Captain America: The First Avenger
2011, Marvel Studios
As far as superheroes go, Captain American seemed like the redheaded stepchild, as if the filmmakers went, "Oh right, him," and obligingly made a movie. But since I'm not a superhero or comics person, this is purely an outsider's ill-informed perception. At any rate, the resulting film is expertly produced and quite enjoyable, with Chris Evans cutting a perfect, wholesome, all-American hero figure—in many ways he's a better Superman than Superman—and Hugo Weaving perfectly OTT as the Red Skull. Incidentally, this film spawned an equally enjoyable yet sadly short-lived television series, Agent Carter.
DKS 12/17/17
GRUMPY OLD FART-O-METER® Rating:
Captain America: The Winter Soldier
2014, Marvel Studios
Transplanted from the past, our retro Captain America provides us with a unique perspective of the present, although the potential of this angle is only explored in a cursory way, regrettably. No matter; there are plenty of other distractions to entertain us, not the least of which is the Black Widow. The action maintains a steady pace, never pausing quite long enough for us to figure out what the hell is going on, other than to get a sense that S.H.I.E.L.D. has almost as much palace intrigue as the real-life White House. All the same, it's another expertly produced film from a studio that continues building considerable credibility.
DKS 12/17/17
GRUMPY OLD FART-O-METER® Rating:
Captain America: Civil War
2016, Marvel Studios
Why this film is billed as a Captain America chapter and not an Avengers one is beyond me, but I'm not about to try making sense of the dense, intricately-structured superhero world. Regardless, for me Civil War came off as little more than a contrivance to bring the whole family of franchises together in one giant slug-fest, where the oh-wow effects received more attention than the underlying motives for their dubious internal conflict (although this may be a failing on my part for not having an intimate understanding of all the myriad Marvel characters). The big burly fight was so frenetic that it was nigh impossible to keep track of who was on which side, and after a while I stopped caring; I just accepted it as a mildly entertaining, lavishly-produced light show—one that happened to earn near-universal praise and over a billion in ticket money.
DKS 12/17/17
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