Captain America: A Movie Review

Speaking of Captain America, I went to see Captain America, The First Avenger tonight. I thought it worked quite well on two levels, one as a stand alone movie for those of you not familiar with the story. (Perhaps, you were in suspended animation for the last seventy years??) And second as a fairly faithful rendition of the comic book story. Nothing in this review should constitute a "spoiler", so if you haven't seen the movie yet, you should be good.

Purists might be put off a bit by the introduction of a few new characters not in the comics, or the transformation of "Bucky" Barnes from boy sidekick, to adult soldier*. Instead of Robin to Cap's Batman, Bucky is an adult, inducted into the army before 98 pound weakling Steve Rogers can get past his 4-F status.

The back story of using Rogers in a war bond tour adds some semblance of reason as to why the good Captain might end up in red, white and blue Spandex.

It takes a while to get Cap into the fight overseas, but once the action starts, it's worth the wait. The movie has all you could want in a pleasant couple of hours of entertainment: action, humor, pathos and just a hint of unrequited love.

There are, as in most comics, improbabilities of science, history and reason in order to make everything work. Captain America has enough heart for you to want to suspend disbelief and go along for the ride. There is the obligatory cameo by Stan Lee, and a couple of characters show up that are immediately recognizable to long time Marvel comic readers. I won't spoil the surprise, but the term "Howling Commando" might ring a bell!

Some mention should be made of Chris Evans, who plays the Captain. As Johnny Storm, (the Human Torch, in the Fantastic Four), he was one of an ensemble, mostly used for comic relief. Here, he has to carry the entire picture and does so, if I may say so, with flying colors (pun intended)!

The closing credits are wonderfully retro. And for those with the fortitude to stick through the credits to the very end, you see a teaser for the Avengers movie coming out next May.

Those of you who have read the comics will appreciate the line "Some assembly required."

I would heartily recommend "Captain America, The First Avenger" to comic book aficionados and non-nerds alike. Go see it. Four out of five stars.



*Bucky Barnes as boy sidekick

Angelina Jolie is "Salt" - A Movie Review

I realize I’m a little late to this party. Salt, with Angelina Jolie, was released a couple of months ago and is finishing up its first run, but should be coming soon to a cable channel or Blue Ray near you. I liked Salt. It’s a pretty decent film. You may recall that I was less than impressed with Jolie in “Wanted” (Wanted: A plot would be nice!)

This picture is much better. You are not asked to suspend your disbelief any more than say, your typical James Bond film. Let’s see what I can tell you without too many plot spoilers.
Jolie is Evelyn Salt, a CIA field agent, captured by the North Koreans, rescued by the world famous arachnologist who loves her. (Girl meets arachnologist. Girl loses arachnologist. Arachnologist gets girl. –who hasn’t seen that before?)

Years later, a Russian agent defects to the West with the message that a Russian sleeper is going to assassinate the Russian president, in the US attending the state funeral of a clearly fictional, too good to be true, vice president.

Is Salt a sleeper or a double agent? Is she trying to assassinate the Russian president or save him? Are those lips real? Which side is she really on? While there were no major surprises for me, (I have a high rate of success figuring out plot lines and devices in the first act), the director’s and/or writer’s use of foreshadowing gives plenty of clues to where the plot path will wander, for those paying attention.

The director maintains a nice edge of suspense, even when you’re fairly certain what must happen next, but not necessarily how. The action scenes and stunts keep the pace fast. There is a good deal of violence, however. The brutality, even when dealt out to those who probably deserve it, could be too much for those of gentler sensibilities. But for an afternoon’s entertainment, Salt is an excellent popcorn movie.

The burning question that must be on everyone’s mind as they leave the theater, (it certainly was on mine) is…what will happen to the dog?

4 out of 5 stars

Iron Man 2

Saw Iron Man 2 today. Great movie! There. If all you need is a recommendation, go see it. If you stick around, there will be spoilers! Okay. You were warned.

Iron Man 2 takes up pretty much where the last movie left off. Tony Stark has announced to the world that he is Iron Man. The Fed'al Gubmint decides that they should have custody of his state of the art technology. He refuses. So the Fed'al Gubmint is after Tony, particularly in the form of a smarmy Senator, played by Garry Shandling. It also seems that Tony's dad may have stolen some ideas or credit from a Russian physicist, whose son builds his own weapon of mass destruction and comes gunning for Tony. Stark's weaselly business rival wants to come after him, isn't quite bright enough so he enables the bitter Russian mad scientist with WMD to go after Iron Man. And to top it off, Tony's secretary Pepper, who doesn't come right out and say it, is after Tony. Follow the man in the red and gold suit!

Oh, he's also being recruited by agents of S.H.I.E.L.D., who made a cameo in 1, a slightly bigger part in 2, and should play a prominent role in the sequel, which is pretty much guaranteed to be made. More on Nick Fury later. Scarlett Johanson, who is way overdue to be a Friday Night Babe, is a S.H.I.E.L.D. agent planted at Stark Industries. (She fills out her role well!)

The movie plays well with Tony Stark's vulnerabilities. His heart (both literally and figuratively), his less than stellar relationship with his dad, friendship, loyalty and patriotism and the individual demons that still drive him.

With plenty of action and cliff hanging thrills, love, determination and a darned fine suit of armor conquers all!

From a technical standpoint, IM2 is superb. One of the problems I have with too many movies today, is that Computer Generated Images are used to produce the whizbang effects. Too many movies (Van Helsing and Hellboy, for example), I find it hard to care when one CGI is locked in mortal battle with another. It could be Ms. PacMan for all I care. Perhaps, aided in part by the fact that most of the characters are armored, the CGI effects are less noticeable. At any rate, it was no distraction here.

A couple of minor distractions: Product placement. I knew Dr. Pepper had a joint ad campaign with the movie. Still, when I saw the Dr. Pepper can in the foreground of a shot where no one was enjoying a nice cool beverage, it tended to pull me from the moment. Tony Stark drives an Audi, but that wasn't the only place I saw their logo. Every time I saw the Audi logo, I was momentarily pulled from the moment. And finally, Kodak must have shelled out a few bucks for product placement as well.

If you haven't watched it (or if you have, go watch it again) the first few seconds of the trailer above and you will see at least two Kodak signs. And when Nick Fury gives Tony some old home movies of his dad, guess whose logo is on the film canisters? (Slap yourself if you said "Fuji"!)


Samuel L. Jackson as Nick Fury

Geek alert! Finally, we come to the Nick Fury character. I'm not sure when it happened, but Nick is more amply endowed with melanin than he used to be! In the animated Avenger movies and now Iron Man, Nick Fury is a black man, but the original back story was that Sgt. Nick Fury of Sgt. Fury's Howling Commandos, was a white guy. And even though Commandos were British and Rangers were American, Sgt. Fury led his band of imaginary American commandos on numerous exploits during WWII, and later became an agent and director of S.H.I.E.L.D.

Now I know that Lawrence Olivier played Othello and a woman played Starbuck, but this is a little like a remake of Star Trek with a redhead playing Uhura and an Irishman calling himself "Sulu".

I suppose one can get used to almost anything. Besides, I guess it beats the alternative!


David Hasselhoff as Nick Fury

Heh.