Friday, July 29, 2011

Jason watches CAPTAIN AMERICA: THE FIRST AVENGER

And I left right after the teaser trailer for THE AVENGERS.

Ha ha, of course the joke is that THE AVENGERS trailer is right after the end credits for CAPTAIN AMERICA.

It's a fun, patriotic action romp, Chris Evans is compelling both as scrawny Steve Rogers, 4F'd five times, and as the super-serum enhanced Captain America. In a nice twist, the army (in the person of Tommy Lee Jones as Col. Philips) isn't ready to use one super soldier to fight a war, but they love him as a recruiting tool. So even when he's super strong at first he tours the country in a ridiculous outfit selling war bonds (and, in a move that I think makes the world fold upon itself, Captain America comic books), which makes him an even bigger joke to the troops. In fact, he has to go AWOL to save his best friend Bucky Barnes (Sebastian Stan) and about 100 other soldiers. And only then does the army recognize what they have and lets him put together the stereotypical rag-tag team of fighters to go take on Hydra.

Oh yeah, the villains aren't just Nazis, they're a renegade group of Nazis aiming even higher than Hitler's goals. They're led by Johann Schmidt aka Red Skull, the recipient of an earlier version of the super serum which enhanced not just his muscles but his psychosis. Hugo Weaving does as excellently as I've come to expect from him, playing Red Skull with the right amount of evil glee.

And that's that, it's a fun movie. And as much as there are a few lines about him being a soldier for the whole world (I don't want to kill anyone, I just hate bullies whoever they are), he is a quintessentially American hero, and that patriotism felt really good.

Running Time: 124 minutes
My Total Minutes: 245,444

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