Captain America: Cracking Red Skulls and Inspiring Patriots Since 1941
As the credits rolled the entire audience sat transfixed, speechless, hoping there was more. They didn’t want it to end.
Courage, unashamed and unspoken patriotism, honor, duty, the willingness to do what needs to be done, decency, true love, self-sacrifice — these are the essential elements of this movie — not a “film” and certainly not “cinema,” but a movie in the grand tradition of unabashedly American entertainment.
Captain America: The First Avenger is not a movie for those who see America as just one of many nations. It is not for people who disdain self-reliance and put their faith in the benevolence of the nanny state. There is no self-loathing, no appeasement, no abandonment of allies, no doubt about the nature of good or evil. There is refreshing clarity of the kind most recently seen in Battle: Los Angeles where American troops were depicted as good and noble men and women who prevail because they are willing to do what is necessary, even to make the ultimate sacrifice that others might live.
For those who grew up on Marvel Comics the story of Captain America is familiar. A secret serum will maximize human abilities, but there is a catch: the drug makes the good very good and the bad very bad. The first man chosen for the experiment must be very good, and Steve Rogers, who has been turned down five times for service in World War II, is very good indeed. The results: Rogers morphs into a super soldier with superhuman strength and reflexes. The special effects that allow the viewer to see Chris Evans as the stereotypical 90-pound weakling transformed into a superhero are particularly effective, as are the effects used throughout the movie, which assist in telling the story rather than becoming it.
Notably absent from this movie is the kind of whining, maximum-volume ballads that play over various brooding characters as they go about their gloomy, oh-so-sensitive, and conflicted lives. The score by Alan Silvestri does what good movie scores should do: accent and enhance the action and mood without overpowering or annoying.
On target and succinct. Easily the best super hero movie of the season. Thank you for your service.
Well i reckon I’ll have to bypass my self imposed ban on going to overpriced first run movies and go see this one. But Sam Jackson as Nick Fury, hmmm, my comic book memories recall him as a white dude.
In recent years Marvel came out with their “Ultimate” universe which reimagined their characters according to modern sensibilities. Ultimate Nick Fury was based on Samuel L. Jackson.
The new Spiderman is black too.
But Sam Jackson is a tough em-effer, baby. Certainly he’s tough enough to play Nick Fury.
Loved this movie & loved this review. I am a little disappointed that it appears to be trending down already in BO revenue. This was the one of the best summer pics (and Marvel movies) I have ever seen.
I was particularly pleased that the Howling Commandos showed up in the movie. When I first discovered the world of Marvel, Sgt. Fury and the Howling Commandos was a particular favorite of mine. And while I love Samuel L. Jackson, he’s just not Nick Fury.
Well, we could always get David Hasselhoff to play him again.
“Courage, unashamed and unspoken patriotism, honor, duty, the willingness to do what needs to be done, decency, true love, self-sacrifice — these are the essential elements of this movie — not a “film” and certainly not “cinema,” but a movie in the grand tradition of unabashedly American entertainment.”
Sounds a lot like a classic John Wayne movie. And boy, could we use a lot more John Wayne movies today. I’m feeling more and more like this is the late 1970s, with Carter in the White House. The country really needs both movies AND a new Ronald Reagan to bring us out of this funk induced by one of the worst liberals ever elected to the presidency. We have the movie, now all we need is the new Ronald Reagan. The time is now and it will be so. He or she will come to save us from this nightmare caused by progressives gone wild in our government. And like Reagan, that person will bring us a new day, one filled with American exceptionalism. 2012 is coming. Time to make it happen again.
Good review but you probably misunderstood the audience at the end. After the credits, Marvel added a bonus scene and preview for The Avengers movie. This heavily promoted Easter egg probably explains the crowd staying seated more than overwhelming patriotism.
Every party needs a pooper, that’s why we invited you, party pooper, party pooper!!
Well, ya gotta understand. Even the Left feels comfortable with Nazi bashing, because the Nazis were clearly the Bad Guys. Never mind that the Nazis were indeed The Left of the 1940′s,and today’s Left have adopted many of their tactics. Bill Clinton even whined about how FDR had a really great war to fight and he had nothing comparable.
And WWII is far enough back that the 60′s residue of today were not given the opportunity to burn their draft cards and wave Nazi flags in the streets. They would have; you can bet on that. When I was college in 1970 – and in uniform there, by the way, – I heard students saying how they would never have fought in WWII.
From the perspective of today’s Left all the men who fought WWII were superheroes. They must have been, because what they did and how they did it overshadows the Left so much today.
The most poignant thing to me (and I hope it’s something that is going to be in the next Avengers movie) is that Steve/Cap essentially fell asleep when we were the good guys, fighting a war against evil, and the outcome was in no way certain. “The next morning” (for him!) he wakes up to an America that has changed, though the bones of the buidlings and streets he knew are still there. But the biggest change is in our attitudes. Faced with an evil *just* as bent on our destruction, and the destruction of our allies, our enemies have succeeded in their mind games with our population. People either don’t believe America is good, or are afraid to say so because it will cost them their jobs, or their position in socieity. Poor Cap! The war was won, but the enemies have taken over! They have made America-bashing into an art form, and anything else is to be ridiculed. To the point that, real-world, some countries aren’t even calling him “Captain **America**” when they show the movie! The enemy is among us, and it is to weep.
When I was a kid I loved the Marvel reprints of the old Captain America vs. Red Skull storylines. Now THAT was what I call a villain. The Skull had no redeeming features and no ennobling backstory. He was pure evil and mostly just for the fun of it. When they brought Cap and the Red Skull back in the mid-1960′s it was almost as good particularly if Jack Kirby was drawing the book. During the 1970′s Cap started to go soft but the Red Skull never did.
Yes, Captain America!!!! however, is it just a ploy to ease into the sale of the new creature which has been developed from the squashed Spider Man? The big goofy foot of the goof who took over Marvel has squashed Spider Man and put in a half black half hispanic to be the “hero” – - like who will the readers identify in real life as half black half hispanic heros? Names, please. We all know the white heros who could be Spiderman, we know them by their heroic everyday lives that shine in our society. Where and who are the halfblack halfhispanic heros in real life and what is their claim to hero fame? NADA. So, clearly the guy who sat his rear in the driver’s seat at Marvel is just another one of the same ol’ same ol’ gang of people who worm into good jobs and destroy everything they can. To H with him, and their trickery.
I loved the movie, & it reminded me of the time before the liberal angst about how basically evil we must be. Some of the younger people I know were perplexed by how ‘cheesy’ it looked to them, but I remember a time when it was all right to be proud to be an American, to believe that, yes, there is such a thing as American exceptionalism, & we celebrated our success against the evil in the world. We still can, but we must through off this mood of prevailing doom that the Left has thrown over us since the mid-60s. We saw a glimmer of that hope with Reagan, & I hope that the producers continue that hope through the upcoming Marvel movies in the series. And please, eliminate that Democrat Superman who wanted to renounce his American citizenship.