Captain America: The First Avenger

Sometimes you see a movie that makes you forget what the point of the medium is. Are people actually trying to tell stories? Or do they only ever get made to make money. It's probably somewhere in the middle for everything, and of course certain films have more artistic purpose to them than others. At first, this whole Marvel project leading up to next year's The Avengers was exciting, and it didn't interfere much with the movies themselves. Iron Man and The Incredible Hulk were pretty much regular super hero movies, which happened to include a scene teasing the eventual conclusion of the undertaking. Last year with Iron Man 2 though, the Avengers subplot grew visibly, leading some to think the movie was overstuffed and aimless (I still liked it). And this year with Thor and now Captain America, we're actually seeing hints of what the plot might actually be about, as the project threatens to wipe out any individual accomplishments of the other movies by themselves. Captain America's whole plot was probably adversely affected by The Avengers, as they had to turn Steve Rogers into a superhuman, get him through the war, and then have him wake up in the modern day within two hours. When all is said and done, will this whole thing actually be looked back on as a major triumph of long-term genre filmmaking? Or is just a way to make a lot of money, as you hype up a big event film and then hook people into buying tickets for a bunch of other movies in the lead up to it?

The real question though, is whether people care. I don't think I do. I think most people today are content to have their summer action movies be loud and colorful, and as far as that kind of movie goes, Captain America is more than adequate. It's not perfect, but I enjoyed myself while I was watching it about as much as most big action movies I've seen, assuming we aren't talking about ones with actual inspiration and creative intent behind them. And that's totally fine. Joe Johnston hasn't had the most distinguished career, but he knows what he's doing, and he manages to shoot this film with a nice traditional style and keep the action mostly coherent without an over-reliance on special effects (though things like Chris Evans' face on a scrawny body or him running with super speed sometimes definitely look silly). Evans is totally adequate as Rogers, both as a nobody and as a hero. The problem here is that Evans' best asset is that he's charming, and his character isn't really allowed to be. He's awkward and duty-driven and righteous. I still think he's likable enough to hang a movie on though, especially when the supporting cast is as helpful as this one.

As always, Hugo Weaving does an excellent job in a genre role, playing the villainous Red Skull with a solid German accent and a real menage. Tommy Lee Jones' character is sort of a standard gruff military leader, but he's Tommy Lee Jones and the part works out really well. I especially liked his interrogation scene. A couple TV actors who have done solid work there get a bit of big screen time here, including Hayley Atwell, who's a good romantic foil for Evans and has a look that fits in with the image of beauty for the period, and Sebastian Stan who brings life to Bucky Barnes in an enjoyable way. Stanley Tucci is a lot of fun in a few brief scenes as the inventor of the super serum, and I just loved the image of Neal McDonough with a big mustache and a shotgun as Dum Dum Dugan. Put it all together and you have a nice, brisk World War II movie, which happens to feature a legendary cube of immeasurable power, anachronistically powerful technology, and a guy running around with the world's best shield.

The biggest issue I had with the film is that the structure of the story feels wrong. It's not a huge deal because it's just a popcorn flick and most of the individual scenes hold together well, but it's definitely noticeable. Not every story has to adhere to the standard three act structure, of course, but if they don't the structure they use instead should be clear. The problem with Captain America is that it still seems like a three act movie, it just forgot the second one. It takes a long time for Steve Rogers to become the man we know. First he has to be given a chance to join the military, then he has to be selected for the super serum test, then he has to prove he can be a soldier with it, and then he has to establish a goal for the rest of the film. Meanwhile, we're also setting up the Red Skull and what his goal is to win the war. This is all stuff that the film tries to stuff into what should be the first act, and it takes over an hour. By the time it's all done, the script seems to realize there isn't time to tell a proper story, so they stuff a lot of implied action into a slick but unsatisfying montage, and then proceed quickly to the proper third act. It's just sort of sloppy.

I think if less time was spent between Steve getting his powers and proving his worth as a soldier, things would have been smoother. There's this whole section where he's being used for propaganda which is amusing on its own, but drags down the pace of the story in retrospect. It wouldn't have taken that much to fix the whole thing, which makes the problem kind of irritating, but like I said, being as the film only really exists to pump people up for The Avengers and sell tickets, it's not a major one. I just wonder what a Captain America movie that existed only for itself would have been like, because I think there's plenty of potential for one. I'm curious if all the planned post-Avengers sequels will be allowed to do their own thing, or if they'll just be serving to build up a sequel to The Avengers itself.

Scott Pilgrim Vs. the World

By the time I saw this movie my Scott Pilgrim fandom had waned slightly, not because of anything in particular, but just because the novelty had worn off a bit. Still, it's a very entertaining property, and Edgar Wright managed to strike a perfect balance between faithfully bringing Bryan Lee O'Malley's unique vision to the screen while changing enough to keep it fresh. I think the books and the movie both have their own strengths, the comics obviously have more time to spend developing secondary characters and the setting whereas the movie rushes through that a bit, but it also helps towards the end where it builds to a natural climax and exciting conclusion instead of the weird vibe I got from the final volume. It's a good companion to the books, and also stands well enough on its own for someone who's never read them to still enjoy the heck out of it, even if some of the background comes off as shallow.

Visually, it's one of the most kinetic and unique things I've ever seen. Wright is constantly playing with reality, having scenes warp and distort to fit the mood, and the editing is intensely in tune with whatever is being seen or heard. It calls a lot of attention to itself, but it works for the type of story it is, frantically racing from scene to scene, musical performance to martial arts fight, and it creates an atmosphere of giddy energy. All of the bands sound pretty much how they should, and the use of music to accentuate the mood or a fight (or even be a fight itself in one instance) is effective. There's also a ton of video game crap all over the place, tons of borrowed sound effects and musical cues and a few visual elements that pull you into the strange version of Toronto the film is creating and are also a nice bonus activity for nerds to spend their time identifying. The movie is primarily a comedy, and it's very funny, but what's impressive is how well the action works. The movie combines the weird gaming sensibility with some genuinely entertaining fight choreography, and while the stunt doubling is occasionally obvious, they're still very well produced scenes and I'm confident in saying they're actually the best action scenes I've seen this year. Fast, exciting, and you can actually see what's going on the entire time. It's an impressive feat.

The movie also works because almost everyone is right for their parts. Michael Cera actually doesn't fit how I pictured Scott Pilgrim acting in real life, as he's usually much closer to his completely awkward and shy persona. But that version of Scott manages to work in Wright's film, and he's surrounded by a pretty great supporting cast. A lot of the faces are recognizable elsewhere, as they pretty much got as many hot young people with talent that they could find. The evil exes in particular stand out, the twins are pretty much gone before they can do anything, but Matthew Patel is extremely weird, and the other actors who I actually know all do good jobs. Thomas Jane as a member of the vegan police was a bizarre but welcome cameo, and Bill Hader has a great narrator's voice. Kieran Culkin is a standout among Scott's friends as his awesome gay roommate Wallace. It might have been a good idea to tidy up the parade of Scott's acquaintances and merge a few parts just to make it easier to keep so many minor characters straight, because I'm not sure how manageable that is without prior knowledge. Still, it was fun seeing everyone so well realized in live action form. Not my favorite movie this year but certainly one of the most fun, and it continues to show how much skill Edgar Wright has with putting pure joy on film.

Fantastic Four: Rise of the Silver Surfer

Much like the first Fantastic Four movie, Rise of the Silver Surfer isn't aggressively terrible. It's just dull and doesn't seem to have its priorities in order. For a brief, 90 minute movie, way too much time is spent just dealing with these characters that I don't think anyone is that attached to. I don't mean the four themselves, I mean these actors' renditions of them. Michael Chiklis is hammy enough as The Thing and Chris Evans has a bit of charisma as Johnny Storm, but Jessica Alba is just totally out of place as someone like Sue, I still can't even remember the guy who plays Reed, and none of them have any real chemistry together. The movie's supposed to be about the biggest threat the world has ever seen in the form of a powerful presence that is coming to literally eat the planet, but it seems like half the movie is about how hard they can try to make us laugh with and like these characters. Ben's still with his blind girlfriend! The Human Torch is often outrageous! Uh oh, Reed and Sue's wedding was interrupted at the last possible second by a world changing destructive phenomenon!

There's just too much time dedicated to humor that falls flat and character drama no one cares about for the real issues to get their due attention, which leaves them feeling weightless and unimportant. It doesn't matter how much money you pour into animating your scary cloud Galactus (I actually don't have too much of an issue with this design decision because if they did what he really looks like it would come off as ludicrous), it still hardly registers as a threat. Of course Victor Von Doom is back and causing trouble, which does little other than add twenty minutes to a film that seemed to desperately need it. Of course they thought the Silver Surfer was important enough to put in the title so he must be important... and he sort of is I guess. He's the thing they chase after for pretty much the whole movie, and really the only thing keeping it from being totally lifeless. Doug Jones provides his body (seemingly pointlessly) and Larry Fishburne provides his voice (less pointlessly I suppose), and the whole film sort of rests on his shoulders. He's a somewhat interesting presence, although it's one that's handcuffed by some of the lazy plotting in the script that doesn't let him do a whole lot. Just like the first movie, there's a strange lack of action, with only a couple scenes that even approach being describable as exciting, and maybe one actual fight. If there's one thing I don't understand about these two movies its their total failure to actually have action in them. Lots of super hero movies seem to have this problem actually, even the good ones, but when you don't really have anything else, it's pretty disappointing when you can hardly even deliver on that front. So like its predecessor, this film is a well-meaning but disappointingly boring and unremarkable failure.