Well it's the fourth of July today and you know what that means right? Fireworks, hot dogs, hamburgers, beers, more fireworks, more beer, even more fireworks, and finally an accident having to do with beer and fireworks (hopefully not but hey since when does alcohol and fire ever NOT create an accident?). Anyway today I'm pumped as hell. So pumped I decided to watch Captain America since I missed out when it first came out (for good reasons which means mostly just laziness....yeaaah). I mean come on it's America's birthday how else should I have celebrated? The man has friggen AMERICA in his name so clearly it should be like the greatest movie ever made with lots of explosions and patriotism right?? Well I did not like the movie lol (big surprise there eh?). But that's not to say its an all out terrible movie.
I admit right off the bat that I'm not a fan of Captain America. I don't know much about him other than he has a shield that he hurls at people and the shield is pretty much indestructible. There was always one thing that I never understood about him though. His shield is a circle (obviously) and it covers a good portion of his body. You know like your torso, all the important and vital organs. I was always curious why NO ONE has ever though to like shoot him in the foot when he has his shield raised. I mean think about you shoot a dude in the leg he'll drop whatever he's carrying to grab his foot in pain and agony (unless he's bulletproof which I'm actually not sure of wait then he wouldn't need a shield in the first place so what the hell enemies?!). So I was never quite sure why his enemies never thought to do that. I was kind of hoping that the movie would answer that question for me but alas, it did not. Anyway other than that I don't know anything about the guy or his enemies. I had a toy of him when I was younger (and that toy was friggen amazing! It was very well built. Ahh where has the time gone. I sort of miss being a kid and playing with toys). Anyway I also hoped that the movie would make me want to follow the good ol' captain's comic. Well actually the movie succeeded in that regard. If only so I can see how much of the movie was bullshit lol.
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| aw shit AMERICA!!! (I've been saying that all day) |
Anyway before I start rambling yet again. I'm gonna start discussing why I did not like the movie. One thing I always enjoy is to get to know my main characters you know. I love seeing the choices they have to make, some back-story behind their existence, but more importantly their dialogue. For me thats incredibly important and in this movie the Captain barely spoke. When he did it was just answering a question. Rarely did he ever say anything that made me feel like I was actually getting to know good ol' Captain America. When he did it was just some stereotypical heroic statement like how he hates bullies or something. I just never felt connected to him so I found myself not really caring much. Although towards the end of the movie and I mean the end like the last 10 minutes or so I found myself kind of interested with his extremely short-lived romance with Peggy Carter. Anyway another thing I disliked was the overuse of special effects. I'm old school in that sense. I dislike CG effects and 3D gimmicks and all that jazz and this movie had a LOT of special effects. For me it just detracts from the overall experience and magic of movies. Almost like a cop-out. What happened to the old days of building models or making sets or something. Everything is done in CG and it's a it annoying. It is annoying but it still looks damn good so it isn't all bad. Now the final thing about this movie was the villian. I personally felt that he looked really stupid. Besides that I just never quite understood
why he's evil. He kind of just is with no real explanation. I mean come one tell me that his dog dies when he was little and ever since then he swore vengeance against the whole world. I'll buy that. It's batshit ridiculous but at least there's an explanation. The whole movie builds up this confrontation with Red Skull and I just never understood why he's so damn evil. It bothered me a lot (and don't tell me it's because he's a nazi. I don't wanna spoil anything but umm yeah he doesn't really follow Hitler's orders much so Agent Red Smith over here just hates the world for some odd reason). Plus every time he came on screen in his mask I kept saying to myself "Mr. Anderson".
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| Mr. Ander-AMERICA |
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Now all that aside Captain America was not a terrible movie. There are a whole hell of a lot more movies that are worse. One thing i know though is that this is the kind of movie to not take seriously. It's much better enjoyed with friends. Maybe I was wrong to expect such complex character development from this but hey I just know what I enjoy. At the same time I understand that one can only do so much with a 2 hour time limit. There is obviously going to be some compromises. So that's why I can say that it wasn't terrible. I can see the appeal for fans though. If you like Captain America then obviously you would have enjoyed this movie since you know more about him than I do. So enjoy your fourth of July. Set off a bunch of fireworks, drink a lot of beer, and more importantly scream AMERICA out the windows!
AMERICA (ok I'm done with that now seriously)
