all these new Marvel movies, and believe me there are assholes who are sucking every Marvel movie dick since Iron Man, you guys are idiot jackoff dupes.  Seriously, crawl up your own asses and die, jerks.

So, where were we?  Oh yeah.  When Rogers returns with the POW’s he finally straps on the official suit.  And it’s about as iconic as an Elvis postage stamp.  There’s no moment of standing in the mirror amazed at what’s looking back.  There’s no swelling music announcing this is Captain Fucking America, bitch.  Jesus, the shit with Rambo strapping on knives, grenades and bandoliers is infinitely more patriotic and rousing than this bullshit.

Not only do we not get an amazing reveal of Rogers in his iconic outfit, but as soon as he dons it we go full montage mode.  These aren’t well thought out, exhilarating set pieces, but shitty cop out ten second scenes of Cap and his team blasting the fuck out of Hydra goons.  Seriously, when do we ever get action scene montages?  Did Indiana Jones ever resort to a montage?  Fuck no.  An action sequence was a fully formed action sequence.  Montages are for romantic comedies and action movie training sequences, not action movie set pieces.  Return of the Jedi juggled THREE simultaneous set pieces without a single montage.  And why?  Because writing has become so goddamn lazy, these fucking hacks of today have absolutely no idea of how to put the hero in peril and have him figure a way out.  So let’s just show him kicking ass in five second clips and voila, it’s gung ho action.  Fuuuuuuuck.

And holy shit sweet mother of baby Jesus, the love story.  Or shall I say the sad sack pathetic fucking excuse of a love story.  Rogers’ and Officer Carter’s relationship is as ill fleshed out as a drawing on a kindergarten wall.  There is no passion, no spark.  It feels like the relationship I have with a bottle of beer.  I love that bottle for five minutes, but when it’s empty I discard the bottle in the bin and piss the hops out of my needle dick and it’s completely forgotten except for the empty carbs going to my fat ass.  Completely.  Empty.

And can we once and for all put an end to that age old fucking cliché of a girl grabbing a guy and kissing him only to have the love interest walk in and witness it?  That shit was once fresh.  Before World FUCKING War II.  They pull that same tired shit here and then the jealous girl snipes at the jealous boy, but the script is so fucking lazy it makes a zero, and I mean a goddamn ZERO attempt at making these two wannabe lovers jealous in the first place.  The whole fondue thing?  Worthless.  Zero. Fucking. Chemistry.

OK folks.  Let’s start to wrap this up.

The ending.  That woeful fucking ending.  After an incredibly inept, disappointing buildup we finally get the confrontation between the ultimate good and the penultimate evil.  Battling aboard an oversized flying wing, Cap and Red Skull throw a few punches and then Skully is defeated by a glowing Rubik’s Cube.  That’s right.  Cap doesn’t put a cap in his ass, but some bullshit that seems to be a crossover from the Thor universe fucks Big Red up.  There’s no knock down, drag out fight between these opponents.  It’s over before it begins.

Remember when the fight between good and evil was epic?  Fuck, it wasn’t even that long ago.  Say what you will about The Phantom Menace, but there is no denying the ass kicking awesomeness of the Darth Maul duel at the end.  “Qui-Gon’s Noble End” aside, the noble end didn’t come after two minutes of swordplay.  I’m not saying that every final confrontation has to have the hero gets the upper hand, villain gets the upper hand, hero regains the upper hand schtick, but for fuck’s sake, put some goddamn drama in that shit.  Have a little back and forth.  Have some fuckin’ thing where fate hangs in the balance and BOOYAH, our boy responds with a left hook that sends the villain to hell.

And therein lies one of my biggest issues with this worthless fucking movie.  There’s no peril.  The Captain is so goddamn invincible that at no point are we ever left wondering “Jesus Christ, how’s he going to get out of this one?!”  Cap is never on his back, bloody and beat to shit, dude is pristine from moment one.  Every hero needs to look like Indiana Jones and John McClane by the end.  A dude who moved heaven and earth to save the world or damsel in distress.  Earn the goddamn victory.  But these fucking writers, they have no idea what a character arc or dark night of the soul is.

Marvel is also so fucking determined to tie all this Avengers shit together, they shoehorn everything they can from the other universes into these new movies.  This is less like its own movie and more like one giant meandering setup.

I don’t fault Johnston for this debacle.  He was just handed a script with zero magic.  And as great looking a movie as this is, you can’t polish a turd.

 

 

Half a fucking fist out of five.

 

 

Comments (47)

  1. Fuck me, you’ve never been more full of shit. If you seriously bitch about the opening shot of headlights in the snow– I’d say you were pretty determined to hate this thing from the start.

    The selection of Steve is indeed simple and innocent…..like almost everything in this film. It’s not some fucking strenuous mental endurance test, it’s just a series of subtle moments that convince Tucci, Steve is the guy. The guy filled out 5 fucking applications to join the military, and when he talks to him he’s filled with the kinda good-hearted nobility they’re looking for. I never got the indication who they selected was SOOOO VITAL. The government didn’t care, they just wanted to test this shit, pump up a random guy and start creating super soldiers. It was only Tucci that realized the importance of selecting a good man. They were probably planning on using this technology on every soldier in the military eventually, until Tucci gets popped and they lose everything.

    So seriously….you’re not bullshitting? You really believe the Hydra spy that infiltrates the facility is “One of the film’s best characters”? For a guy so interested in story, how does this statement make sense? He’s in the film for like 2 minutes. He sets off a bomb then takes off running, then jumps in a car, fires some shots, gets manhandled by Steve a bit, says like 2 lines of dialogue, then kills himself. Sooooo….that constitutes strong character development in your eyes?

    And bitching about the technology in the film…..yeah like you stated, its an alternate world, so what’s the fucking problem? The tech doesn’t carry over into other Marvel films? I don’t give a fuck. Fuck those movies. I came to see Captain America kick some ass, and Big Joe delivered. I couldn’t care less about the way it ties into that awful Avengers garbage. And anyway– you wanna really measure dicks, isn’t the Hydra laser gun tech the exact same look and sound of Iron Man’s repulsors? And wouldn’t that make sense considering his father Howard is all involved in this shit?

    Seriously….

    http://vimeo.com/21858259

    I thought both the action montages and the Peggy romance were some of the film’s greatest strength. The romance in particular is sweet, organic, and evolves naturally. It destroys some shit like the horrid forced chemistry in Green Lantern. Chris and Dunk Tits actually look good together and I totally see a spark there. Also, the tragedy works very well…..its sad that he’ll never get to meet up with her for that date. It could’ve been an epic ending, but the awful awful awful Avengers tie-in fucks that all up. This is suspicious to me, instead of focusing your hatred on that abysmal Avengers bullshit which pretty much fucked up the whole film, you decide to shit on the final CAPS/RED SKULL battle? Maybe it wasn’t as big as you wanted, it was pretty much on par with The Rocketeer scale. And if you claim The Rocketeer finale was bigger you’re full of shit. Overall CAPS, is much larger in scale, but its still pretty intimate. That’s where Johnston works best. It had nothing to do with the writing, on the page they’re not mapping out every single blow and overall length of the climactic action scene. Johnston chose exactly how long and how big he wanted that shit to run and he obviously wanted to keep it fairly small. I like that about him. He’s not always trying to pack 300 CG people into the frame. He keeps the focus on the principals and in the end that’s all that fucking matters. Really– you’re pretending the climax is just Caps and Red Skull in a room for 30 seconds. It’s not– that final bout is only the last section of the climax piece, beginning with the Caps motorcycle chase, then storming the compound and fucking up 50 guys, then fighting his way through the hangar and jumping on Red Skull’s plane…..then the aerial fight, then the hand-to-hand with Red Skull. And RS being destroyed by the power of the cube thing reminded me of The Phantom, I love that shit– when a villain is so consumed by his lust for power he destroys himself.

    You say the main problem with the film is story, but really you’ve failed to illustrate how anything is structurally wrong with the actual story. You say its inept and disappointing– that’s fine. But you were going around acting like there’s major fucking issues with the script, then you simply list a few things you didn’t like…..and come on, bitching about Caps kissing Peggy before he jumps on the plane? REALLY??? I can’t imagine anyone not liking that moment. Really its one of the sweetest, most earned kisses in a big film in a long time. That’s the extent of their relationship. Steve cares about her and carries a little picture of her with him whilst kicking ass, and the one bit of physical connection he gets with his girl is a kiss before he heads to his inevitable icy tomb. That shit is fucking awesome. And I love Rocketeer as much as anyone, but if you’re being honest, the Bill Campbell chemistry with Jennifer Connelly is ice fucking cold. That soulless bitch never once comes off like she gives a fuck about anything but herself. Really, the only glimpse of a human being she lets off is when she’s about to suck Dalton’s dick. I would say this Atwell trout is far better looking and far more likable.

    Overall….Captain America fucking kills. I loved this movie so much….and the Avengers tacked on ending made me want to punch my grandmother’s corpse in the face. GOD DAMN. WAY TO FUCK UP A PERFECTLY GOOD THING. And way to take this awesome world you’ve set up, and awesome relationship with a good looking bitch, and TOMMY LEE FUCKING JONES and NEAL McDONOUGH KICKING ASS WITH A FUCKING 12 GAUGE…..AND THE BEST FUCKING PULPY PERIOD FILM WE’VE SEEN SINCE THE FUCKING PHANTOM…..and say FUCK THIS. LET’S HURRY UP AND CUT ALL THIS COOL SHIT OFF AND GET CAPS TO MODERN DAY!!! Yeah. I couldn’t be more uninterested in The Avengers or the modern day adventures of Captain America. Hopefully– they pull some sneaky shit where Caps is retrieved from the arctic and continues his adventures there in the 40s, and his final resting in the ice doesn’t come until later, because this world Big Joe set up is just too fucking cool.

    Oh yeah– and you didn’t mention the one thing that probably deserved to be shit on HOD…..THE FUCKING SCORE. The independent tracks are garbage, in the film it worked fine because the image really boosted it. But still, it never fully soared as it should have. I stand by earlier statements….SILVESTRI IS A FUCKING HACK. He’s been riding on Back to the Future goodwill for nearly 30 years and produced what….like 3 decent scores since? FUCK HIM.

  2. I have not seen this nor will I for a long time but I have seen the trailers and without a shred of context I need to make this observation. If you’re going to give a person a magical potion called a super soldier serum wouldn’t it be a good idea to administer it to the recruit/s that ran towards the unexploded grenade and threw himself upon it thus saving his squad mates lives instead of the goofs that ran away saving their own?

    In my opinion I would want the guy that thinks about the squad or platoon over the guy that thinks about himself. Just an observation

    • Yeah Xi, and that’s exactly what happens. Tucci recognizes no matter who they give the serum to– they’re gonna get big and strong as fuck, so first and foremost they need an honorable/selfless human being….HOD found this inept for some reason. Heartless fuck.

  3. You would ONLY give the super soldier serum to a guy who was completely selfless since doing so would essentially create a kind-of monster (and you want your Frankenstain superbeast to serve the greater good rather than be a selfish cunt). I assume that’s why he was chosen…his propensity for selflessness.

  4. HOD, how shall I put this gently, um let me think. Okay, here goes: LIES LIES LIES LIES LIES. Captain America is one of the best comic adaptions ever. Sticking to just the Marvel/DC universe I would say the only better adaptations are the first two Superman movies, and a bunch of the Batman movies from both Batman eras. There were a few things I had issues with, but they were minor at best. I was wondering why we never saw Cap’s original shield in the trailer, and the movie answered that. I thought the whole sequence of him being poster boy Captain America was dumb. You don’t kill a program just because one part of it was destroyed. I thought the whole lack of secret identity thing was going to be dumb, but it was handled well. I was miffed before going to the movie that Skull was part of Hydra, not a Nazi, but we see how well that fell into place. Weaving was perfect as he was facing “Miiiiiiister Roger………..Welcome to MY neighborhood.” And Cheetoh nailed it above as to why the 90 pound weakling was given the serum. Steve Rogers was already Captain America. He just needed a lilttle augmentation. That’s all.

  6. I got it. The real HOD is missing. That’s The Red Skull in a HOD mask. The real HOD’s headline would have been “America Fuck Yeah!” even thought it’s been used to death in You Tube mashups.

  7. While I don’t agree, and would easily give the film 2.5 fists, this was a well-written, thoroughly entertaining review. I agree the most on the points re: Cap not being “tried” or beaten up enough. And the final battle with Skull is anticlimactic, esp since we KNOW from the beginning that the bomber is going to crash and leave him trapped under ice like a Metallica song. We learn Skull is just as strong as Cap; he punches a dent in his original shield. But we never get the boxing match we’d hoped for.

    However, I love how they worked in the “original” Cap costume, when he hawked war bonds, and how he casually came by the “A” helmet (the star-spangled girl singer) right off the shelf. I didn’t even know Howard Stark would be in this, but when I first saw the expo I knew it looked familiar. So, Howard musta been what, late 50s when he had Tony? The archive footage we see of Howard in Iron Man 2 was ostensibly shot either during or prior to Stark Expo ’74, and Cap takes place in like, ’42 and Howard’s gotta be at least 30, so….whatever

  8. I agree on the fighting. There were just a few snippets of Cap vs. Skull mano a mano. More fistacuffs would have been great. Like most rich dudes Stark probably spent the first 40 or so years of his life totally encompassed in work with the occasional trip to the wafflehouse before settling down. Now watch, in The Avengers we’ll find out that Mom Stark is Agent Carter, and Cap will look at Tony as the what could have been in his life. The Howling Commandos, even without Fury, and even going PC for having the Fresno Jap in were still a great bunch of guys. Four fists out of five. Fuck yeah.

    • I fucking loved the Howling Commandos…

      I think a second film chronicling their adventures could kick some major fucking ass. Basically a full feature based on that action montage we saw. Who knows how long they were storming through Europe….there’s no real timeline. They could’ve had a series of other adventures dealing with lesser villains.

  9. Well, now I know why I don’t post many reviews here anymore. Disagree with everyone else and you’re wrong. Which is interesting because I happen to think Spider Man 2 is the greatest comic book movie to date while others here think it’s complete shit. Oh well.

    First off, let me address some of the stuff Danny said. I thought the opening was stupid. We didn’t need that modern day opening. Everyone knows Cap is going to end up in the modern day, they explain to him what happened when he wakes up in Times Square, so why do we need that finding him in the ice shit. It should have opened with Red Skull in Norway.

    I wasn’t referring to Tucci’s assassin but Tucci himself. I loved that character and thought Tucci gave him the perfect amount of humanity.

    I wasn’t talking about the kiss before Cap takes off but the kiss with that secretary who pounces on Cap and then Atwell walks in on them and it’s another one of those tired as hell “It wasn’t what you’re thinking” moments. Maybe you guys still enjoy that stuff, but I want to see something fresh and imaginative.

    I never said the “live” field grenade test was bad. It was actually pretty cool. What I said was that they didn’t show enough of the process. This guy is supposed to be a super soldier and that’s going to require more than heart and courage. Show him kicking a little ass on a firing range. Show him becoming handy with a knife. Show him learning battlefield techniques. Show him doing a few more soldierly things and leave no doubt in anyone’s mind he’s the perfect man for the job. After all, he’s going to be fighting Nazis on the field of battle. He needs the proper training.

    And I said I loved the war bond sequence, but considering how they short changed some other important aspects, it went on too long. Had the movie been ten minutes longer, then it could have stayed as is, but as a filmmaker it would have bothered me that we were under developing the romance between Cap and Atwell and the team dynamic between Cap and guys like Dum Dum Dugan.

    And I still hate the montage. It felt like a trailer had been inserted in the middle of the movie. You know what would have been a cooler idea? That super tank Cap destroys in 5 seconds? Instead have him and his team have to work together to bring it down. That not only gives us a thrilling set piece, but we get to meet the men more and see the dynamic develop between them and Cap. But it just came across as lazy writing to me. Cap was never in much peril and he never had to really figure anything out. In Spider Man 2, Parker has to figure out a way to stop the runaway train. Here Cap leaps and bounds and kicks ass in 5 second snippets. Even the sequence on the train in the Alps seemed like it was over before if began.

    Anyway, who cares what I think. I’m just a joyless asshole that isn’t sucking the dick of the movie everyone else is.

    And at the end of the day, this movie and Thor and the Iron Man movies feel like nothing more than a lead up to The Avengers. So excuse me if I have trouble viewing this as a stand alone movie. I just don’t feel like being duped by Marvel who can’t keep a single damn thing straight with regards to continuity.

    • If they showed training it would have slowed the movie down to a crawl. Training, except in a few cases, like HALO jumps, can get mind numbing and boring after the first hour or so. Trainers need to work hard to keep classes and practical exercises moving so the trainees don’t cut corners and learn bad habits. From experience many instructors fail at that. I assume they just montaged most of the training parts like is done in most movies?

    • BROTHER HOD…

      The opening in the snow is the sorta cocktease that we see in lots of stuff. Like what the fuck’s the point of seeing the raptor delivery gone bad at the beginning of Jurassic Park?! Wouldn’t it have been far more thrilling and mysterious if we saw no dinosaur activity whatsoever until Alan sees the Brachiosaurus for the first time– so we’re believing and sharing that experience with HIM? Probably. But The Berg needed to tease the head of the cock a little and get a dribble of precum moistening the audience’s sweatpants. So you open with some mysterious shit in the snow in modern day and they’ve found something…..gee whiz, what can it be? Flash back to 1940-whatever and the audience is wondering…how’s that shit gonna tie in?? You start your review off by saying you know jack shit about comics, and everything you know of Caps is from dork-fucks on the internet, so by that logic every asshole watching Captain America DOESN’T know he’s gonna end up with his dick on ice. The only reason I pointed that out originally was to highlight how it’s sorta absurd to hate the movie literally from the opening frame…..it just felt like you were itching to hate it.

      Tucci I agree on…..he was one of the best characters of the film. He probably died too early. It would’ve been some good gravitas to have Red Skull blow him away in front of Steve, perhaps he could’ve been tied down beside Bucky in the Hydra lab??

      And Steve kissing that random blond hizz and Peggy getting pissed off and all that….it worked perfectly. It wasn’t the typical back-and-forth jealousy shit as you say. They weren’t even together at that point. Nothing had happened yet. She had no real reason to be upset, and that’s what frustrates her. The fact that he can be this throbbing bulked-up piece of cock and he still doesn’t have the balls to spit game. If that’s cliché, then so is every romantic film made for the past 75 years. And if you think the romance is so formulaic and weak in this, what comic book film pulled it off better in your opinion? I know you slurp SPIDER-MAN 2, so do you believe the whole (YOU SAID YOU LOVED ME/I DO/EVEN THOUGH YOU SAID YOU DIDN’T?/YOU DO LOVE ME?/NO) back and forth back and forth soap opera escapades come off more natural than anything in Captain America? REALLY? FUUUUUUUUUCK. That shit was truly eye-rolling. THAT kinda elementary school shit is really fresh and imaginative? The Spider-Man romance was mostly nauseating.

      The live grenade thing….I still don’t get what else you wanted. Training? You wanna see him showing exceptional skills with a gun and shit…why? Who gives a fuck? This was discussed. Tommy Lee’s got a whole crew of able and willing cunt-splitters just waiting to kick some ass. That’s not what it’s about. It’s not about technical military skill….it’s about the inner man. Caps didn’t need training. He just needed a stronger body and the opportunity to fuck shit up. And his actual fighting skill wasn’t some learned thing….I just accepted that fact that it’s not unlike Spider-Man and a million other characters– automatically when they get the super powers, they develop crazy fighting skill. You just have to go with it. You say you want something more imaginative, but then you wish it had a training sequence? Something we’ve seen 5,000 times already in other shit?

      And I know you like everything Joe has done in the past and you’re trying to skirt around blaming him for what you feel are weaknesses in the film. Anything from the lack of training, to the length of the war bonds, to the weak romantic chemistry, to the rushed team dynamic, to the small scale action….that all falls on Joe. He was there working with the writers. He talked about it. He cast the film, he gave it its scale, he blocked the action sequences, he approved the CG, he was there in the editing room. By all accounts he was very involved in the whole process. This wasn’t like a project taken away from him and cut to shit. This is his film through and through, and to me– the innocence of the romance, the intimate scale, the feel good optimism of the era, the not-quite-so-villainous villains….it’s classic Joe. I don’t see how you can like The Rocketeer and not love this. They’re basically companion films.

    • Xiphos…

      There’s just a few minutes of very basic training, crawling and running, shit like that….

      HOD is pointing out that Steve Rogers never exhibits any sort of special ability that would really make him stand out. I just see it differently. This has nothing to do with that. Tucci tells Tommy Lee something like ‘You have plenty of good soldiers, I’m looking for a good man’. He recognizes the serum will fill in any skills and strengths he may need….it’s all about the heart and THE MOTHERFUCKING PATRIOTISM.

    • OK, let me clear up one more thing. I really have a problem with love interests in superhero films. That shit in Spiderman really rubs me the wrong way. Not only was Dunst catastrophically miscast but that romance was crap. Romances never work because the love interests are always such selfish unsufferable cunts. They never understand what are hero is going though and always give him a hard time. I’ll take some shit for this comment too but the only film I thought it worked in was Hulk. I really thought Betty loved Bruce unconditionally. Outside of that I just ignore the romantic aspects of Spiderman or X-Men when I watch them because those are the worst parts of those movies. Those first two Blade movies dispensed with that shit and they were all the better for it.

    • The romance in Ang Hulk was solid as fuck, I agree….

      But don’t you like seriously love Spiderman 2? I don’t see how you can not like that romance and still love the movie. Honestly like 50% of the fucking screentime is dedicted to it. It has far more forced sappy bullshit than the first film.

    • Totally, Spiderman 2 is my all time favorite superhero movie. And yes, it does have it’s faults.

      But in case you forgot, I actually got you to admit last year that there were things not perfect with Inception. But you were willing to overlook them because you thought the entire presentation was so magnificent, any irregularities were irrelevant.

      Well, that’s the way I feel about SM2. Everything outside of the relationship is pure magic to me. And there were a few things about the relationship that worked, like when Peter finally gives up being Spidey and allows himself to enjoy life. I thought there were a couple sequences there that were really sweet.

      But the stuff with him and Doc Ock? Yeah, to me that was Star Wars and Indiana Jones level magic.

  10. No HOD, it’s okay to disagree. You hated it, that’s your business. I loved it. That’s my business. We can agree to disagree, and give into some light hearted kidding. We’re professionals, not AICN trolls. You’re right though, Tucci was awesome. I thought finding Cap in the ice was a nice way to remain faithful to the comic, and give an intro to The Avengers. I don’t think Thor and Iron Man two were just brief leads to it. I think they were good movies in their own right, although Iron Man 2 just was not as good as the first. My problem with that, my big problem is that if you’re CEO of a company you DO NOT let the competition bring their product, and show them off at your expo.

  11. Okay, so darn my short attention span but I’ve finally gotten to read HOD’s entire review. I dont’ disagree he has a few valid points. However as I said earlier I don’t think any of the issues I had, and even the ones HOD pointed out detract from the movie that much although he disagrees, and that’s okay. The war bonds schtick, while a good way to intro the old suit, was long. Yes, more hand to hand action. As to why there’s no lasers in the future it’s simple. Either they were all destroyed, or they had to be recharged by the Cosmic Cube which went bye bye to the depths of the artic.

    • Danny pointed out something I didn’t think of. Stark finds the cube while he’s looking for Cap and probably uses it for his future technology. I’m guessing it’s the basis for the arc reactor.

      I would have appreciated a little explanation as to the origins of the cube, even if it was hackneyed nonsense like the All Spark in Transformers.

      And I don’t have a problem with lasers in the past. It’s just after the Wolverine/First Class screw up, it seems Marvel doesn’t give a damn about continuity. If the Captain America series was it’s own universe I’m 100% with it. But they are making that universe the same as Thor and Iron Man and the Hulk and none of that technology (lasers, hover cars, a very futuristic New York skyline) makes it into the future. To me that’s just disrespectful to the fans. I’m not a real comic book junkie but if I was I’m be pissed that Marvel was taking me for a fool.

    • Dude if you’re going to get bent over continuity problems in a funny book movie stay away from the comic strips they are anti continuity they love to retool, reboot and retcon sometimes on the same page.

  12. Well you see that Stark’s car tanked. I’ll be honest I didn’t notice the skyline. But what I really wanted to see was Dum Dum Dugan in a bar fight.

    • I know the car fails to perform as expected but that technology does exist in the early 40’s in this universe Marvel is creating. So really, after being improved upon, by the time they reach modern age in this universe we should be radically ahead. We don’t have the technology now to make a car hover for 5 seconds, so imagine where we’d we be if it existed 70 years ago.

      Anyway, I’m done with talking about Marvel. I really did like Thor but it seems that entry was out of the ordinary as it’s been years since I’ve enjoyed one of their films.

      And going forward it looks like it’s going to get worse.

  13. Oh, and another think that’s what pissed me off about Hulk. His origin was his real Dad doing some stupid genetic crap, instead of the Gamma Bomb. Now that was a movie that seriously pissed me off in the first five minutes.

  14. I did enjoy the dig on Indy with Skull talking about Hitler looking for “trinkets in the desert.” They never did get the Cap formula reverse engineered. That’s how Man-Thing came about.

  16. How’s this stack up against The Phantom, The Shadow, Dick Tracy and The Rocketeer? I won’t catch this in theatres but I might check it out on video and marathon it with those other 4.

    • Nothing can truly stack up against the golden trifecta: The Rocketeer, The Phantom, and The Shadow…

      It’s good, but fuck….those are three of my all time favorites.

      I have a feeling, like almost all Marvel fillms, in a few years it’ll feel barely worth revisiting. I think The Avengers tie-in will hurt it a lot in the long run.

      I haven’t seen Dick Tracy in awhile, I gotta revisit it.

      But fuck everything else right now, I’m smoking whilst bumping this magic…

      http://youtu.be/08UU3Z-371w

    • I was talking to HOD about this the other night…..outta those three, The Shadow is seen as a lesser film because its not as sweet and adventurous. It’s a pretty mean film and Lamont is all business. You root for him to kick some fucking ass but you don’t really like him. But photography, score, production design, action….that movie is fucking solid. They’re all too close. I like each of them for different reasons. The Rocketeer is probably my favorite but I now recognize Connelly has the heart of a mortician. And Rocketeer score is a little more listenable on its own because its so dame sweet and nostalgic…..but this shit is pretty fucking unstoppable….

      http://youtu.be/cE68oB02wbs

    • Yeah it’s weird how we’re supposed to empathize with Lamont after he’s shown being this warlord scumbag in the beginning threatening poor James Hong. Also John Lone is definitely the worst villain out of the bunch. Not fit to suck on Treat Williams’ hip scar.

    • If you’re gonna make comparisons go pure YELLOW.

      SHIWAN KHAN

      VS

      SHANG TSUNG

      I though Lone was great. He was by far the most menacing of the bunch. But again, I think he played it a bit too straight for that kind of picture. He’s mean as fuck, but that sorta world demands a little bit of quirk from the villain. To counter Treat’s goofiness, I think it would’ve made it more memorable if Phantom/Shadow swapped Lore for Tagawa. Of course I’m just talking minor adjustments to elevate greatness to near perfection.

    • While I love The Shadow and The Phantom, for me Dick Tracy and The Rocketeer are superior movies to just about any of those 40’s themed, funny book, magical movies, with The Rocketeer being the absolute cream of the crop.

      Timothy Dalton is a pretty killer bad guy, the score is one of Horner’s best, Arkin and Campbell are terrific together and every time Campbell straps on the jetpack it’s probably the most magical moments of any superhero movie.

      And Dick Tracy? No movie will ever look that sumptuous again.

  19. New rankings!!!

    1. The Rocketeer
    2. The Phantom
    3. Captain America
    4. Dick Tracy
    5. The Shadow
    6. Eating a bag of shit
    7. Watching every female of my family be raped
    8. Cowboys and Aliens

  20. Also I’d be lying if I said the Avengers teaser after the end credits didn’t get me totally hard. It looks like it’ll be a blast. Thor’s tight fitting blue shirt was the best part.

  22. I do agree that Marvel has no idea how to make an epic final battle, nor memorable villain, I’d say this was the best. While I really enjoyed Thor’s bad guy’s rise to evil the final battle was a huge let down, this final battle was better but yet a little bit of a let down.

    I think this comes down to this force push to get these things made so fucking fast without any real vision pushing them forward, a lot of the shots in Captain seemed like amateur hour. Like Lucas set up Darth very nicely and gave him some epic shots, we got nothing of that with Red Skull. But i’m not upset about it, but its like danny said I’ll probably never watch this movie again because of it.

Leave a Reply