Who wouldn't love the title "Captain America: World Police"!? Wait, that's not the title? Oh well still, who wouldn't love that title. Anyway, I had my fair share of stochastic thoughts during this movie. Which makes it 'Pie', a word I'm currently hoping to supplant 'good' with (I feel like America will pick this synonym up in no time, we'll see). But lets get real.
While it may stand out historically as one of the more impact-full comic stories for our country, it seems a little out of place, and well… let’s face it… inaccessible. Several countries even changed our oh so very patriotic title to make it more palatable for our freedom-fry-hating counterparts. Apparently, we were good enough to fight in their trenches but they don’t want to risk emblazoning their own peoples with a fierce lust for burgers and winchester rifles! Aside from The movie’s propaganda-ish title, it was likely the best 3D film I’ve seen yet (or at least tied with Avatar).
Visually speaking, it did a marvelous job (get it? Marvelous!) of reproducing the feel of a 1940’s earth, whilst adding those delicious technological design touches reminiscent of Joe Johnston’s Rocketeer, which I loved… mucho. Commensurate to that, the costuming was immaculate, dynamic, and simple-ish. The settings were clear and easy to soak in details of. And the special effects were tangibly real for the most part. Best of all, its the first 3D film that didn’t leave me kinda pissed that I didn’t see it in 2D.
Now… the Plot, thing. The movie somewhat dropped the whole importance of THIS story in particular. It all seemed to be a perfunctory exposition of a character that they wanted to use in the avengers. Like the weird cousin who has a kid just so you two can be in the PTA together. This forced feeling popped up periodically in the film. Most notably of which was the montages sparsely placed throughout the movie in lieu of actually developing the character and advancing him past significant obstacles and learning his abilities. It seemed as though, they lost 15-20 pages of script and then substituted it with finite samples of him jumping off of a tank, punching a guy, kicking a guy, and yes, even “shielding” a guy in the face (not like protecting him, but you know).
Not that I didn’t enjoy seeing his shield fly into my face in 3D (which kind of made me fear my own hero), but it could’ve used much more ‘telling’, even if just with better montages. His team of international banditos had so little time on screen before becoming an ‘integral part’ of the story that they forgot to make us give a damn.
But all that aside, I think Chris Evans did a fantastic job portraying the minimalists black and white virtues of the hero, and as usual… he’s ‘cut as all get out’… not that I care… but Damn. Tommy Lee Jones always added great layers of grit and deadpan as expected. Hugo Weaving could have used a little more German and a little less elvish in his accent, but I think he may have been just going for East Austrian. Either way, I suppose I bought it pretty hard, because Hugo is a badass and nailed the role in most ways possible (Hail Hydra!). And who could forget Hayley Atwell, the beautifully dynamic love interest to Mr. America (Is that how you would say it? Or is it Mr. Captain America? Oh well.)? She was phenomenal, it was extremely easy to get drawn in, and her scripted character was actually lovable AND strong, go figure.
I don’t want to overshadow the amazing performances of the rest of the cast. The always engrossing Stanley Tucci, Sebastian Stan, Toby Jones, and Neal McDonough (and others) all did their fair share of making this movie thoroughly FUN. I was bouncing in my seat out of excitement. It definitely was more honest and moralistically inclined than say “Iron Man” but it still had that good-ol’-fashioned super hero feel to it. Get out there and support our imaginary reincarnations of WWII Troops!! (See Captain America).
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