Marvel Movie Madness! Part 34: Captain America: The First Avenger

Thanks, RT Matt. Now I have South Park's montage song in my head!

Jul 25 - 04:58 PM

Ryan Nolan

'Always fade out in a montaaaaage, If you fade out it seems that more time has passed in a montaaaage.'

Jul 27 - 12:31 PM

Ryan Nolan

Just saw the movie, pretty average in my opinion though not a lot to dislike either. Chris Evan's was very good as I thought he would be and Red Skull was a solid enough villain. The action was decent though not spectacular and the 1940's setting was pretty neat at times.

I feel that since Marvel hit that big home run with Iron Man they have just played it too safe with the movies that have come out since. Iron Man 2, Thor and Captain America have all lacked in plot and have all had almost nothing happen throughout the course of the movie, by that I mean nothing has really been changed by the end. Once Marvel knew they were going to "assemble the Avengers" they just didn't take any risks with all their properties so as to not disrupt the big movie that is coming next summer and I think it has really hurt the quality. Sure I've had fun at Thor and Captain America, and a little less fun at Iron Man 2 but I'll never need to re-watch any of these movies the way I did with Nolan's Batman movies or to a lesser extent Singer and Vaughn's X-men movies. The Avengers better be worth it!

Jul 27 - 10:11 PM

Hilarious! Well played!

Jul 28 - 12:20 AM

Joeblow Binks

Dang! Almost had the first comment!

Jul 25 - 05:01 PM

I know, right? Being first to comment on an article posted on the internet is such a monumental achievement in one's life /sarcasm.

Jul 25 - 05:10 PM

Ken Wolfson

OMG iT SO IS!!!

Jul 25 - 10:02 PM

Cap USA had a lot of problems... but I still enjoyed it. I wasn't too hot for Iron Man 2 and Thor, but Iron Man, Hulk and Cap USA were very good. I also really liked the Avengers teaser after the credits, though I was kinda disappointed that the actual post-credits scene was super-short.

Jul 25 - 05:08 PM

Wait...which Hulk?

Jul 25 - 05:20 PM

There's only one Hulk made by Marvel :)

Jul 25 - 08:49 PM

Ok, whew. We can still be friends.

Jul 25 - 09:38 PM

lol!

Jul 25 - 09:41 PM

Alexson Philipiah

will see this on bluray. :)

Jul 25 - 05:12 PM

Dean Peteet

Yeah, will buy this on bluray. :)

Jul 25 - 05:20 PM

Dean Peteet

By far my favorite Marvel movie. I'm still scratching my head why more people still liked "Thor" better than "Cap". It just doesn't make any sense. Sure Asgard and the CG on the whole looked great, but what's with that really bad New Mexico backlot. Did they over do their budget on the CG Asgard and have to end up digging out this old cardboard set from the 1978 version of "Superman I & II"? And boy that romance between Thor and Natalie Portman was a real snoozer compared to the Steve Rogers/ Peggy Carter romance. Their chemistry was way more believable. And then the most anti-climatic ending in action movie history. Really ? That's how your going to end this movie?Your really going to end with .......... Oh wait I forgot what the ending was. Anyway sure the FX was good and the acting was top notch but it had nowhere near the heart that "Cap" had. Just saying.

Jul 25 - 05:32 PM

Big Brother

Sadly, that's actually how New Mexico looks :)

Jul 26 - 04:36 AM

Jeremiah Rancourt

I completely agree with your assessment of Thor versus Captain America. Cap was by far the better film, only second to the original Iron Man in quality for Marvel (imho). Thor was good and could have gone completely wrong but didn't. Still, your complaints were justified for Thor. At the very least, the actors in the film really got their parts right and therefore people connected with Thor, Loki, and Odin even though the adventure was relatively bland. Here's hoping for higher stakes and more heart in Thor 2.

Jul 26 - 08:27 AM

I pretty much agree with everything said in this article. The movie was good and worked mainly because of the old school feel. Johnston nailed that, so major props to him. Evans was also great as Rogers, and I was glad he actually played Cap in character, instead of trying to cram his signature snarky attitude into the movie (coughRyan-Reynolds-in-every-superhero-flick-he-is-incough). I thought the movie was pretty much as good as it could get until it hit the battle montage in the middle, where it seemed like they were running out of time and needed to get to the end as quick as possible.

Jul 25 - 06:04 PM

Big Brother

Agreed, also have to wholeheartedly agree with the RT staff on Tucci and Jones and the unmentioned Atwill who really carried portions of the movie that could have fallen flat.

Jul 26 - 04:37 AM

Jeremiah Rancourt

The battle montage was meant to show time passing between when Steve actually "became" Captain America on the battlefront and the final battle with him and Red Skull. Then, future Captain America movies can flashback to battles and scenes in the middle of Cap's 1940s adventures and tie them into whatever's going on with Cap in the present. It was kind of filler until future movie installments come out.

Jul 26 - 08:30 AM

I understand that it was to bridge the gap between Cap rescuing the POW's and the final battle with the Red Skull, as well as show Rogers become an effective fighter in battle, but it just felt a little sloppy in its presentation.

Jul 26 - 11:28 AM

All three of them were fine in their roles, and I was glad they sort of side-stepped the traditional love story presented in these superhero flicks. Atwell was the love interest, but it was more like a what could have been romance instead of the typical one true love sub-plot found in most superhero films. I am just wondering if Atwell's character will appear in The Avengers, either played by an older actress or they can Ben Button-up Atwell to look old, since it would be a fairly emotional moment for Cap to find the girl he cared about has pretty much moved on with the world. They would totally have to milk the moment with Rogers taking her out for that dance he owed her, nearly seventy years later.

Jul 26 - 11:37 AM

Big Brother

In the comics they did and he also taps her granddaughter Sharon. Straight up pimpin' actually I think she was her grand neice or something, but still.

Jul 26 - 06:10 PM

Matanuki .

Agreed all the way down, with most of the affirmative comments posted on this board. I was worried too in the beginning, but not much. My faith was rewarded well in the end. I am however interested in what they'll do next, to offer a new course for the conversation. There was talk of them doing sequels set in the past, since the many montages suggested quite a few adventures before the final showdown portrayed in the film.

My real question is what's gonna happen with Winter Soldier? I know you, B, have mentioned great loads of hate for the character, lol, but you have to accept that they still may use him.

Jul 27 - 08:38 AM

Winter Soldier would be the obvious villian for a sequel, but I am wondering what exactly happened to the Red Skull at the end of this movie. SPOILER! STOP READING IF YOU HAVE NOT SEEN CAPTAIN AMERICA! Anywho, he picks up the cosmic cube (which is the thing from Asguard that Odin had that kept the Ice Giants at bay or whatever from Thor), and seems to get transported somewhere else. It is possible he could resurface in The Avengers, since the cosmic cube is obviously going to be one of the driving forces in the story, but I am wondering exactly where he was sent to, since Thor drew out all the different universes when explaining to Jane where he came from.

Jul 27 - 10:52 AM

Will K

As for the comment on having all of the characters in The Avengers, I think that's where the script will either make or break the movie... much more so than Whedon could ever. When you get a team full of A-Listers, you typically have to take the audience, and mold them into believing that they're not watching Iron Man, Thor, Captain America and The Hulk, but rather The Avengers.

So what will probably happen in the script is that you'll see the guys meet up, be pretty disjointed at first, get their rear-ends beat badly because of poor teamwork, they'll learn their lesson, and fight together. I'm kind of hoping that very clich�d storyline does *not* occur, but I wouldn't put it past a writer (or a team of writers).

What I'd love to see in The Avengers would be what I call "%#$@ YEAH!" scenes. These are typically scenes full of action where one character is on the brink of death or losing the fight, and another character makes a sudden appearance to save the day. While someone intervening is typically expected, if it's written and directed well, it can look fantastic and play out well. An example of this is during "The Expendables" when Statham, Li and Lundgren are beneath the villa and being pinned down by enemy soldiers. They pretty much have no chance of winning and all of a sudden you hear a ton of loud booms and see enemies go flying. Who enters the fray... none other than Terry Crews with an automatic shotgun! The only words for this are, "%#$@ YEAH!"

Jul 25 - 06:13 PM

Infernal Dude

That scene is the only good part of that movie. It (and Terry) deserved a better movie.

Jul 25 - 07:19 PM

That is easily the best scene in The Expendables, and I am hoping the story does not resemble the cookie cutter outline you described above (but I fear that it will fall into something like that). It is going to come down to how well the script juggles all four of these characters. Whedon is good with ensembles, and since he rewrote the script, I am hoping for the best. The trailer after Captain America really only showed Stark and Thor with a bunch of hyper cut action in between, so I really hope this does not become Iron Man and friends. I personally believe they should be aiming at a minimum of a three hour runtime for the movie, just to make sure all the characters get their arcs in, and get more to do than just show up for one or two cool moments (The Expendables is a good example of a great cast wasted because none of them had anything to do except for their big action moment).

Jul 26 - 11:49 AM

CJ Calvin

Best Marvel movie yet in my opinion. A good and straight forward action/superhero flick that is just a bit better than Iron Man due to a better ending and chemistry between Cap and Peggy than Tony and Pepper. Evans rocked! I've always liked the guy but when I first heard that he was cast I was worried. I really thought he was wrong to play the part but he showed that he can supress the snarkiness and deliver a performance that made me like the character more in the film than in the comics. Looking forward to The Avengers.

Jul 25 - 06:14 PM

Chris Stanton

Hey great Job reviewing these movies guys. You're pretty spot on for all of them. Being such,
I'll have to check out captain America.

Jul 25 - 07:04 PM

sputnik 99

Cap is a better movie than Thor, but not as good as Iron Man. It's littered with bad editing and hokey fight scenes, and Weaving is not right to play the Red Skull. But, it looks good, and it gets exciting here and there. I have no desire to ever purchase Thor, but I might buy Captain America. It feels like it has some re-watchability.

Jul 25 - 07:09 PM

Infernal Dude

Its funny that the two comic book adaptions I was worried about the most ended up being the better and/or more successful adaptions of the summer while Green Lantern sucked and tanked and First Class tanked (kind of).

Jul 25 - 07:22 PM

Norman Dostal

first class was the best superhero movie this summer-by far

Jul 25 - 09:22 PM

Clint Davis

Amen to that. All the other 3 films seemed childish in comaparison. No offense but First Class was just so unexpectedly mature but fun.

Jul 27 - 11:17 AM

Michael Indo

Hugo Weaving was perfect as the Red Skull. I wanna know what you were smoking when you watched this.

Jul 26 - 03:53 AM

sputnik 99

I don't smoke. Weaving looked good, but he sounded like an American trying to sound like a German. The accent was way off. He sounded almost campy.

Jul 26 - 10:48 AM

Merlin Ambrosius

Hugo Weaving was born in Nigeria, grew up there and in Australia and England. Not American.

Jul 26 - 11:54 AM

Larry Oliver

I had no problem with Weaving or his German accent. He certainly sounded better than Toby Jones.....i don't know where he got that accent from. The earlier part of Cap worked better than the later actions sequences and I agree that the montage action was misplaced and hokey.......they needed to show a few more really great scenew with the shield and I would be happier

Jul 28 - 04:30 PM

Too many montages? Come on, X-MEN: First Class was nothing BUT a 2 hour montage. I just wanted to jump out of my seat and sing! "MOOONTAAAAAAAGE! Show a lot of thiiings happenin at once!" Although It was a good montage.

From what I understood there were deliberate holes in the movie so that future filmmakers could potentially explore material that wasn't necessarily contained in his ww2 origin story Captain America the first avenger. Even if they didn't have montages per se, there would have been time jumps, and some people still might've found it confusing.

Jul 25 - 08:39 PM

With some polishing this movie could have been more than just an Avengers tie-in, but as it stands it just didn't get there. Still it was a lot of fun; a solid action pic. Evans was better as Steve Rogers than he was Johnny Storm. Also, could someone explain to me what the Red Skull's plan was. I get he wanted to take over the world (like most villains) but what was his plan to do that? How did the plane fit in? What were those smaller planes on that plane supposed to do? It all felt so ill defined.

Jul 25 - 09:24 PM

Juan Juan

Good questions. Also, what did Red Skull do to inspire so many Nazis & Hitler defectors? What was the source of his foot soldiers' power & zeal? Where did he get the funds to build an army/empire to counter Hitler's? Did he embezzle? Did he redirect German factories' outputs to his own cause somehow? Did he have a mole in Hitler's supply, logistics, & military procurement departments? Regarding the title character, how did dude go from barely a legal recruit to the most senior sub-field grade commissioned officer in the Army so quickly? Why did the British agent woman show up randomly at that little bar wearing a formal, flashy red dress?

Jul 25 - 09:41 PM

Red Skulls plan was basically to bomb all major cities in the world, cripple the infrastructure and do a hostel take-over on a global scale. Since the plane was so advanced in stealth and speed it could not be shot down and would have succeeded if not for Cap. It's loosely based on the many bombs/planes that have been the cause of Cap's arctic nap.

For the second poster: Red Skull is in charge of a Nazi faction devoted to weapons research and development, that's where he gets his funding, his plans are that once he develops weapons far more advanced than anyone else in the world he will use them to take over said world himself. Hydra, which in the film is the core of Red Skulls crew, are explained in the film. They function more like a cult that fears/worships the Red Skull more so than just follow orders.

Cap was the leader of a special tasks force in WWII. His teams focus was specifically on Hydra and the Red Skull activities and NOT on Nazi Germany and Hitler. Tommy Lee Jones was the commander but Captain America was the active field leader. "Why did the British agent woman show up randomly at that little bar wearing a formal, flashy red dress?" Um...does that one really need to be explained...I think she 'might' have had a thing for Steve Rogers.

Jul 26 - 04:41 AM

So with only one plane Red Skull planned on attacking all major cities in the world? How? Each of those smaller planes had an American city written on them. Did he plan on using one plane for each city? Did he really think that just one small plane, advanced or not, was going to be able to take down an entire city? Cap and his troops proved that regular weapons can still destroy Skull's advanced weapons so I'm sure eventually those little planes would get shot down. Also, as big as that plane was I doubt he'd be able to hold enough little planes to attack all of the world's major cities. My friend tried to argue that each plane was actually a bomb. Again, he wouldn't be able to house enough bombs for America by itself, let alone the whole world. He'd have to head back to his base to resupply constantly. It'd be the slowest, most incompetent global domination scheme ever. Like I said, it was all so poorly thought out.

Jul 26 - 10:49 AM

Really, I mean obviously they were bombs infused with the power of the cube. Just like the guns that would dematerialize people. There's a slight suspension of disbelief required.

Jul 26 - 01:09 PM

Also that plane seemed to be the one for North America. I would assume he had more planes but since Cap and crew crashed the party The Red Skull escaped and was going to bomb all the major cities in the USA, since they were the ones causing all the problems.

Jul 26 - 01:17 PM

A plot hole is still a plot hole. You say that he had other planes but where were they in that hanger? Planes that size would be fairly noticeable. And the movie didn't make it seem like he had multiple flying battleships. It seemed we were supposed to assume that the ship was his master plan. Why else would he be heading the assault himself, or carrying the cube w/ him? If he had multiple flying battleships why didn't those take off as well? And hell, if those little planes were also bombs then why didn't the one cap flew into the ship explode? I understand that a suspension of disbelief is required when viewing a film about super soldiers and laser guns, but even still that doesn't mean we should ignore the flaws in the story telling. I still enjoyed it but I feel it could have been better if a bit more attention to detail had been paid.

Jul 26 - 02:44 PM

Dude, I'm not some screenwriter trying to defend the plot of the film. I didn't think this was some kind of masterpiece filmwriting myself. You had questions, I tried to answer them. If all you wanted to do was bash the film then I'm sorry I even responded. This is not trying to be Inception where there's deep in-depth analysis on every minuet detail, the story is told is brushstrokes. They don't go into extreme details about the Red Skulls plan because it's not necessary. You could pick apart every single film that comes out if you really wanted to. For you apparently you wanted more info on Red Skulls plan, for me there are no plot holes just lack of detail that was unnecessary anyway.

Jul 26 - 03:00 PM

Firstly I'd like to ask you to settle down. I'm not attacking you, I'm just engaging in you a discussion. Take it easy, there's no need to get all hot under the collar. Secondly, I'm not bashing the movie I'm explaining to you an issue I had w/ a particular plot point. Thirdly, I think the specifics of a villain's plans are crucial to the plot. What the villain is attempting to do is important because otherwise what is the hero trying to stop him from accomplishing? In any other adventure story (worth watching) the plot of the antagonist is revealed in detail by the climax. It gives the audience a reason to care as to why they were watching said antagonist doing what he was doing throughout the film. If a movie's climax is just a villain trying to pull off some caper that had no connection to everything we've seen that villain do during the movie's run time, THEN and only then does it become pointless.

Jul 26 - 05:58 PM

Juan Juan

Yeah but at some point fairly early on, Hitler is made aware that Red Skull is actively undermining & threatening the Reich, so why wouldn't Hitler have ordered the funds cut off to Hydra? He surely did, so what was it about Red Skull that allowed his organization to remain so strong? Was it his Asgard-Blue-thingy power source that somehow funded everything? That one villager-looking guy in the wreckage pleads with Red Skull & says, "We fought to the last man," referring to a battle his little battalion/brigade (?)-sized unit fought on behalf of Red Skull, but why or how did that guy (and presumably several other local militias across Europe) become aligned with Red Skull? Thanks for responding, but there are still holes that irk me. And too many wack montages, too. And I despise the fact that Red Skull has a conveniently placed map with little thumb tacks marking all his important war plans. And I hate that Tommy Lee Jones clears the room for a romantic final radio chat instead of taking charge and gaining as much battlefield intel as possible while Captain America is crash landing. What a waste. That's poor tacticality.

Jul 26 - 11:55 AM

The cube is essentially a cinematic MacGuffin. We are lead to believe the cube supplied him with enough energy to power his resources. Anything he now needed could be taken by force. Once he found the cube he didn't need Hitler anymore. You either buy it or you don't but that's the explanation. There's a bit of suspension of belief involved in all blockbuster movies and for that matter most films.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/MacGuffin

Jul 26 - 01:14 PM

Hydra remained strong and Red Skull got what he wanted, I figure, the same way most Nazis did during ww2: through the use of fear, intimidation, and power. Heck, that's how Red Skull got the Cosmic Cube in the first place. Would YOU ask a Nazi how he paid for his painting, his nice car? I personally don't think so. I don't think I would.

Remember, Red Skull in the duration of the movie was using Hitler, and not vice versa. Red Skull new he had no place in Hitler's grand scheme, he even said so himself. This leads me to believe that he had been giving quite a bit of thought about his future, and much like it was possible for Red Skull to get a mole into the Super Soldier experiment in the US, it is possible that Red Skull might have had other bases of operation inside the United States.

Perhaps the bombs didn't go off in the plane crash because they needed to be armed but weren't. Perhaps they didn't go off because the plane crash cushioned the blow, perhaps got crushed and rolled around a bit with the bombs still semi secure inside the core of the plane's frame. There's no real way we can know because none of us here are experts in the mechanics of cosmic cube bombs, or cosmic cubes for that matter. It's a fictional technology that we, just like the Red Skull who tried to use it for his own gains, do not fully understand.

There have been many times in history when cultures and civilizations have been thwarted because of the more advanced weaponry of others. Just look at what the Spanish conquistadors did to the Incans and the Aztecs. They beat them with steel rapiers, guns, and large armored mastiffs trained to attack and disembowel people. In Cap., America hadn't even won The Bomb race yet when Red Skull started flying his stealth lasergun bomber plane over the United States able to disintegrate absolutely anything in his path. In my opinion it's not going out on a limb to say that Red Skull being a Real and Dangerous threat at the end of Cap. The First Avenger was not a plot hole.

Jul 26 - 04:41 PM

What I meant in paragraph 2 is that Red skull said he felt he had been exiled by Hitler, wasn't afraid to admit it. I don't think he was counting on getting any closer to Hitler than he already had, and was getting ready to split off from the Nazis entirely.

Jul 26 - 04:43 PM

Juan Juan

I'd say the cube thing is too central to the plot & functional/consequential to be a true maguffin (which I learned all about in my Hitchcock studies in college, thank you), but okay. I'm also beginning to believe that this movie is not a realistic portrayal of America's involvement in WWII.

Jul 26 - 07:05 PM