{"id":2451,"date":"2021-07-11T22:06:18","date_gmt":"2021-07-11T22:06:18","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/joeviglione.com\/?p=2451"},"modified":"2021-07-11T22:06:18","modified_gmt":"2021-07-11T22:06:18","slug":"captain-america-the-first-avenger-2011-review-by-joe-viglione","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/joeviglione.com\/?p=2451","title":{"rendered":"Captain America: The First Avenger 2011 Review by Joe Viglione"},"content":{"rendered":"\n
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Captain America: The First Avenger \u2013 Movie Review<\/a>
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By JOE VIGLIONE\u00a0\u00a0 WWW.JOEVIGLIONE.COM<\/a>\u00a0\u00a0 July 22, 2011\u00a0NOT ENOUGH HOURS IN A DAY, BUT I’M HAVING FUN JUMPING ON THE MARVEL BANDWAGON WITH MY PREVIOUS REVIEWS TO HELP ENLIGHTEN READERS Let’s go back a decade to read my review originally on TMRZoo.com http:\/\/www.tmrzoo.com\/2011\/27042\/captain-america-the-first-avenger-movie-review<\/a><\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u00a0Massachusetts native Chris Evans returns to Marvel Comics\u2019 \u201cHouse of Ideas\u201d as Steve Rogers \u2013 Captain America, with a much different look than exhibited in the two films where he appeared as The Fantastic Four\u2019s Johnny Storm. This important component of the Avengers collection, the final \u201cprequel\u201d, if you will, has to be at least as effective as Kenneth Branagh\u2019s Thor: The God Of Thunder, and that it is. <\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

Director Joe Johnston has had plenty of experience with Science \nFiction, from 1989\u2019s Honey I Shrunk the Kids to Jurassic Park III. He \ndoes an elegant job of blending cliche after cliche in Captain America: \nThe First Avenger, a forumla that has become a quite necessary \nmerry-go-round of sorts for the variety of D.C. and Marvel superheroes \nlaunching out of the big screen. These are the spawn of the James Bond\n blockbuster pictures when Goldfinger was identifiable to the mainstream\n as Dr. Doom was to comic book fans in the pages of the Fantastic Four.<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

Captain America sports the film texture from Kerry Conran\u2019s Sky \nCaptain and the World of Tomorrow with a bit of Josef Rusnak\u2019s The \nThirteenth Floor enhanced with a darker (and so obligatory nowadays) 3D.\n Let\u2019s face it, the choice of director for these high stakes films is \nmade with mathematical precision and Johnston doesn\u2019t disappoint. The \nestimated budget of $140 million is in the ballpark for these Marvel \nepics, a rather daunting figure when The Matrix pulled in four hundred \nmillion more than the sixty-three million invested to start that series.\n Hugo Weaving is recycled yet again, and his vision for The Red Skull \nis most satisfying. Said to have been pulled, in part, from a James Bond\n villain, Maximilian Largo (if we are to believe Wikipedia), actor Klaus\n Maria Brandauer\u2019s psychotic madman is a good study for Red Skull. \nWeaving\u2019s malevolence far outpaces his Agent Smith from the Matrix\u2026the \ncalculating machine mind replaced by megalomania and a penchant for \nNorse mythology and the occult. He certainly uses his previous three \nmovie stint as the computer virus as a foundation for this, and his \nhatred is far more believable here.<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

Back in the 1960s comics were for kids along with bubble gum cards \nand Monkees records. Marvel Comics\u2019 Stan Lee had a vision of adults \nwalking down the street with his comic magazines, not in brown paper \nbags or hidden in their suit jackets, but consumers proudly holding his \ncreations for all to see. Decades after achieving that initial goal \u2013 \nestablishing the colorful stories as legitimate literature, the \nsuccessful author is as revered to his massive following as Alfred \nHitchcock was to his, both icons making important cameos as a kind of \non-camera signature, to the audience\u2019s delight. The expensive action \ndoes get a bit hokey, my recollection of the 1960s Captain America \ndidn\u2019t have him this amped up. The film version gives the hero bonafide \nsuper powers that were not as evident in the comic book. This motion \npicture takes the liberty of giving Cap some of Daredevil\u2019s instinct, \nHulk\u2019s strength and Spiderman\u2019s gymnastics, probably to cope with the \nfact that he\u2019s the most vulnerable super hero of the bunch. Think \nSuperman with a bit of Kryptonite following him about 300 yards away.<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

As Johnny Storm the producers used Chris Evans for eye candy (though \nhis acting skills rose above the scripts he was handed in both FF \nadventures).It\u2019s not a stretch to see an actor go from one superhero to \nanother as Marvel made it a habit to switch their comic book creations \naround\u2026just as Medusa from The Frightful Four became Medusa of The \nInhumans (two of the more underrated teams in Marvel history). Here he \ngets to transform his cerebral approach to Steve Rogers in the same way \nhis body is morphed from stringbean to \u2026well, Wolverine or Incredible \nHulk\u2026take your pick. These \u201corigins\u201d are very similar and the trick is \nto do it as flashy as possible. Marvel is well aware that the film \ngoing public has tired of the origin of Superamn, or how Batman came to \nbe is told time and again. Having to address that for a figure unkown \nto the mainstream means keeping it brief, and adding a little \ncontemporary terrorism to keep things modern and different.<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

To spice things up the audience is treated to a little Bride of \nFrankenstein mad scientist laboratory, a little dash of the early Batman\n serials from the 1940s and some military madness from the 1950s sci-fi \nfilm stampede. And while you\u2019re at it, make it a World War II saga to \nboot. The two hours contain all of it and do it with enough action to \nmake it the roller coaster ride it is supposed to be.<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

Captain America: The First Avenger has to follow the last Harry Potter film. That\u2019s probably a good thing as the fantasy audience that is devouring Potter magic will, no doubt, want to get right back to the theaters. It\u2019s no Deathly Hallows II, but it is pretty much what comic book fans want. The packed house in Boston waited to see if an Avenger\u2019s trailer would follow the credits. Their disappointment that it did not only shows how devoted the audience for this genre still is. <\/strong>http:\/\/joeviglione.com\/?page_id=258<\/a><\/h2>\n\n\n\n

More Joe V Film Reviews here: http:\/\/joeviglione.com\/?page_id=258<\/a><\/h2>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Captain America: The First Avenger \u2013 Movie Review By JOE VIGLIONE\u00a0\u00a0 WWW.JOEVIGLIONE.COM\u00a0\u00a0 July 22, 2011\u00a0NOT ENOUGH HOURS IN A DAY, BUT I’M HAVING FUN JUMPING ON THE MARVEL BANDWAGON WITH MY PREVIOUS REVIEWS TO HELP ENLIGHTEN READERS Let’s go back a decade to read my review originally on TMRZoo.com http:\/\/www.tmrzoo.com\/2011\/27042\/captain-america-the-first-avenger-movie-review \u00a0Massachusetts native Chris Evans returns […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_active":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_note":"","_monsterinsights_sitenote_category":0,"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-2451","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/joeviglione.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2451","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/joeviglione.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/joeviglione.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/joeviglione.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/joeviglione.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=2451"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/joeviglione.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2451\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":2453,"href":"https:\/\/joeviglione.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2451\/revisions\/2453"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/joeviglione.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=2451"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/joeviglione.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=2451"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/joeviglione.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=2451"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}