Captain America: The Winter Soldier - Cap Is Back!

I have thought all weekend, trying to figure think of something I didn’t like about “Captain America: The Winter Soldier” (hereafter referred to as Cap 2).  I was mostly unsuccessful.  And considering that it took me so long to come up with anything at all, that tells me that my gripes really didn’t matter to my enjoyment of the film.

First off, the things that were great:  the action, the characters, the costumes, the story, the pace, and the aesthetics of the end credits.  In short, everything.

There was a lot of action in this movie.  I hope that’s not news.  Lots of hand-to-hand combat.  A few car chases.  A decent number of explosions.  Some shooting.  And, of course, Cap’s shield flying and ricocheting all over the place.  Several different fighting styles were exhibited, all of which were very cool to watch.  I have to say that, compared with the first movie (hereafter referred to as Cap 1), the action in Cap 2 was a step up.

One of the things that was great about Cap 1 was that the fighting styles were fairly conventional—true to the era in which it took place.  Of course, Captain America and the Red Skull, as super soldiers, were stronger and faster than normal men.  That made it so that the fight scenes they had with each other and otherwise had some moves that were less common.  For Cap 2, Cap’s fighting style changed, which is fitting for his having spent time in the modern world training and running operations.  I really liked how well he incorporated his shield in his fighting, both offensively and defensively.  I also loved that he wasn’t dependent on it.

Another thing that I liked was how Black Widow’s fighting style has been consistent from “Iron Man 2” to “The Avengers” to Cap 2.  So often when characters cross over several movies, each with a different director, they change with the movie-makers’ visions.  That hasn’t been the case so far with any of the Marvel movies.  I think that’s one of the things that makes them so enjoyable and re-watchable.

As I’ve mentioned in previous posts, action scenes in many movies these days can be very frenetic and confusing, especially in close quarters.  But in this movie, there were only a couple bits that were unclear to me.  On one occasion, I wasn’t sure if it was good guys pointing guns or if it was bad guys.  And on another occasion I thought it was one character who got knocked out of the way, but it turned out to be another.  That’s one of the two complaints I had with the film.

The characters were well done.  The interplay between Cap and Black Widow was a lot of fun.  The new characters, especially Sam Wilson, were great additions to the cast and the story.  Of necessity, not many of the characters from Cap 1 made it to Cap 2.  But the few (4? 5?) that did were consistent between this movie and the last.

Captain America is my second favorite comic book super hero.  And right now it’s a close second.  Chris Evans’ portrayal of him in the movies is excellent.  The character is a genuinely good man.  He’s uncompromising in his morals.  He’s selfless and willing to walk the talk.  But he’s not too perfect.  There’s evidence of a temper on occasion, and he can come off as a bit self-righteous.  But the good far outweighs the bad.  I also appreciate that the writers haven’t tried to down-play his goodness or make it look like those are undesirable qualities.  That’s kind of refreshing.

One of the challenges about bringing comic books to live-action movies is making the ridiculous look reasonable and the far-fetched seem feasible.  For example, one of the villains in the movie is named Batroc.  In the comic’s he’s called Batroc the Leaper.  (When you see the movie, you’ll see why.)  He’s always (since I’ve been aware of him) seemed a bit silly to me.  But watching his fight scene with Cap was a lot of fun!  Very acrobatic, and not silly at all.

Another character that made a very successful transition was Sam Wilson, the Falcon.  Frankly, his costume in the comics is stupid.  It is very different in the movie, and a vast improvement.  Not to mention completely awesome!

I enjoyed the story: the twists and turns.  It has been described as a political thriller, and I think that fits well.  There were some things that I saw coming, and others I was blind-sided by.  However, the second thing I perceived of as a flaw in this movie had to do with the story.  It’s a pretty big spoiler, so I won’t go into specifics.  But it has to do with revealing secrets that could have an impact on national security.  I understand why the story went in the direction it did, but that doesn’t mean I agree with it whole-heartedly.

The pacing was good, too.  The intense action was balanced by periods of calm, allowing the audience to catch its breath.  But it didn’t feel like they stopped the momentum.  They did well to progress the story without making it drag.

There were also little things that were nice touches.  One, mentioned in the beginning of this post, were the aesthetics of the end credits.  The title of the movie was done in the font of the comic book title from a couple years ago.  I also liked that it was minimalistic silhouettes and just three colors: black, white, and red, symbolic of Cap’s world view as well as a color associated with the second title character of the film, the Winter Soldier.

In summary, this movie was awesome!  I cannot wait to be able to add it to my movie collection!

Various and Sundry - Playing Catch-Up

Over the past several months, there have been a few movies that I’ve seen that I never wrote posts for.  I thought I’d take this opportunity to write short reviews for them.  At least one of them is already out on Blu-Ray/DVD, but there are others that are more recent.

 

“The Hunger Games: Catching Fire”

Of the books that this series is based on, I thought the first one was the best.  However, in my opinion, this second movie was better than the first one.  It followed the book really well, but there was something about it that also improved on the original format.  Some of that had to do with the casting, which I thought was one of the best thing about the first movie.  Some of it had to do with who well the film-makers’ vision matched my own.  I loved seeing the costumes the book described come to life.  One of my favorites was Effie’s poodle look early in the film.

One of the movie’s weaknesses is that it spent so much time on the pre-Hunger Games segment, that there were things I thought important that were left out of the Hunger Games bit.  At the same time, there were parts left out of the first part, too.  That isn’t much of a surprise, though.  It’s never possible to include everything.  Otherwise, movies would be about 10 hours long instead of 2 or so.

Over all, I thought that the movie was well done.

 

“I, Frankenstein”

Do not bother with this one.  I wasn’t expecting much from it, and I was disappointed.  Some of the special effects were okay.  The look of one of the groups, the Gargoyles, was actually pretty cool.  But the other group, the Demons, looked cheap.  I think most of the time they were just actors in masks—and really bad masks at that.  There were a lot of inconsistencies and logic errors in the story.  The acting wasn’t great.  Almost none of the characters were likeable.  I wanted to root for the title character, but I had a hard time doing it.  He just wasn’t a nice guy—and he didn’t make any effort to be.  Mostly he was miserable and angry, with no desire to be anything else.

 

“Divergent”

This one suffered from the book it was based on.  The book wasn’t the best I’ve read recently.  I picked it up because I saw a preview of the movie.  But the book never felt like it got started.  And its main character/story-teller was a rather weak character.

My favorite character from the book, Four, was my favorite character from the movie.  But most of the other characters were shallow and boring.  Maybe it has to do with one of the major premises of the book: that everyone is divided into one of five different factions, each based on one character trait.  Four mentioned, in the book and the movie, that he didn’t want to be just one thing.  Instead, he wanted to have all of the qualities.  He had layers.  Part of what made the main character, Tris, “special” was that she could have fit in several factions.  Most of the time, though, it seemed like she couldn’t decide if she was timid or bold.

I didn’t have any complaints related to the movie that didn’t have something to do with the book.  The casting was pretty good.  The costuming wasn’t too bad.  But, unlike “Catching Fire”, “Divergent” failed to improve upon its source material.

 

“The Lego Movie”

This one was so good!  I was deceived by the mediocre preview, so I wasn’t all that excited about it.  In fact, I didn’t see it until it had been in theaters for about a month.

I loved the humor of it.  It was surprisingly both clean and clever.  I loved the silliness of it!  And it had great themes and messages.  I appreciated that the rebellious “Master Builders” had weaknesses (lack of unity and team work), and that they needed the very average Emmett to succeed in their objective.  Emmett had qualities that they needed: inside the box thinking and the frowned-upon ability to follow directions.  I like that, ultimately, neither of those qualities were bad.

Also, incidentally, Will Farrell is a much more entertaining voice actor than a live-action actor, in my opinion.