Movie Review:
Captain America: The First Avenger
2011 / 2 hrs., 4 min. / PG-13
Director: Joe Johnston
In my entire life, I have never read a comic book. I think I thumbed through a page or two out of curiosity, but they were simply never one of my interests. Thanks to Saturday morning cartoons, I did grow up knowing that the Hulk, Spider-Man, and Batman existed, but if you were to ask me which one was the first Avenger, historically, I wouldn’t have known that it was Captain America. I do now. See? – Movies are educational after all.
In Captain America: The First Avenger, we are introduced to Steve Rogers (Chris Evans), a short, scrawny young man who would love nothing more than to join the Army and fight for his country, putting down Germany and the Nazis as his own personal stand against bullying everywhere. (Seventy years later we’d say he needed counseling and a good prosecuting attorney, and that Congress should pass hate crime bills outlawing bullies in movie theaters and back alleys. Somewhere between Captain America and Modern America, we lost our spine. But I digress.)
Repeatedly rejected by the recruitment officers for his utter lack of physicality, Rogers’ patriotic persistence garners the attention of Dr. Abraham Erskine (Stanley Tucci), a German ex-patriot now doing scientific research for the Americans. Erskine has developed a serum and procedure that potentially turns ordinary humans into super-humans – he just needs a lab rat.
Because this movie exists at all, you can already guess that the procedure works. Now a jaw-droppingly buff stud, Rogers can run, jump, and hit with heightened strength and skill. Like most movies involving fantastical characters, the parameters are a little flexible depending on how tight of a situation the writers want to put Our Hero in, but this film is by no means the worst offender.
After a stultifying stint as a war bonds spokesman dubbed “Captain America”, Rogers proves his worth on a daring rescue of some POW’s, and Colonel Chester Phillips (Tommy Lee Jones) assigns him to take on the biggest threat the Nazis have cooked up: Johann Schmidt (Hugo Weaving), the “Red Skull”, one of Hitler’s occult and mythology experts, who has discovered the Ark of the Covenant, a device of such immense power that if the Nazis can harness it, they will be invincible. No, wait: Schmidt has discovered the Tesseract, a device of such immense power that if the Nazis can harness it, they will be invincible. I don’t know how I could have confused the two.
From there I don’t think I need to detail any more. Red Skull races to unleash the Tesseract’s power on America, and Captain America races to stop him. Bet you didn’t see that coming.
But lest a little sarcasm over the predictability of the plot confuse you, I’ll state quite clearly that this is one of the most enjoyable film experiences I have had in the past few years. I am blissfully unaware of how well it relates to the comic book, but by itself the screenplay by Christopher Markus and Stephen McFeely is utterly engaging; and its execution by director Joe Johnston is nearly flawless. Johnston’s evocation of Americana that he demonstrated so well in The Rocketeer makes him quite simply the perfect director for this project. Together with the amazing production designer Rick Heinrichs, Johnston immerses us completely in the period: The right people, the right fabrics, the right colors, the right everything.
But a film is more than just its visual setting, and Johnston is equally up to the task of making the story itself work within all that nostalgia. I am rarely drawn in by action movies, because they are usually just studies in the number and lengths of action set pieces the creators can cram into a movie, with a plot and characters which serve as nothing more than an excuse for all those supposed adrenaline rushes. (For example, the subsequent The Avengers.) Johnston and the writers find the right balance, setting up a very calculated and restrained number of action scenes with wonderful character development, so that we are led to care for who is doing the fighting and why.
And I would have to watch it again to be certain, but my first impression is that there was very little to doubt here in terms of the physics behind events. We have a few typical mistakes, like the idea that two people would be able to have a conversation at normal volume while traveling at high speed in an open convertible just a few yards behind jet engines throttling for take-off. But the creative team avoided my biggest complaint, that of objects apparently not having the mass or weight they appear to have because of the slipshod manner in which the special effects department makes them move. For the most part, I was completely drawn in to the fiction behind the science, with little to complain about.
Chris Evans (Cellular) takes on what I consider his best role to date. I can’t argue that he did not serve his previous films decently, but here he makes Steve Rogers a very likable and approachable person. He is handsome without being impossibly stellar; he is humble without being cowardly; he is the same Common Man he was as a diminutive wimp, but now with the physical capabilities of effectively standing up for what he believes in. I cannot imagine anyone else filling out the character (figuratively and literally) any better than Evans, which is the result I’m sure every casting director dreams of.
Hugo Weaving (The Matrix) can always be counted on for tight-lipped straight-laced villainy, so there is not much to say here. Take Agent Smith and add a German accent. Some guys are simply born for such typecasting. Similarly, but with better success, is Tommy Lee Jones (The Fugitive) as Rogers’ supervising colonel. Jones does what he always does: Dry, sarcastic barbs with just enough smirk to let you know he has a heart somewhere under that crust. Maybe it’s the script, maybe it’s who he gets to interact with – whatever it is, Jones manages to take the same personality he has exuded for decades and keep it fresh.
Also supporting Evans are Hayley Atwell (Brideshead Revisited) as the love interest, who is fairly typically drawn but who did make me laugh with her very subtle and funny moment where she clearly wants to reach out and touch Rogers’ amazing new torso; and Toby Jones (City of Ember) who continues to be perfectly typecast as a weasely trouble-maker. Stanley Tucci (The Terminal) defies his short time on screen by making himself almost a loveable grandfather type, to the point where I wish his part had been bigger. Individually and as an ensemble, the entire cast are well-placed.
If I was let down at all, it was in the moment that should have been the grand finale. I hear a lot of people were disappointed in the ending, but my specific issue is with the precise point at which the hero conquers the villain. The moment should have been more theatrical, the villain’s final lament at the thwarting of his plans should have been more operatic. I felt it was surprisingly underplayed, and abrupt in its conclusion. It’s not an inappropriate or wrong ending for this film; its delivery just lacks the final wallop it cries out for. (And don’t tell me I just spoiled it. The thwarting of the villain is in the very fabric of superhero movies. It is a given element by the very nature of this film’s existence!)
Overall, I would easily rank Captain America: The First Avenger as one of the top superhero films I’ve ever seen. To date, it bests just about everything else, including the much-raved-about Spider-Man 2, and (dare I contemplate it?) possibly even Richard Donner’s classic Superman, though that comparison is too close to say for certain at this time. And since I’ve already made this opinion clear on my social network connections, I may as well officially put it in print: It’s a heck of a lot more interesting than Joss Whedon’s The Avengers. Knowing how some of my friends took that news the first time, this may very well be the last thing you ever read from me.
My Score: 9
Showing posts with label Joe Johnston. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Joe Johnston. Show all posts
Tuesday, June 5, 2012
Saturday, February 13, 2010
We're Gonna Need a Bigger Leash
Movie Review:
The Wolfman
R / 1 hr., 42 min. / 2010
The past two decades have seen Hollywood resuscitate Dracula, Frankenstein, and The Mummy, so, given how Hollywood’s sense of originality has been flailing in its final death throes for most of the past decade, I suppose it was only a matter of time before someone latched on to The Wolfman.
When Ben Talbot dies a brutal death at the hands (or claws) of a vicious but unknown killer, his widow Gwen (Emily Blunt) writes to Ben’s estranged brother Lawrence (Benicio Del Toro), pleading for him to return to the Talbot family manor. The family patriarch Sir John (Anthony Hopkins) welcomes Lawrence as best a bereaved father can, and Lawrence pledges to delay his return to his adopted home of America until Ben’s death is solved.
Lawrence’s amateur investigation leads him to a gypsy camp outside the local village, where one fortune-telling gypsy (Geraldine Chaplin) may or may not know how Ben died. But before anyone can fully answer Lawrence’s questions, something begins attacking the gypsy camp. Seen only fleetingly as it races through shadows, the thing is obviously large, strong, and brutal. It doesn’t seem to be hungry so much as it just likes sinking large claws and teeth through any part of a gypsy or vigilante that might happen to make a nice, gooey, slurping sound for 21st-century audiences.
In the course of saving the life of a gypsy boy, Lawrence gets assaulted and bitten by the beast. This brings ominous words of woe from the gypsies, who for completely unknown reasons switch from English to their native tongue and back again in mid-conversation. The ominous words of woe suggest that Lawrence is now cursed, but in what way no one will say – in either language.
The curse, of course, is that he is now a werewolf, doomed to become a big hairy animal consumed with bloodlust whenever the moon is full. Lest you think I’m spoiling anything for the younger generation who did not see the original film and who have been so busy falling in love with sparkling vampires that the concept of werewolves just might be new to them, the film spoils itself in the opening shot. There really is no unfolding suspenseful mystery here, save our finding out who the werewolf is that bites Lawrence in the first place. And frankly, given Hollywood’s slavish adherence to the rules of screenplay writing, the average film-goer should be able to answer that mystery about twenty minutes into the film. Maybe thirty. And the scene in which this is “shockingly revealed” is yet another one of those moments where, because the plot would be too convoluted for Our Hero to figure it out in a two-hour movie, the guilty party simply spills his or her guts (no pun intended).
I guess I segued right from an unfinished plot summary into a critique of the script itself. No matter; the plot is straight from the cookie cutters in Hollywood’s pantry. There’s a man who becomes a monster, there’s a single woman who falls in love with the man, both are played by reasonably charismatic stars. So what part of this plot do you still need summarized? The only creativity that writers Andrew Kevin Walker and David Self add is to sling bloody body parts around and spill intestines on the ground. Even this is not new territory for Walker, who wrote half a dozen severed heads into his adaptation of Sleepy Hollow.
Their script is not only pure formula, it is also a bit murky regarding how you kill a werewolf. Anyone? Anyone? Silver bullets, right? Maybe. Someone in the first half hour muttered something about how werewolves can only be set free by true love; I forget the precise wording but Walt Disney would have liked the line. And based on events in this movie, I would say that if you find yourself facing a werewolf and you did not happen to bring your silver bullets along, it still might not be hopeless. Get creative – your intestines and other gooey, slurpy parts of your body will thank you.
In the midst of all this, there are a few positive surprises to be had. The first is that Joe Johnston, the All-American director of such All-American adventures as The Rocketeer and Honey, I Shrunk the Kids, does have a decent handle on creating a moody, Gothic work of British horror. Working with production designer Rick Heinrichs and cinematographer Shelly Johnson, Johnston crafts a film with a quality look instead of settling for anything cheap. He gives the script a far better delivery than it deserves.
I was particularly captivated and impressed by a scene where Inspector Abberline (Hugo Weaving) chases the Wolfman through London. Johnston gives it a nice look, a nice pace, and does not overdo the action or the length of the chase. The scenes in the asylum torture chamber and lecture hall are also well told, with Antony Sher (Erik the Viking) as the head doctor keeping my attention throughout.
My only disagreement with Johnston’s artistic contribution is regarding his time-lapse technique. With a monster like a werewolf, the only truly interesting parts of the story, the parts horror fans paid to see, take place one night per month. To get us there, Johnston inserts shots of the moon whizzing through the sky, waxing and waning at record speed. Not only is the first use of this technique so sudden it is jarring, but he does it too often and it becomes an annoyance that pulls us out of the story instead of letting us be fully absorbed.
Another positive surprise is how well Benicio Del Toro (Traffic) fits his role. My experience with Del Toro films is limited, but before the film began I was wondering what nut thought putting him in this film was a good idea. Whoever it was, they were right. Maybe not the world’s most brilliant casting decision, but Del Toro pulls off an American accent and an appropriate look for the film respectably well.
Anthony Hopkins (Red Dragon) basically sleepwalks through his role. I don’t mean it’s a bad performance; I just mean how hard can it be for Hopkins to play an English country gentleman? The voice, the face, and the bearing are something he has on a daily basis. Just add dialogue. Emily Blunt (The Young Victoria) and Hugo Weaving (The Matrix) round out the main roles, with Weaving looking particularly convincing as an English investigator. Not everyone looks good in period costumes; Weaving does. Blunt doesn’t seem to add anything any other attractive young actress could not have added – but then neither does the script ask much of her.
This is not really the kind of film that catches my interest before its arrival. Had it not been for one name in the credits I would not have spent the time or money to watch it. But I went because Danny Elfman wrote the music. On that point I was satisfied if not impressed. Elfman’s score sounds very reminiscent of the tragic and romantic music in older Hollywood films; it is more of a traditional, classic tone and less of either his signature or experimental styles. As such, it does its job for the film, but it doesn’t have me frantically adding the soundtrack to my wish list for next Christmas.
Well, so there you have it. The script alone deserves a failing grade, but I’ll give points to Johnston, whose storytelling skills and visual style did keep me interested throughout. It’s a one-timer for anyone into monsters and classic horror stories. And twenty years from now some executive producer will latch on to the idea again, and the cycle will continue – kind of like the predictable way there’s the same old full moon every month.
My Score: 6
The Wolfman
R / 1 hr., 42 min. / 2010
The past two decades have seen Hollywood resuscitate Dracula, Frankenstein, and The Mummy, so, given how Hollywood’s sense of originality has been flailing in its final death throes for most of the past decade, I suppose it was only a matter of time before someone latched on to The Wolfman.
When Ben Talbot dies a brutal death at the hands (or claws) of a vicious but unknown killer, his widow Gwen (Emily Blunt) writes to Ben’s estranged brother Lawrence (Benicio Del Toro), pleading for him to return to the Talbot family manor. The family patriarch Sir John (Anthony Hopkins) welcomes Lawrence as best a bereaved father can, and Lawrence pledges to delay his return to his adopted home of America until Ben’s death is solved.
Lawrence’s amateur investigation leads him to a gypsy camp outside the local village, where one fortune-telling gypsy (Geraldine Chaplin) may or may not know how Ben died. But before anyone can fully answer Lawrence’s questions, something begins attacking the gypsy camp. Seen only fleetingly as it races through shadows, the thing is obviously large, strong, and brutal. It doesn’t seem to be hungry so much as it just likes sinking large claws and teeth through any part of a gypsy or vigilante that might happen to make a nice, gooey, slurping sound for 21st-century audiences.
In the course of saving the life of a gypsy boy, Lawrence gets assaulted and bitten by the beast. This brings ominous words of woe from the gypsies, who for completely unknown reasons switch from English to their native tongue and back again in mid-conversation. The ominous words of woe suggest that Lawrence is now cursed, but in what way no one will say – in either language.
The curse, of course, is that he is now a werewolf, doomed to become a big hairy animal consumed with bloodlust whenever the moon is full. Lest you think I’m spoiling anything for the younger generation who did not see the original film and who have been so busy falling in love with sparkling vampires that the concept of werewolves just might be new to them, the film spoils itself in the opening shot. There really is no unfolding suspenseful mystery here, save our finding out who the werewolf is that bites Lawrence in the first place. And frankly, given Hollywood’s slavish adherence to the rules of screenplay writing, the average film-goer should be able to answer that mystery about twenty minutes into the film. Maybe thirty. And the scene in which this is “shockingly revealed” is yet another one of those moments where, because the plot would be too convoluted for Our Hero to figure it out in a two-hour movie, the guilty party simply spills his or her guts (no pun intended).
I guess I segued right from an unfinished plot summary into a critique of the script itself. No matter; the plot is straight from the cookie cutters in Hollywood’s pantry. There’s a man who becomes a monster, there’s a single woman who falls in love with the man, both are played by reasonably charismatic stars. So what part of this plot do you still need summarized? The only creativity that writers Andrew Kevin Walker and David Self add is to sling bloody body parts around and spill intestines on the ground. Even this is not new territory for Walker, who wrote half a dozen severed heads into his adaptation of Sleepy Hollow.
Their script is not only pure formula, it is also a bit murky regarding how you kill a werewolf. Anyone? Anyone? Silver bullets, right? Maybe. Someone in the first half hour muttered something about how werewolves can only be set free by true love; I forget the precise wording but Walt Disney would have liked the line. And based on events in this movie, I would say that if you find yourself facing a werewolf and you did not happen to bring your silver bullets along, it still might not be hopeless. Get creative – your intestines and other gooey, slurpy parts of your body will thank you.
In the midst of all this, there are a few positive surprises to be had. The first is that Joe Johnston, the All-American director of such All-American adventures as The Rocketeer and Honey, I Shrunk the Kids, does have a decent handle on creating a moody, Gothic work of British horror. Working with production designer Rick Heinrichs and cinematographer Shelly Johnson, Johnston crafts a film with a quality look instead of settling for anything cheap. He gives the script a far better delivery than it deserves.
I was particularly captivated and impressed by a scene where Inspector Abberline (Hugo Weaving) chases the Wolfman through London. Johnston gives it a nice look, a nice pace, and does not overdo the action or the length of the chase. The scenes in the asylum torture chamber and lecture hall are also well told, with Antony Sher (Erik the Viking) as the head doctor keeping my attention throughout.
My only disagreement with Johnston’s artistic contribution is regarding his time-lapse technique. With a monster like a werewolf, the only truly interesting parts of the story, the parts horror fans paid to see, take place one night per month. To get us there, Johnston inserts shots of the moon whizzing through the sky, waxing and waning at record speed. Not only is the first use of this technique so sudden it is jarring, but he does it too often and it becomes an annoyance that pulls us out of the story instead of letting us be fully absorbed.
Another positive surprise is how well Benicio Del Toro (Traffic) fits his role. My experience with Del Toro films is limited, but before the film began I was wondering what nut thought putting him in this film was a good idea. Whoever it was, they were right. Maybe not the world’s most brilliant casting decision, but Del Toro pulls off an American accent and an appropriate look for the film respectably well.
Anthony Hopkins (Red Dragon) basically sleepwalks through his role. I don’t mean it’s a bad performance; I just mean how hard can it be for Hopkins to play an English country gentleman? The voice, the face, and the bearing are something he has on a daily basis. Just add dialogue. Emily Blunt (The Young Victoria) and Hugo Weaving (The Matrix) round out the main roles, with Weaving looking particularly convincing as an English investigator. Not everyone looks good in period costumes; Weaving does. Blunt doesn’t seem to add anything any other attractive young actress could not have added – but then neither does the script ask much of her.
This is not really the kind of film that catches my interest before its arrival. Had it not been for one name in the credits I would not have spent the time or money to watch it. But I went because Danny Elfman wrote the music. On that point I was satisfied if not impressed. Elfman’s score sounds very reminiscent of the tragic and romantic music in older Hollywood films; it is more of a traditional, classic tone and less of either his signature or experimental styles. As such, it does its job for the film, but it doesn’t have me frantically adding the soundtrack to my wish list for next Christmas.
Well, so there you have it. The script alone deserves a failing grade, but I’ll give points to Johnston, whose storytelling skills and visual style did keep me interested throughout. It’s a one-timer for anyone into monsters and classic horror stories. And twenty years from now some executive producer will latch on to the idea again, and the cycle will continue – kind of like the predictable way there’s the same old full moon every month.
My Score: 6
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