As many of you know, this past weekend I spent my time doing my big move from Los Angeles to San Diego. Between the packing of the U-haul and the wiping of the brow from all the heavy lifting, I didn’t have time to get to the theater to catch the last of the summer superhero themed blockbusters: Captain America. But after asking everyone on facebook if I should hurry out to the theaters to catch this cinematic marvel, I decided that unwrapping my bed from the bubble wrap could wait. To the theater!
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And just in case I do spoil something, SPOILER WARNING!
Now, as I’m sure many of you know, a high bar was set in terms of Captain America movies. There have been three previously, with two done in the seventies and one in 1990. And if you missed them, SyFy was good enough to have a marathon of them on Friday night. Lucky for me I’ve actually already seen the 1990’s one and, being a good little nerd girl, I’ve even seen the Dolph Lungren debacle Punisher movie from around the same time period.
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I had never even heard of the 1970’s sequel Captain America II: Death Too Soon starring Reb Brown. <sarcasm> Fortunately for me, I was able to catch about 15 minutes of it between throwing my fine china and Star Trek teddy bears into cardboard boxes. And I gotta say, Chris Evans had a pretty tough job beating it. Captain America throws his motorcycle on top of a prison wall but can’t defeat a pack of what looks like SPCA rejects? Phew! So tough! </sarcasm>
If you’ve read any of my blog posts before, you’ll know that my brother serves in the USMC. Going in I was curious about how they were going to portray why Steve wanted to fight, how he was going to get into the program and how he would see himself during the whole run up to becoming the bad ass Cap that we all know and love. And I gotta say, they nailed it. As opposed to the 1990’s movie version, or even the comic book, where it’s just kind of a given that he’s getting all geared up to fight, this one takes a much longer route and shows just how much the character of Steve Rogers wants to serve his country. There were times when I actually started to get genuinely verklempt. Chris Evans played the role so perfectly of the scrawny little guy that doesn’t want to pick a fight persay, he just “doesn’t like a bully.” It really is heartwarming for a girl who’s brother is in the military. If I were to pick a part that really got me, it’s when he jumped on the grenade in training. The others guys always treated him harshly, but he was willing to die for them. How many of the rest of us can say the same?
Overall, as just an action film is was pretty damn awesome. In the land of over-choreographed fight scenes in movies where every minor character seems to know as much martial arts as a human-turned-vampire in Buffy: The Vampire Slayer, it was really cool to see the Cap do it more old school 1940’s style. Just kicking, punching, shooting and flinging that shield like he was born to do it. No huge martial arts training from some guy that was smuggled out of China to teach him the wise ways of kicking ass Asia-style, just good old fashioned brawling of the period. *LIKE*
I’d like to say there was something wrong with this movie, but honestly, for an origin film I can’t find anything wrong with it. Being a big Marvel girl, I know a fair amount about Captain America. So I already knew how the film was going to end, which is a bit of a different experience compared to all the other super hero films that have been coming out this summer. Since The Avengers is coming out next summer, Cap has got to get frozen in the Arctic. Not that it was a huge deal, but it just gave me this lurking creepy feeling during the film. Maybe I’m alone in this, just saying.
But is that enough to keep me from the theaters? Hell no.
And don’t forget to wait for the special action at the end. It’s way more involved than the previous tidbits we get at the end of all the other films.
Five out of Five Sci-Fives!
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