CAPTAIN AMERICA: The Film Babble Blog Review

CAPTAIN AMERICA: THE FIRST AVENGER (Dir. Joe Johnston, 2011)

Although I am not a comic book guy, I have more and more been developing an admiration for how Marvel has been expanding their movie universe.



Now Captain America joins Iron Man, Thor, and the Hulk, in this surprisingly solid summer super hero movie that just might be the best of the bunch so far.



Much like the recent X-MEN: FIRST CLASS, this is an origin story crossed with an alternate history scenario, and also like that film, it largely works.



Here our hero played by Chris Evans, who we first meet convincingly CGI-ed as a scrawny runt constantly rejected by the military, gets genetically modified into a tall muscular super soldier for action in World War II by a German scientist (Stanley Tucci).



The villain, the intense Hugo Weaving as a Nazi official with a sinister secret, is planning on destroying the United States with his HYDRA terrorist organization ("Hail, HYDRA!"), and, of course, it's up to Captain America with the help of love interest Hayley Atwell, best friend Sebastian Stan, and the always reliably gruff Tommy Lee Jones as a stern army Colonel to stop the looming wave of world domination.



Weaving, especially after being revealed as Red Skull (not sure I want to try to explain that), appears to be having a blast with his scenery-chewing-and-spitting out prowess, and his treatment of Toby Jones as a beleagured Nazi chemist/lackey is terrifically savage stuff.



The star-spangled man with a plan (as Jones calls Evans) is as engaging as he is unshakable in fight scene afer fight scene. Evans mostly acts with a stoical demeanor, but its not without humor.



There's a satisfying use of circular dialogue throughout in which key lines are effectively repeated, and Evans holds his own with the exceedingly capable cast.



Director Johnston handles with film's aesthetics, at times metallic; at times grimy, beautifully, with all the gravitas that GREEN LANTERN was so sorely missing, and he sets a sturdy tone that takes itself just seriously enough.



There were some pacing problems here and there, and Alan Silvestri's generic action movie score was a bit intrusive, but since CAPTAIN AMERICA is such a smart and ginormously entertaining mainstream Marvel movie, I feel like a heel complaining.



As for the Marvel Universe aspect, you can always expect cameos from franchise characters such as Iron Man's dad Howard Stark (this time played by Dominic Cooper), and Samuel Jackson as Nick Fury (that can't be a SPOILER! right? I mean, he's in all of these films).



You can also expect the traditional Stan Lee cameo, and more importantly, the after-the-credits scene which here doubles as a teaser trailer for next summer's THE AVENGERS which, as you probably know, assembles several of their super hero strands into one big ass Marvel movie event package.



Here's hoping that will be as solid and super as this is.

More later...

NO COUNTRY FOR OLD MEN Enters The Classic Coen Bros. Canon - Just Don't Call It A Comeback

Cormac McCarthy: MILLER'S CROSSING is in that category. I don't want to embarrass you, but that's just a very, very fine movie.

Joel Coen: Eh, it's just a damn rip-off.

- Time Magazine Oct. 18th, 2007 (A Conversation Between Author Cormac McCarthy And The Coen Brothers)

It has been a while since Joel and Ethan Coen unleashed a movie that really made an impact. Their last offerings - THE LADYKILLERS (2004), INTOLERABLE CRUELTY (2003), and a personal favorite of mine - THE MAN WHO WASN'T THERE (2001) all had their fair share of merits and moments but you'd have to reach back to O BROTHER WHERE ART THOU (2000) to cite any serious seismic blip on the pop culture radar. Even during this supposed down-time they never had a critically lambasted failure or did anything resembling "jumping the shark" so the held belief was they would check in with another masterpiece someday in the future. Well the day has now come with the instant classic that is:

NO COUNTRY FOR OLD MEN (Dirs. Joel Coen & Ethan Coen, 2007)

A more faithful adaptation of Cormac McCarthy's 2005 novel could not be imagined. There are a few transitional dialogue and setting embellishments but the bulk of this film is directly, word for word, from the brilliant book. In the vast plains of Rio Grande, Texas in 1980, Josh Brolin plays Llewelyn Moss - a poor Vietnam vet who one day when out hunting antelopes comes across a slew of dead bodies, a large surplus of heroin, and a satchel containing over 2 million dollars. He takes the satchel and returns to his wife (Kelly Macdonald) at his trailer park home but wakes in the middle of the night with what he himself recognizes as a "dumber than Hell" compulsion to return to the crime scene. Soon to be on his trail is what can only be described as a completely evil man - Chigurh (Javier Bardem). With an odd Prince Valiant-style haircut and a never ceasing confidence, Chigurh uses a cattle gun to kill just about anyone who gets in his way throughout the film (usually through the forehead) and it also comes in handy to blow out door locks. "What is this guy supposed to be, the ultimate bad-ass?" - Moss even asks Carson Wells (a smooth Woody Harrelson) - yet another man on the trail of the money.

As Sherriff Bell and a sort of narrator in his grizzled though still whimsical monologues Tommy Lee Jones tries to make sense of these new violent times. He never appears surprised by each new bloody development - he takes it all in with a jaded shrugging sigh. Though many of the stylistic devices have been used and reused by the Coen Brothers before (the roadside murders, the seedy hotels, etc.) amidst the shoot-outs, chases and scary darkness there are waves of fresh subtleties that they hadn't explored before. The quirky everyday folk that reside in little general stores out in the middle of nowhere might have provoked ridicule before in such Coen classics as RAISING ARIZONA, FARGO, and O BROTHER but this time out I found the audience around me were tittering around - almost afraid to laugh at these people. Like Chigurh - who one character refers to as a man "without a sense of humor" seems to know all too well is that their fates, whether by his hands or by natural destiny, aren't that funny.

More later...